| MacPhail's rebuilding blocks
The Orioles traded shortstop Miguel Tejada in December partly because they believed their best hitter needed a change of scenery. Their trade of ace pitcher Erik Bedard yesterday was emblematic of an organization that has finally committed to a change of direction.
President of baseball operations Andy MacPhail made it clear that the Orioles are in a rebuilding mode for the first time in years, trading Bedard, the team's first legitimate ace since Mike Mussina, to the Seattle Mariners for five players, including promising young outfielder Adam Jones.
After several weeks of back-and-forth negotiations that sparked frustration on both sides, the two teams finally hammered out a deal that sends Jones, left-handed reliever George Sherrill and pitching prospects Chris Tillman, Tony Butler, and Kam Mickolio to Baltimore for Bedard, 28, who went 13-5 with a 3.16 ERA and set a franchise single-season record with 221 strikeouts in 2007.
Bamboo houseplant requires little care
Question: I was just given a bamboo plant and do not know how to take care of it. Your help would be greatly appreciated.Answer: Bamboo - also known as Lucky Bamboo - is a popular houseplant often given as a gift to bestow good fortune, according to Chinese tradition. It's also a component of feng shui principles. Technically, these houseplants - usually several stalks tied together with string or ribbon - aren't bamboos at all. They're Dracaena sanderiana, relatives of the lily and native to West Africa. They go by the common name bamboo for reasons unknown.Bamboo is an easy houseplant to grow, and it requires little care. Just remove the string to keep it from choking the plant as it grows, and be sure it gets plenty of indirect sunlight. Direct sunlight cancause yellowing ofthe stalks.If your plant came in a pot filled with tiny pebbles, simply replenish the water as it evaporates, keeping it at about an inch from the base of the stalks.
50,000 trees planted in Trinity River wildlife refuge
For a partnership looking for ways to improve the Houston area's environment, the math made sense. First, plant 50,000 seedling trees on 158 acres of logged pasture in the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge east of Houston. In return, the restored forest will remove carbon dioxide a potent greenhouse gas linked to global warming equivalent to what 3,000 average Americans use in fossil fuels in a year. The $250,000 project was completed this month by five corporate and nonprofit groups who partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which runs the 23,000-acre reserve on the Trinity River in Liberty County. The other participants include Dell Inc.; Travelocity; NBC Universal; Environmental Synergy Inc., a reforestation company based in Atlanta; and The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit environmental group, based near Washington, D.C.
Suspect slain by LV police ID'd; officers out of hospital
Las Vegas police on Thursday provided more details of a shootout Wednesday night that left a California fugitive dead and two officers injured. The shooting occurred when officers were taking the fugitive into custody, police said. The fugitive suddenly pulled out a gun and shot one of the officers. Three officers responded by shooting and killing Jeffrey Williams, 28, in the front yard of a home on the 2000 block of Canosa Avenue, near Eastern and St. Louis avenues, Las Vegas police said. .
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