Report: SS overpaid $17B in past decade

Report: SS overpaid $17B in past decade

WASHINGTON

Social Security overpaid disability beneficiaries by nearly $17 billion over the past decade, a government watchdog said Friday, raising alarms about the massive program just as it approaches the brink of insolvency.

Many payments went to people who earned too much money to qualify for benefits, or to those no longer disabled. Payments also went to people who had died or were in prison.

In all, nearly half of the 9 million people receiving disability payments were overpaid, according to the results of a 10-year study by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general.

Social Security was able to recoup about $8.1 billion, but it often took years to get the money back, the study said.

Pilot contacted many doctors, official says

MARSEILLE, France

The co-pilot with a history of depression who crashed a Germanwings airliner into the French Alps had reached out to dozens of doctors ahead of the disaster, a state prosecutor says – a revelation that suggests Andreas Lubitz was seeking advice about an undisclosed ailment.

Meanwhile, the families of 30 of the 150 people killed in the crash received long-awaited news Friday that they will start receiving bodies next week. Others, however, will have to wait to receive remains or their loved ones’ belongings.

Woman: Brother abused by Hastert

WASHINGTON

A Montana woman says her brother was sexually abused by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert during the years when the GOP leader was a wrestling coach at a suburban Chicago high school.

Jolene Burdge of Billings, Mont., told The Associated Press on Thursday that the FBI interviewed her last month about Hastert, who was charged last week in a federal indictment alleging that he agreed in 2010 to pay $3.5 million to someone so that person would stay quiet about “prior misconduct.”

Fifteen years before Hastert purportedly promised to pay that money, Burdge’s brother died. But years before his death, his sister said, he told her that his first homosexual contact was with Hastert and that it lasted throughout his high school years.

Stephen Reinboldt attended Yorkville High School, where Hastert was a history teacher and coach from 1965 to 1981.

Tornadoes, floods in Colo. continue

BERTHOUD, Colo.

Violent storms across Colorado have swirled into tornadoes that destroyed homes, popped open a sinkhole that swallowed a police cruiser and dropped so much hail on a Denver neighborhood that residents had to dig out of waist-deep ice with shovels.

Forecasters warned Friday that more severe weather and flooding was on the way overnight and into the weekend.

LA cop convicted in deadly arrest

LOS ANGELES

Jurors on Friday convicted a female Los Angeles police officer of felony assault for repeatedly kicking a handcuffed woman who later died.

The jury of 11 women and one man reached its verdict after about two days of deliberations in the trial of Officer Mary O’Callaghan, 50. She pleaded not guilty to assaulting a civilian in the 2012 arrest of Alesia Thomas, 35.

O’Callaghan wiped her face, appearing to cry after the verdict was read.

Robert Rico, O’Callaghan’s attorney, said he plans to appeal and ask for a new trial.

Associated Press