Chino Hills seeks to close home used by pregnant Chinese women

A Chino Hills residence allegedly housing women from China who want to give birth to U.S.-citizen children is on the verge of being shut down by the city after complaints about traffic and a sewage spill.

The home is on a hilltop at the end of a long driveway on Woodglen Drive, an area zoned for single family houses. City officials have issued a cease and desist order, alleging that the site is being used as a hotel in a rural residential zone. They plan to take the property owner to court.

"Who the customer base is, is not our concern," said city spokeswoman Denise Cattern. "Our concern is that it's a hotel."

A website that city officials believe is associated with the business describes a full range of services, from shopping trips for pregnant women to assistance obtaining American passports for newborns.

A 30-day stay at the Chino Hills facility, along with a month of prenatal care, costs $10,500 to $11,500, according to the Chinese-language website, www.asiamchild.com.

Asiam Child is based in Shanghai, with branches in Anhui province and Nanjing, the website says.

The property owner, Hai Yong Wu, did not return a call seeking comment. A man who left the hotel in a black BMW on Monday afternoon would not speak to reporters.

So-called birth tourism appears to be an active but largely under-the-radar industry in Southern California. One local Chinese phone book has five pages of listings for birthing centers, where women from China and Taiwan stay for a month or so before going home with their U.S.-citizen babies. When the children get older, they may return here to study, perhaps paving the way for the rest of the family to immigrate more easily.

In San Gabriel last year, code enforcement officials shut down a facility where about 10 mothers and seven newborns were staying.

Federal immigration officials say there is no law prohibiting pregnant women from entering the U.S. But obtaining a visa through fraud would be a crime, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Chino Hills officials have notified federal authorities about the residence. Kice said she could not confirm whether ICE is investigating.

Neighbors report seeing groups of pregnant women walking along the quiet cul de sac. Cars from the residence sometimes drive down the street at unsafe speeds, they said.

In addition to the single-family zoning violation, the city has cited the owner for allegedly constructing additional rooms without a permit. A sewage spill estimated at 2,000 gallons also prompted a cease and desist order.

"It would be nice to have my neighborhood back. It was a quiet little street," said neighbor Sonya Valez.

On Saturday, a group called Not in Chino Hills staged a street-corner protest against the site.

"They go back," said Rossana Mitchell, a co-founder of the group. "They don't pay taxes, they don't assimilate."

cindy.chang@latimes.com

Read More..

Clinton Warns Syria Against Using Chemical Weapons

PRAGUE — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad not to use chemical weapons and said that the United States was prepared to act if he ignored the warning.

“This is a red line for the United States,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I am not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur.”

There have been signs in recent days of heightened activity at some of Syria’s chemical weapons sites, according to American and Israeli officials familiar with intelligence reports. Mrs. Clinton did not confirm the intelligence reports or say what sort of activity was occurring.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry, in a swift response, said Damascus "would not use chemical weapons, if it had them, against its own people under any circumstances." The statement was reported on Syrian state television and the Lebanese channel LBC.

Mrs. Clinton, who made her comments after meeting with Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, indicated that the two sides had discussed the situation in Syria, including the potential chemical weapons threat.

Mr. Schwarzenberg described the situation in Syria as “rather chaotic” and “highly dangerous.” He said that Czech troops who specialize in the detection of chemical weapons and decontamination if they are used are in Jordan training with Jordanian forces.

An American task force has been deployed to Jordan and has been helping the Jordanians deal with the escalating humanitarian crisis, including an exodus of more than 200,000 refugees from Syria to Jordan. The force is also planning on how to respond, if necessary, to a chemical weapons threat.

Although Mrs. Clinton’s reference to a “red line” echoed a warning issued by President Obama in August, it was the most explicit warning from a ranking American official since reports of renewed chemical weapons activity began to surface in recent days.

Mrs. Clinton stopped in Prague on her way to Brussels for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. A major topic of the NATO meeting is a Turkish request that the alliance deploy Patriot antimissile batteries in Turkey. The Turkish government is concerned about Syria’s ballistic missiles, which could carry chemical weapons, and wants NATO to guard as many as 10 sites inside Turkey.

What exactly is happening at Syria’s chemical sites is unclear.  One American official said Sunday that “the activity we are seeing suggests some potential chemical weapon preparation,” which goes beyond the mere movement of stockpiles among Syria’s several dozen known sites. But the official declined to offer more specifics.

Over the weekend, the activity in Syria prompted a series of urgent consultations among the Western nations, which have long been developing contingency plans to neutralize the chemical weapons, a task that the Pentagon estimates would require more than 75,000 troops. But there were no signs that any American action was imminent.

So far, President Obama has been very cautious about intervening in Syria, declining to arm the opposition groups directly.

Anne Barnard contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

Read More..

How Google Stole Christmas (And is Bringing it Back)

Google‘s Nexus smartphones and tablets have a unique feature that’s also a curse. They come with the latest version of Android (which is actually unusual among Android devices), and they’re basically guaranteed to get updates throughout their lifespan (which is also unusual). But on the downside, Nexus owners are also the first to discover new “features” in each version of Android … like Google’s new 11-month calendar.

​’Tis (not) the season

​ You may not have noticed, if none of your friends or family members were born in December. But if you tried to enter in somebody’s birthday in Android’s “People” app, you may have noticed that the spin-dials for selecting a date don’t include the last month of the year, in one of the oddest bugs to hit Android.

Other bugs found in the Android 4.2 update include random reboots, unstable apps, and overall slow and sluggish performance. David Ruddock of the Android Police blog has written up an extensive list of these bugs, and of which Nexus devices have been affected.

​Appy holidays

Most of these bugs are tied to specific apps not working correctly with the 4.2 update. The HD Widgets app, for instance, seems to cause the random reboots. Even first-party apps, like the Google Currents web magazine reader, are apparently responsible for some of the issues.

Some developers have fixed their apps. Mozilla quickly corrected a bug in the Android version of its Firefox web browser which caused it to randomly (and frequently) force close. But for now, the only real solution is to stop using certain apps, or features of apps like Currents’ background sync.

Need a little Christmas?

Fortunately for Nexus device owners, a fix for at least one of the issues (the missing month of December) has already been written, and is on its way if you haven’t gotten it already. A new version of Android is being sent over the air to Nexus devices, and Android developer Al Sutton reports that “Santa is back.”

It remains to be seen, however, whether or not Google can “save Christmas” for people who’ve ordered (or tried to order) an unlocked Nexus 4 smartphone from its Google Play store. Right now, the 8 GB model “Ships in 8- 9 weeks,” while the 16 GB model won’t ship until around New Years’. And that’s if you can even place an order; many Google customers are reporting that the ordering system simply won’t work, although Google+ user Syko Pompos has discovered a way around the faulty website.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Johnny Depp Performs with Alice Cooper in L.A.

Caught in the Act

12/03/2012 at 07:15 AM EST

Johnny Depp and Alice Cooper

Todd Nakamine

Johnny Depp rocks!

The Lone Ranger actor joined Alice Cooper on stage at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles on Thursday.

"Johnny was in great spirits," a fellow concertgoer tells PEOPLE. "He was really happy and at ease, especially on stage with the rest of the band."

During their performance, Depp and Cooper played several cover songs including The Doors' "Break On Through (To the Other Side)," The Beatles' "Revolution" and Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady."

Depp – who stepped out solo – was enjoying a "guys night" and wasn't "with any ladies," the source adds.

– Jessica Herndon

Read More..

Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .

Read More..

LAX runway separation plan advances, over groups' objections

A controversial plan to separate the two northern runways at Los Angeles International Airport by 260 feet advanced last week when airport staff recommended the proposal for further environmental review over other runway options.

The recommendation, if approved by L.A.'s Board of Airport Commissioners, could set the stage for more battles over the modernization of LAX, which has been delayed for decades by lawsuits, community opposition and the changing visions of mayoral administrations.

Runway separation that would give large airplanes more room to take off and land is adamantly opposed by residents of nearby Westchester and the cities of Inglewood, Culver City and distant Ontario, in San Bernardino County. The latter is seeking to take over L.A./Ontario International Airport from Los Angeles.

The opponents assert that the plan could have adverse effects on air and noise pollution and undermine an effort mandated by a 2006 court settlement to spread the growth of commercial air traffic to other airports in the region and prevent congestion at LAX.

Should it go forward, the proposal also might figure in the city's mayoral campaign. Employing a tactic airport critics have used before, Denny Schneider, of A Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, said his group plans to ask candidates to sign a pledge stating that they oppose LAX expansion and favor regionalizing air traffic.

Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that operates LAX and Ontario International, has been evaluating nine alternatives for the LAX north runway complex and transportation options that could link light rail service to LAX. It is part of a multibillion-dollar effort to modernize the nation's third-largest airport.

Along with the 260-foot separation, airport staff is recommending for final review a combination of two options that include terminal additions, upgrades to existing passenger facilities and a transportation center, as well as parking areas and a car rental facility in nearby Manchester Square. Also proposed is a people mover in the terminal area and links to a light rail station at Aviation and Century boulevards.

The recommendation will be presented at the airport commission meeting Monday, but commissioners will not vote on it at that time. Airport officials said they would not comment until after the meeting.

"There are some exciting projects that are part of the preferred alternative, including an automated people mover and a possible extension of the Green [light rail] Line directly into the central terminal area," said City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents the airport area and opposes expanding LAX.

"As for the proposal to reconfigure the north runway," Rosendahl said, "we need to hear from the public before moving forward on any decision."

The separation plan is supported by the Federal Aviation Administration as well as the Coalition to Fix LAX Now, a group of powerful business and labor leaders who consider the proposal a critical part of the airport's modernization.

Supporters contend that separating the north runways and adding a taxiway between them would improve safety and the handling of the largest passenger planes, such as the Airbus A380, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and stretch versions of the Boeing 747.

On the other side are community groups that contend the safety improvements would be marginal and that the largest jetliners can be adequately handled by existing facilities.

"We are not looking at this regionally," said Craig Eggers, chairman of the airport relations committee of the Neighborhood Council of Westchester Playa. "Why are we trying to squeeze more air traffic into LAX when we have Ontario International with lots of unused capacity?"

dan.weikel@latimes.com

Read More..

iPad mini shortages may soon be resolved

Read More..

Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum Are Married

People Exclusive

By Monica Rizzo

12/01/2012 at 06:15 PM EST

J.P. Rosenbaum and Ashley Hebert

Victor Chavez/Getty

It’s official: Bachelorette star Ashley Hebert and her fiancé J.P. Rosenbaum tied the knot Saturday afternoon in Pasadena, Calif.

Surrounded by family, friends and fellow Bachelor and Bachelorette alumni like Ali Fedotowsky, Emily Maynard, and Jason and Molly Mesnick, the couple said "I do" in an outdoor ceremony officiated by franchise host Chris Harrison.

"Today is all about our friends and family," Hebert, whose nuptials will air Dec. 16 on a two-hour special on ABC, tells PEOPLE. "It's about standing with J.P., looking around at all the people we love in the same room there to celebrate our love."

The 28-year-old dentist from Madawaska, Maine, met New York construction manager Rosenbaum, 35, on season 7 of The Bachelorette. The couple became engaged on the season finale.

Hebert and Rosenbaum are the second couple in the franchise's 24 seasons to make it from their show finale to the altar, following in the footsteps of Bachelorette Trista Rehn, who married Vail, Colo., firefighter Ryan Sutter in 2003.

Read More..

Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .

Read More..

Army sergeant killed in Afghanistan

A self-described "meat and potatoes" conservative, Tony Ruiz often argued politics with his son.

They clashed over perceptions of Islam after the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi was overrun. But Tony said his son, Clinton, made some good points.

"He drew a very clear distinction between Muslim radicals and the Islam religion," Tony said. "It actually did convince me."

He is still convinced, a month after his son, Sgt. Clinton K. Ruiz, was killed by small-arms fire in Afghanistan, serving a tour as a psychological operations specialist with the 9th Military Information Support Battalion, 8th Military Information Support Group.

"It was one man pulling the trigger," the elder Ruiz said firmly. "Harboring ill will is not going to serve my son's memory."

Born in Poway and raised in Murrieta, Clinton was the type of kid who could always find a reason to be in a good mood, Ruiz said. In junior soccer leagues he defended the ball like a "bulldog with a pork chop," but he always had a kind word for anyone who scored a goal, said his mother, Carla Trease.

When he lost at board games, he'd heap accolades on the victor until they started to laugh. He lavished praise on his mother's cooking, sang along to the radio in the car and never minded if his younger siblings followed him around.

"I don't know how he did it." Trease said. "I was never a good cook. but he just made you feel good just by being in the room."

At school, Clinton was confident and athletic, but never a prom king candidate. He was quiet, but his smile won him friends. He tested well, but homework bored him, said Trease, an elementary school teacher. He felt most at home on a four-wheeler, conquering the hills near their Riverside County home at top speed.

"He just always wanted to be going somewhere and doing something," Trease said.

After graduating in 2008, Ruiz enrolled in summer college classes because he knew Trease wanted him to try. But even then, the only class that excited him was a course on emergency medical triage, Trease said. Before the summer was out, he had joined the Army.

Kira Ruiz, Clinton's wife, first met him in training camp as they stood shoulder to shoulder in formation for morning drills. Clinton was wearing Rayban glasses with the logo blacked out in Sharpie because regulations prohibited recruits to wear brand names.

"I looked up at him and said 'nice glasses,' and he started laughing," said Kira, who was also a psychological operations specialist.

When Kira became a squad leader during drills, Clinton took a position at road guard to be a few paces closer. Soon, he asked her out. She refused. He asked again, every day, for three weeks.

"I wasn't sure I liked him as more than a friend," Kira said. "But he was pretty sure."

Won over by Clinton's persistence, she started dating him, sneaking moments between language classes at their base, Ft. Bragg. One morning Clinton appeared in Kira's bedroom and shook her awake. In his right hand, he was carrying a caramel macchiato; in his left hand, a ring.

They got married in the county courthouse, after Kira's deployment was moved up. Clinton's father got a text the day of the wedding.

"It said, 'I got married lol,'" Tony Ruiz said. "Not a big planner, that one."

Late last year, soon after Kira gave birth to their son, Caleb, Clinton reenlisted with the Army. The decision sent him to Afghanistan and put him face to face with the small-arms fire that claimed his life.

Trease fought his decision and recalls a strong sense of foreboding. She called, texted and emailed until she feared she was "sounding like a broken record," Trease said.

"But he would always call back. He'd always say, 'I know, Mom, I know,' " Trease said.

Clinton was killed in the Oruzgan province in mountainous central Afghanistan. His awards include the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart and the National Defense Service Medal. He was buried at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.

One of the last times Trease saw her son, they were driving home from a dinner with her two sons.

She remembers it because the Ruizes are a family that sings in the car during road trips, Trease said. The song doesn't matter as much as singing loudly and remembering as many words as you can. The singer Adele came on the radio and someone turned up the volume. They all belted the song at the top of their lungs until the car pulled into the driveway.

"I just remember thinking, oh, I hope this song never ends," Trease said. "It was a good, long one."

frank.shyong@latimes.com

Read More..