Aged

In yet another scathing critique of government health officials, a federal judge refused Friday to stay his order making emergency contraceptives available to consumers of all ages without a prescription. Calling government efforts to restrict the sale of drugs such as Plan B "frivolous and taken for the purpose of delay," U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman of New York wrote that the medications would be available to all unless the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled otherwise by noon Eastern time on Monday.

In yet another scathing critique of government health officials, a federal judge refused Friday to stay his order making emergency contraceptives available to consumers of all ages without a prescription. Calling government efforts to restrict the sale of drugs such as Plan B "frivolous and taken for the purpose of delay," U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman of New York wrote that the medications would be available to all unless the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled otherwise by noon Eastern time on Monday.

Vietnam veteran John Otte did his best to forget the war. He got married, raised two sons and made a career working at credit unions. But as Otte neared retirement, memories of combat flooded back. Starting in 2005, he filed a series of claims with Veterans Affairs for disability compensation, contending that many of his health problems stemmed from the war. The VA agreed, and now the 65-year-old with two Purple Hearts receives $1,900 a month for post-traumatic stress disorder and diabetes - and for having shrapnel scars on his arms.

Vietnam veteran John Otte did his best to forget the war. He got married, raised two sons and made a career working at credit unions. But as Otte neared retirement, memories of combat flooded back. Starting in 2005, he filed a series of claims with Veterans Affairs for disability compensation, contending that many of his health problems stemmed from the war. The VA agreed, and now the 65-year-old with two Purple Hearts receives $1,900 a month for post-traumatic stress disorder and diabetes - and for having shrapnel scars on his arms.

Plantar fasciitis. If you haven't had to deal with it personally, just ask around. Chances are you know lots of people who can describe it in great detail: stabbing heel pain and agonizing steps followed by a frustratingly slow recovery. Plantar fasciitis - an inflammation of the plantar facsia, a thick band of tissue that runs along the arch from the heel to the toes - has become so ubiquitous that podiatrists can practically make the diagnosis before a patient even sets foot in their office.

Many hard-working people need access to short-term credit in a pinch to cover the cost of an emergency room visit or replacing a busted stove or carburetor. Yet apart from asking friends and relatives for assistance, a wellspring that comes with its own costs and often runs dry, many families turn to alternative, "predatory" lenders to finance unexpected expenses. Although the products offered by these alternative lenders — such as payday or car-title loans — can help families weather a financial emergency, the eye-popping interest rates can be devastating.

One recent afternoon in Los Alamitos, I watched Marcy Zwelling-Aamot, M.D., pick her way through a government website designed to help elderly patients select the right Medicare drug plan, based on their prescription needs and hometown. The website, created for the launch of Medicare's new prescription drug benefit, identified 48 individual plans available for Southern California residents.

He huffed and he puffed as he jogged up Western Avenue, but Lou Zamperini had a mission and he wasn't about to fail. The glass-topped Olympic torch had been entrusted to him for two-tenths of a mile Tuesday afternoon, making him a link in the human chain that will relay the flame to Salt Lake City for the Winter Games Feb. 8. For him, it was a sacred trust.

Sister Mary Augustine decided she wanted to work with the elderly when she was 10 years old. She was in a butcher shop with her mom and saw a shabbily dressed older woman order a quarter-pound of bologna. Even at that early age, she says, it hit her hard: The poor woman seemed to have little to live on all week but bologna. Nearly 50 years later, the nun has ensured that the older people she serves get far more than that.

A state agency filed suit to close three Orange County financial brokers for allegedly duping customers--many of them elderly--into investing $26 million in unregistered certificates of deposit. The Department of Corporations, in a filing last week in Superior Court in Los Angeles, alleged that the companies--CD Services Inc. and Nationwide CD Corp., both of Laguna Hills, and Leisure World Financial Services Inc.

Arden Hayes is 5. He loves Legos and running so fast across the living room to flip onto the couch that his feet end up pointing at the ceiling. He also loves the presidents - especially 11 and 33. Arden knows all 44 U.S. presidents. In order. Ask him who was 29 and right away he'll say Warren G. Harding. As for 11 (James K. Polk) and 33 (Harry S. Truman), they're his favorites, he says, because "they're dark-horse candidates. " Also, Polk got us California, which happens to be Arden's home.

LAS VEGAS - A boxer needs an edge, contentment is the enemy. Consider the case of Floyd Mayweather Jr. The unbeaten world welterweight champion used to argue with any doubters that he was superior to Manny Pacquiao in the debate over who was the best pound-for-pound fighter. That's no longer an issue after Pacquiao was knocked out by a man Mayweather previously dominated, Juan Manuel Marquez. Mayweather has also longed to boast about his riches. Then, earlier this year, he signed a 30-month, multi-fight deal with Showtime/CBS that is valued at potentially $200 million, considered the most lucrative deal for any athlete in any sport.

"It wasn't because of my 'advanced' age that my ankle broke. " - New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter , 38 and out until at least the All-Star break, scoffing at the question of whether he ponders his baseball mortality. - "I thought David Ortiz's choice of words was outstanding. " - Commissioner Bud Selig , on Ortiz's "This is our [bleeping] city" oratory before the Red Sox played their first home game after the Boston Marathon bombings. - "I was engaged in discussions in the world about pictures, as in paintings, not pitchers, guys who can or can't paint the strike zone.

Name your favorite, the one book that most sticks in your mind. Over nearly four years, photographer Catherine Wagner made that request of friends, acquaintances and outright strangers. She kept a tally on her iPhone and turned the top vote-getters into the spine of her latest work, "trans/literate," an homage to books - the cardboard and paper sort that some predict won't survive the 21st century. The list of titles and authors reads like an exceptionally weighty version of English 101. "Most people went back to their teenage years, to high school or college," Wagner said.

Brian Cashman , the New York Yankees' general manager, said this in spring training: "The story that we're too old gets written so much that at some point they'll be right. " This appears to be that point. The Yankees learned last week that Derek Jeter's left ankle had fractured once again, and he'll be 39 when he returns after the All-Star break. Then again, the Yankees thought he might be ready for opening day. Mariano Rivera is 43, and he says this season is his last.

Babies wise up fast. By the time infants are 3 months old, their unfinished brains are laced with a trillion connections, and the collective weight of all those firing neurons triples in a year. But the indecipherable babbling and maladroit wiggling so beloved by parents just leave scientists in baby labs scratching their heads. What do those little people know, and when do they know it? A team of French neuroscientists who compared brain waves of adults and babies has come up with a tentative answer: At 5 months, infants appear to have the internal architecture in place to perceive objects in adult-like ways, even though they can't tell us. "I think we have a pretty nice answer," said Sid Kouider of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, whose findings were published Friday in the journal Science.

Healthy middle-aged women who take hormones to ease the misery of hot flashes and night sweats have fewer depressive symptoms, less anxiety and tension, and better and more sex than those who do not, according to a new study. Though the long-term effects of hormone replacement therapy could not be measured by the new research, it did offer some reassuring findings. It suggested that some women's cholesterol profiles and metabolic function might improve on hormone replacement therapy and that blood pressure did not rise during or after a relatively brief stay on hormone replacement.

It's barely noon, and 78-year-old Rose Kario is already $300 in the hole. With each puff of her cigarette and each losing spin, she grows more agitated. "Come on, sweetie pie," she whispers to a clanging slot machine she has been feeding for more than an hour at Casino Pauma in northern San Diego County. "Come to Mama." A few minutes later, Kario's patience is gone. She swears as another spin comes up empty. Two seats over, 80-year-old Clara Stern isn't having much luck either.

Since background-check legislation was voted down in the Senate on Thursday, Adam Winkler, author of "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America," expects a "lively" conversation at his panel on guns in America at the 18th annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. "This is a hot-button issue, and we have a collection of some of the leading scholars on guns and gun politics on this panel," he says. "Sometimes things can get heated. But I find that people are really hungering for a balanced, non-emotional discussion.

One of craft beer's biggest trends of recent years is the explosion of barrel-aged beers hitting the shelves and taps. These complex and often potent brews require extra care and time to produce, and it seems that craft brewers enjoy making them as much as beer lovers enjoy drinking them. Barrel aging is a way for brewers and cellarmen to add extra complexity and layers of flavor to beer, and everything from raw oak barrels to used spirit barrels to retired red wine barrels can be used by brewers looking to produce creative concoctions.