Indoors

PHOENIX -- Showers forced the Dodgers to practice indoors Wednesday. Instead of taking live batting practice on the rain-soaked field, hitters took their swings in the covered batting cages. The pitchers who were scheduled to throw, including Chad Billingsley and Chris Capuano, threw as scheduled. Some other notes: The first major injury of the spring was sustained by Dodgers spokesman Joe Jareck, who is believed to have torn his hamstring trying to leg out a triple in an employee softball game.

WATERTOWN, Mass. - The sound of gunfire has been reported in Watertown, where authorities spent Friday searching for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. The shots came shortly after state officials lifted their order for people to stay indoors. Television footage showed police and emergency vehicles responding to a building on Franklin Street on Friday evening. Julia Cavanaugh, who lives in Watertown, went outside with her daughters after the lockdown was lifted. Then shots rang out. Captured: Boston bombing suspect "We were outside and heard them and grabbed the kids and ran inside," she said.

I am writing to accent the warning about summer camping at Joshua Tree National Park ("Lying Low in the Desert," Oct. 8). My companion, from the Mideast, was confident about a short trip there this year. But the heat overwhelmed us both after a day and banished us to the air-conditioned indoors for the duration. ANDREW KAY LIBERMAN Los Angeles

BOSTON - As family members called on him to surrender, a 19-year-old college student remained on the run Friday as thousands of police armed with rifles and driving armored vehicles combed the nearly deserted streets of a region on virtual lockdown. Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of a pair of ethnic Chechen brothers who came to the United States a decade ago, has been in flight since a shootout with police in the early hours of Friday. His brother, Tamerlan, 26, was killed in the confrontation.

Five feisty pelicans flapped their wings in protest and faced off Thursday with workers at the Bronx Zoo who were trying to move the birds indoors for the winter. The zookeepers won. The scene was Cope Lake at the zoo, where the five birds spend the milder months of the year until chilly weather dictates their move inside the Ostrich House. Four zookeepers rowed out onto the pond with giant nets to capture the birds.

Ginnie Ryder's attempt to ease her conscience by writing a fantasy tale of "Kitten Instinct" is disturbing and disgusting (Orange County Voices, Jan. 24). The kitten is dead because Ryder was negligent. Cats, like children, lack common sense. Cats are not outdoor animals. Cats have evolved completely dependent on humans for their care and protection. Many cats escape the dangers of outdoor life for a while, but so do people who drive in an unsafe manner or play with guns. Cats must be kept indoors at all times.

An indoor arena with tightly banked turns and an enthusiastic crowd is Eamonn Coghlan's phone booth. Outdoors, he's just another world-class miler, but when he's running indoors, there's a startling, Clark Kent-like transformation. The only man ever to run a sub-3:50 mile indoors, Coghlan is the world indoor mile record-holder at 3:49.78. Britain's Sebastian Coe holds the world outdoor record of 3:47.33, and Coghlan believes that Coe's record can be lowered--on an indoor track.

BOSTON - As family members called on him to surrender, a 19-year-old college student remained on the run Friday as thousands of police armed with rifles and driving armored vehicles combed the nearly deserted streets of a region on virtual lockdown. Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of a pair of ethnic Chechen brothers who came to the United States a decade ago, has been in flight since a shootout with police in the early hours of Friday. His brother, Tamerlan, 26, was killed in the confrontation.

Hooliganism aside, I wonder if your editorial writer and reporter asked themselves: What's a person to do when the necessity to urinate strikes? Perhaps the D.A. did ask himself that question. Under the circumstances, the odds were very much on a confrontation and (Myron) Haag would have been much wiser to stay indoors even without the hindsight of the tragic outcome. ERIC HEATH, Oceanside

In a move that could improve the quality of Apple Maps, the Cupertino tech company has purchased WiFiSlam, a Silicon Valley start-up that specializes in indoor mapping. Apple paid $20 million for the acquisition, saying it “buys smaller technology companies from time to time,” according to the Wall Street Journal . Apple, however, did not disclose its plans for the start-up. The 2-year-old WiFiSlam has developed technology that makes it possible for phones to detect users' locations inside buildings by using Wi-Fi signals.

Tim Harris once played goalie for the Los Angeles Lazers, an indoor soccer team owned by Jerry Buss. Harris, now an executive with the Lakers, said that as he looks back it was obvious what Buss was doing. "He was setting up these labs for his kids to learn," Harris said. "That's how Jeanie learned and that's how I learned. Jeanie and I chuckle at it now. It wasn't that long ago we were sitting in roller hockey league meetings and now we're sitting in NBA league meetings. " Buss earned his fame and accolades by owning the Lakers and Kings.

PHOENIX -- Showers forced the Dodgers to practice indoors Wednesday. Instead of taking live batting practice on the rain-soaked field, hitters took their swings in the covered batting cages. The pitchers who were scheduled to throw, including Chad Billingsley and Chris Capuano, threw as scheduled. Some other notes: The first major injury of the spring was sustained by Dodgers spokesman Joe Jareck, who is believed to have torn his hamstring trying to leg out a triple in an employee softball game.

Best known for its murals and installations on the streets of Los Angeles, the local art collective Cyrcle is transforming a Hollywood gallery into an interactive "hive" - a project that member David Leavitt said is "somewhere between a play, an art show and a video game arcade. " "Organized Chaos!," Cyrcle's second solo gallery show, is designed to work somewhat like pollination: The artists created cubes covered with parts of an image. Patrons are encouraged to take the cubes from a crate and place them into a frame to create their own work.

DAMASCUS, Syria - The young Syrian mother had just fed her baby girl and put her down for a nap. The woman's husband was at work. Suddenly, a projectile entered the home, lodging in the chair where the baby had been sitting a few moments earlier. "I was standing in the kitchen, and I swear I saw it whiz by me," said the mother, Sema, 26. "A bullet!" Sema and her family promptly left their home in the strife-ridden Damascus suburb of Zamalka, the scene of numerous battles, and moved in with her in-laws near downtown, still relatively unscathed.

Indoor trampoline parks are springing into action throughout Southern California, along with leaping games of dodge ball, highflying basketball and rigorous calisthenics. Just ask Akory Coates, who lived out his basketball dreams for an hour recently at a Sky Zone trampoline park in Torrance. He jumped, he twirled in the air, his fingertips grazed the rim and he made four baskets. Not an easy feat for a 9-year-old, but a series of trampolines beneath his feet gave him all the lift he needed.

Police warned parents to keep their children indoors Tuesday after at least two residents reported seeing a lion wandering loose. The lion was described as a male weighing between 150 and 200 pounds and wearing a red collar. Police said they did not know where it came from. There were no reports of lions missing from zoos or circuses.

I read your article ["Sure, Spill Wine on My Sofa," Aug. 24] regarding Sunbrella fabrics with great interest. As an interior designer I have used Sunbrella fabrics for both indoors and outdoors. However, I think you did your readers a disservice by not including F&S Fabrics [(310) 475-1637]. F&S by far has the best selection of Sunbrella products. ANH ONG Los Angeles

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Ben Lan threw a line in the water one recent afternoon and caught two fair-sized specimens in 10 minutes. With 10 years of experience, the 60-year-old retiree stood out from a couple of fellow anglers who looked on with envy. It's not unusual to hear a cheer go up when somebody lands a big one. Big means about 6 inches. That's because Lan and the others were casting for shrimp. "It's a leisure activity. Taiwan is too small, and there's nothing else to do," Lan said as he stuffed a just-caught live shrimp into a net suspended in the water at an indoor pool just outside urban Taipei.

This steel, glass and concrete two-story by designer Amit Apel takes a page from modern architecture with its open floor plan, floating stainless-steel staircase and indoor-outdoor living space. A 6-foot-deep pond in the backyard is home to koi valued from $3,000 to $7,000 each. Location: 1115 Sierra Alta Way, West Hollywood 90069 Asking price: $15 million Year built: 2012 House size: Seven bedrooms, 71/2 bathrooms, 10,000 square feet Lot size: 20,000 square feet Features: Gates, family room, media room, gym, 1,000-gallon saltwater aquarium, 1,000-bottle wine cellar, retractable walls of glass, Italian-made bathroom vanities, glass elevator, home automation system, solar panels, water-recycling system, cabana, swimming pool, spa, guest house About the area: During the first half of the year, 86 single-family homes sold in the 90069 ZIP Code at a median price of $1.475 million, according to DataQuick.