From the U.S. News & World Report website
Be prepared to receive fraudulent calls this tax season. On Tax Day 2018, 143 million negative robocalls were placed, according to Transaction Network Services. “Every year, as the April deadline for filing tax returns approaches, there is an uptick in scams targeting taxpayers, particularly the elderly,” says Joy Mullane, a law professor and faculty director of the graduate tax program at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. While these scams tend to differ in form, they share common goals: to separate taxpayers from their money or steal their identities.
Here are eight tips for retirees to avoid tax scams:
Retiree News Photograph | click to enlarge
On October 8, 2004, then- Lt Col Ronald Han assumed command of the 154th Maintenance Group. This photograph show Ron with two retired members of the 154th Logistics Readiness Squadron – Russell Amina and Harrison Iga. All three served together earlier in the squadron.
Russell continues his Federal career with the Veterans Administration. He worked for the US Corps of Engineers previously.
Ron continues as the Director of the State Office of Veterans Affairs (OVS).
Harrison remains fully retired.
Three great individuals!
Hawaii Army National Guard Photograhs by Capt, Darren Taylor | click to enlarge
More than 140 Kosovo Force (KFOR) Soldiers participated in a 5k run/walk hosted by the KFOR Irish Contingent at Camp Bondsteel March 10, 2019. Runners were delighted with great weather and a challenging route.
Congratulations to all participants for completing this 5k run! This type of event improves the overall comradery between the multi-national force.
All entree fees and donations were collected and given to the Blind Association of Pristina Kosovo.
Check out the event photographs
From the U.S. News & World Report website
Study after study has shown that exercise can help improve cardiovascular health, stamina and bone density while reducing the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and obesity. These findings hold especially true for older adults who, by the very nature of aging, are likely to lose muscle mass, strength, bone density, agility, endurance and balance as they age.
It’s a fight against gravity and time, but staying fit over the long term is a goal worth pursuing. Older adults who exercise regularly enjoy more independence and health than those who don’t. So how can older adults incorporate more activity into their lives and what are the best exercises for them? The key is to find enjoyable activities that you can stick with. These can be anything from walking or water aerobics to yoga, dancing, tai chi or simple stretching.
Regardless of the specific activity you may choose to pursue, one key thing to focus on, says Douglas Ebner, a physical therapist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, is functionality.
Vicente De La Cruz, 88, passed away in Honolulu, Hawaii on March 2. 2019. He was born January 5, 1931 in Punene, Maui.
He served in the Hawaii Air National Guard and the United States Air Force. Graduate of the University of Hawaii, Manoa, School of Business, Past President of the Filipino Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, and a respected Real Estate Broker for more than 50 years.
He is survived by wife Beatrice, of 56 years, son Keith (Danelle) De La Cruz, daughter Andrea (David) Oka, brother Justo De La Cruz, sisters, Gloria Lamadora, Connie Abear and four grandchildren.
Services will be held on March 28, 2019 at Hawaiian Memorial Park Chapel, Kaneohe. Visitation: 9:00 a.m.; Services: 10:00 a.m.; Lunch reception: 11:00 a.m. Burial: 1:00 p.m. at the Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery, Kaneohe.
For most travelers, where you eat on vacation is almost as important as where you go or stay. But figuring out the right restaurant for you can be tricky (especially if you’re traveling in a group where everyone has #opinions). Luckily, OpenTable can help you figure out the perfect restaurant, no matter the occasion.
For our 2019 Travel Hacker Guide, we’ve teamed up with OpenTable to find some of diners’ top-rated restaurants for over 40 destinations. By crunching the numbers on over 1.5 billion annual KAYAK searches, we’ve uncovered the year’s top travel trends from popular destinations to wallet-friendly trips. New this year, we introduced OpenTable restaurant recommendations on our destinations pages, so you have what you need to plan the perfect trip.
And if you needed one more reason to make your restaurant reservations while planning your getaway, thanks to our new program, you can now use OpenTable’s Dining Points towards hotel discounts on KAYAK. Win-win-win.
See where OpenTable diners are saying you should eat out in 2019’s most popular cities:
From the Consumer Reports website
“Top view” cameras | click to enlarge
Today’s car buyers are presented with a dizzying array of jargon and acronyms describing options, packaged features, and dealer-installed accessories to choose from. There is great temptation to grab them all, but the costs quickly add up.
Consumer Reports receives questions all the time from car shoppers asking what they should be looking for in today’s models. Frequently, they have some vague notions about what is available, but they’re not clear on what’s worth the added expense.
To help these new-car shoppers who haven’t checked out the market in some time, CR’s experts have assembled a list of key features they should consider getting, including safety and convenience items. Just as important: We have flagged the items that can be skipped.
Safety-related items are ranked in order of importance by CR’s car-safety experts.
Thanks to Gordon Lau for another article submitted to Retiree News.
Kahului Airport, Maui (OGG) (PHOG) in the late 1970s. pic.twitter.com/F7OfaIHW7T
— Hawaii Aviation ✪ (@HawaiiAviation) March 16, 2019
To enlarge image, click the photograph. The Twitter image will appear, then click on the photograph again.
Memories. No jetways, you walked out to the plane and went up the stairs.
High-school students toured an F-22 Raptor static display as part of the Ka Ho‘okele “The Navigator” Explorers Program. The annual mentorship program provides hands-on learning about all kinds of aspects of the aviation industry. #Mentorship #KaHookele #199thFS #HIANG #F22 pic.twitter.com/iNCRntZ6LU
— Hawaii Air National Guard (@HiAirGuard) March 13, 2019
click on photographs, then click again to enlarge
More about the Ka Ho‘okele “The Navigator” Explorers Program
From the Military Times website
The commissary budget will take a 21 percent cut in fiscal 2020, if the Defense Department’s budget request is approved by Congress.
Defense officials are asking for $995 million in taxpayer funding to operate the 236 commissary stores worldwide, down from $1.27 billion in fiscal 2019, according to DoD budget documents released Tuesday.
The Defense Commissary Agency’s budget reduction “is tied to a series of DoD internally directed cuts that began in fiscal 2016,” said DoD spokeswoman Air Force Lt. Col. Carla Gleason. Since that time, she said, the commissary agency has been taking steps, to “reduce its operating costs to meet anticipated topline funding, while still maintaining customer service levels and congressionally mandated patron savings levels.”
The Military.com article on this topic
Thanks to Gordon Lau for emailing this article to Retiree News
Update on yesterday’s post. Check Six: 169 AC&WS Celebration
Randy Tom emailed that he believes the photograph is from 1984. The squadron did move into the Hawaii Regional Operations Control Center (HIROCC) on June 29, 1984. This photograph could have been taken at the conclusion of annual training.
Earlier Retiree News post on the 169 AC&WS
More Photographs. Thanks to those who sent in old and new photographs to Retiree News. For the older photographs, it usually takes a little longer to post them because we need to identify those in the photographs.
If you have any old or new photographs of current and retired Guardmembers, please scan them to JPEGs and email them to Retiree News at retireenews@gmail.com. Any photographs posted receive a lot of views on Retiree News.
Hawaii Air National Guard Photograph | click to enlarge
This undated photograph show Lt Col Donald O’Day, commander of the then-169th Aircarft Control & Warning Squadron. The inscription on the cake is July 14, but the year can not be made out.
Don retired over 20 years ago after a long technician career.
There’s one key message you’ve inevitably heard when it comes to planning for retirement: Save, save, save.
Now it turns out that how you spend money during your golden years could have as much — if not more — of an impact on how well you live, according to research from J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
That conclusion comes from the firm’s analysis of more than 5 million Chase accounts.
The statistics for pancreatic cancer are dire: Only 9 percent of all patients survive longer than five years after their diagnosis. Notoriously hard to detect and treat, it’s the third-leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.
But experts say research is being done to improve both detection and the treatment approaches — providing a potential glimmer of hope for a disease that is diagnosed in nearly 57,000 people each year in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society.
Retiree News 