Grandparents

A 13-year-old boy who reportedly became enraged after his grandparents called his mother a “whore” shot and killed the couple in their home in Pennsylvania and was being held without bond Tuesday on murder charges, police said. The shooting occurred Sunday afternoon in Sandycreek Township, a town about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh, and left George Fross, 69, and his wife Dorothy Fross, 67, dead. Police found the bodies Monday night after relatives became concerned they could not reach the couple and phoned police, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Jesse Gomez leans over the railing of the mezzanine level of his new Santa Monica Mexican restaurant, Mercado, looking down on the buzzing scene below. It's early on a Wednesday night and already every table in the sleek, white room is full, as is every seat at the bar where mixologist Gilbert Marquez shakes up a storm of Latin-influenced craft cocktails. "It's like this every night," Gomez says of the restaurant, which is in the same 4th Street block as the famed Border Grill. "And on Friday and Saturday nights it fills upstairs too. " The high-octane hustle and bustle in the dining room is the realization of a third-generation immigrant success story.

Miguelcloid Reniva is a boy of few words. He speaks only when spoken to, and answers in as few words as possible. But the 13-year-old who dreams of someday becoming a lawyer carries self-awareness beyond his years. "I'm very shy," said Miguelcloid, a skinny boy with glasses, when asked to describe himself. The Wednesday afternoon before Miguelcloid heads off to camp for the first time, he cleans without fuss the bedroom he shares with his cousins, 4 and 6, who mark a stark contrast as they yell in the background and make loud thumping noises.

The conversations always end the same way when Thomas Robinson talks on the phone with his little sister. Big brother tells the 9-year-old that he'll see her later, or that he'll call her back. "Goodbye" is a word that's never used. "My mom told me never to say "Bye,'" said Robinson, the former Kansas power forward who could be the No. 2 pick in Thursday's NBA draft. "That means you're never going to see somebody again. " Robinson never imagined he would have to bid farewell to his mother or to his maternal grandparents in one inconceivable 25-day stretch during his sophomore season in college.

Before asking Courtney May to marry him on an Oregon beach on Thanksgiving Day 2010, Colin Neil, 26, got permission from her grandparents.  “Courtney always visits her grandparents in Coos Bay over Thanksgiving. This time I tagged along,” Neil said.  The foursome drove to Bastendorff Beach, and with May's grandparents watching from the car, Neil led his girlfriend of four years to the beach and asked her to marry him.  The couple exchanged vows at the Harborside Grand Ballroom in Newport Beach on April 14. Purple, green and white flowers dressed up the reception hall and Kevin Miso kept 110 guests entertained with acoustic guitar at dinner.

They are the unsung heroes for countless high school athletes. They show up to games day or night. They offer unconditional support in good and bad times. When mom or dad is angry, they are the ones called upon to be arbitrators of common sense. Yes, grandparents make invaluable contributions, so let me tell the story of shotputter Naomi Grant of Fullerton Troy. When Grant was 5 months old, her mother, Vida Owens, died after suffering an infection. Her grandparents, David and Claudette Owens, took over as parents.

Dear Liz: When my cousin and I were children more than 20 years ago, my grandparents opened a college savings account for each of us. I have no idea what kind of account this was, or where it was located. My grandfather passed away a few years later. While I was in high school, my grandmother informed me the investments had not done well, and she was closing the accounts. I received a check for $500 at high school graduation that was supposed to be the balance of the account. I assumed my cousin received the same, until she recently posted on a social networking site she was thankful her grandmother started a college fund when she was young that covered the entire cost of her education.

At a memorial service Saturday attended by more than 1,000 people, Charles and Braden Powell, the two young brothers killed last week by their father, were remembered as "clever" and "curious" boys. The boys' grandfather, Charles Cox, thanked people for their prayers, saying, "It helps us to know that there are good people in the world. " The service at the Life Center church in Tacoma, Wash., drew people from as far away as Utah, where the boys previously lived. A children's choir sang "Amazing Grace.

Charles and Judith Cox knew what the professional psychologists said -- that their grandsons would be safe with their father, that Josh Powell would present no threat during the boys' court-ordered visits. And yet. Could the professionals not see what the Coxes saw? That their daughter had been missing since 2009, and Powell was the leading person of interest in the case? What about the family stories that Powell, as a teenager, had smashed his sister's hamster to death, had threatened his mother with a knife?

One less reason to worry about letting Grandma drive the kids: Letting her take the wheel might lower the chances that your kids will get injured. According to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania found that kids who rode in cars with grandparents driving were less likely to get injured than kids riding with parent drivers -- even though older...