Indiana: 84-year-old kills intruder; charges not expected: "Like many homes on his block, Robert Birtwhistle's is a two-story frame house, with faux-brick siding and a small front porch. Yet, modest as it is, it's the place he's called home for all of his 84 years. And early Wednesday morning, he proved he was ready to defend his home -- with deadly force. Birtwhistle called police to his home shortly after 1 a.m. to report that he had shot 40-year-old James Rosebush as the younger man apparently was attempting to force open the front door of his home. Rosebush, who lived just blocks away at 735 Lincoln Way E., died of his injuries at the scene. 'It was going to be either him or me,' Birtwhistle said Wednesday. 'I told him that if he didn't stop, he was going to get what was coming.'"



More watchful, probably not safer: "Are you safer now than you were four years ago? That was the question politicians posed to voters last year during the presidential campaign. Voters who opted to give the administration four more years presumably would answer in the affirmative. But according to a new book, that optimism would be misplaced. Safe: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World, written by three contributing writers to Wired magazine and a former editor of that publication, asks why, if our society is one of the most technologically advanced in the world, we can't protect ourselves from threats to our safety."