Aged

For months, a mysterious vandal has been slapping hundreds of "Who Is John Scott?" stickers on buses around Los Angeles. Authorities expected the vandalism to be the work of teenage "slap taggers," who hit buses, street signs and light poles with stickers advertising shoes, skateboards, music bands and sometime their own hand-drawn monikers. But the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's anti-graffiti detail got a surprise when it finally tracked down the man allegedly behind "Who Is John Scott?"

Fidel Castro indicated in an online column that he doubts he will make it to the end of President Obama's first term, and he instructed Cuban officials to make decisions without taking him into account. The 82-year-old Cuban leader said Cuban officials "shouldn't feel bound by my occasional reflections, my state of health or my death." "I have had the rare privilege of observing events over such a long time. . . . I expect I won't enjoy that privilege in four years, when Obama's first presidential term has ended," he wrote.

Elizabeth Marie Grube, 70, and her sister, Elaine Volkert, 65, seemed to be typical women of their age, living modest lives in their mobile home park outside Stroudsburg, Pa. But last month, authorities arrested and charged them with dealing heroin -- about $10,000 worth apiece per week -- from their trailers. Investigators said Julio Cesar Checo, 28, who also was arrested and charged, was suspected of recruiting the women. Monroe County Dist. Atty. E. David Christine Jr. said the arrests should shatter most people's stereotypes of what a drug dealer looks like.

Harry Waks is looking forward to going where few have gone before. Waks, a retired real estate broker and longtime San Fernando Valley resident who was born on Aug. 12, 1896, in St. Louis, would like to be among the few people to have lived in three centuries. Waks quietly celebrated his 100th birthday Monday at the Royal Bellingham retirement home after a weekend fete that attracted relatives and friends from around the country.

A 65-year-old grandmother, cited for failing to clean up her blighted yard, was upbeat Saturday despite having to spend a week in jail last month after ignoring an order to appear in court. Spurlyn Reynolds had a few negative comments about jail food but wore the regulation blue jumpsuit without complaint and said she mingled well with the other inmates. "I was called Grandma in jail. It was kind of neat," said Reynolds, who was arrested by Orange County marshals on July 11.

A 71-year-old man shot and killed by police after allegedly robbing a bank Monday had promised a federal judge in 1989 that he would never appear in court again after his conviction in a Buena Park bank holdup. Joseph Vincent Tittone made the pledge after pleading guilty to robbing a Great Western Savings Bank of $10,400 in December 1988, for which he was sent to prison, federal court records show.

Insurance company Conseco Inc. said Monday that it will concentrate on the retiree market by acquiring all or parts of four life and health insurance companies for about $1.76 billion in cash, stock and debt. With the acquisitions, about 80% of the business of Carmel, Ind.-based Conseco will be aimed at the retiree market, Chairman Stephen Hilbert said.

With measured humor, a Pasadena cable program this month lays down the dirt about sex after 60. "Encore Cafe," a magazine-style program written and hosted by senior citizens, airs several times a week throughout the San Gabriel Valley and in Beverly Hills. The program, which recently won a Mature Media Gold Award for its World War II commemoration, has handled a variety of issues of interest for its mature audience. But this is the show's first time discussing sex.

It's maddening, that feeling, much like a turn through a family album where most of the photos have worked themselves free from the page. What remains? Vacant snapshot-sized windows where the photo once lay. A dogeared confusion bereft of chronology. A sepia wash: Moments so drained of detail, the remnants of image hover like ghosts. These, too, are the tricks of fickle memory.

Ground was broken this week for the Seasons apartment complex, the city's first affordable-housing project for seniors. Set at Rancho Viejo Road and Ortega Highway, Seasons will provide 112 one- and two-bedroom, one-bath apartments for independent seniors with limited finances. "It will give our seniors a housing alternative, with security and a guarantee of controlled rents," Mayor Wyatt Hart said. "It's a beautiful location, and we welcome it to the city."