Aged

Often considered the most popular entertainer of the 20th century--his extravagant performances set still-unchallenged attendance records--Liberace (dubbed "Mr. Showman" in tribute to his flashy theatricality) sued a London columnist in 1956 for implying he was gay. He won.

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.

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.

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.

Call it retirement anxiety, or maybe recession obsession. For all of their married life, Patrick Webster, 63, and Susie Martin, 54, have been extremely frugal. Webster and Martin, who both work at Marymount College in Rancho Palos Verdes, have been stashing away their combined income at an enviable rate - more than 25% - for retirement. Together they have more than $1 million in investments and no debt. But rather than feeling reasonably secure about their financial future, they dread a return of hard times.

As the largest ever group of senior citizens now barges into old age, it's clear that things are going to be mighty different. On the leading edge of that generation are gay and lesbian senior citizens who are helping to define the new rules, starting with the basics: housing. Nationwide, there are the beginnings of a move to develop and build retirement communities for older gays and lesbians, a generally well-heeled segment of the senior population.

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.

The 13 women competing in the statewide pageant--they don't say "beauty contests" anymore--strutted their stuff in the requisite evening gown competition. And they sang, danced and played musical instruments in the requisite talent competition. They fussed over one another backstage like a gaggle of sorority sisters to get their hair and makeup just right. And they rated the competition. "Boy," whispered one contestant. "Look at her legs!"

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.

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.

Paul Lagloire played high school hockey as a youngster in the Quebec town of Bromont, but he turned down an invitation to the training camp of the major junior team in Verdun because he thought he was too small to succeed, at 5 feet 10-1/2 and 130 pounds. His hockey career didn't take off until decades later, after he had moved to California and retired from his job as a chief accountant and office manager. “I was not doing any serious work. All my joints and legs and nerves were still in good shape because I was not doing heavy workloads,” said Lagloire, who lives in Glendale.

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.

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.

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.

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.