Plants

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

On Jan. 31, alarms alerted the control room at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station that a radiation leak was occurring in one of the nearly 39,000 tubes that carry radioactive water in the steam generators. That failure led to an unparalleled shutdown of one of California's two nuclear power plants and triggered more than three months of detective work by Southern California Edison officials and federal nuclear regulators that has yet to determine the problem's root cause or when San Onofre will reopen.

Some good buys for your health and your pocketbook: Buy fresh fruits and vegetables in season. Buy frozen otherwise. Frozen is cheaper and may even be better for you than fresh. That's because produce is usually frozen at its ripest, which is usually when it maxes out in nutrient content too. Some nutrients do break down or leach out in the freezing process, but most make it through.

Kareen Sandoval was among the first to spot her tree, a skinny little thing about 9 feet tall with dark shimmering leaves. "Look how beautiful you are," she said, reaching for the trunk. "I want you to grow big and strong and never get knocked down. " Along 8th Street in Westlake on Saturday, volunteers planted 62 trees, but this was about more than mere beautification. Every tree honored a mother from the neighborhood, each one a woman whose volunteer work has made a difference in Westlake and Pico-Union, just west of downtown Los Angeles.

Hard-core Harry Potter fans who devoured the books, camped out for the movies and trekked through the theme park now have a new way to relive the boy wizard's adventures. PHOTOS: Making of Harry Potter studio tour Debuting Saturday, the Making of Harry Potter behind-the-scenes tour at theWarner Bros.studios in England will let wizards, mudbloods and muggles pull back the curtain on the movie-making secrets of the most successful film series of all time. Located 20 miles outside of London, the three-hour self-guided tour will take visitors past sets, props, costumes, models and special effects exhibits from the eight "Harry Potter" movies.

Lipitor is the most prescribed name-brand drug in America - nearly 3.5 million people take it every day to control their cholesterol. Since the statin entered the market in 1997, it's earned New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. $81 billion, making it the best-selling prescription drug of all time, according to IMS Health, a Danbury, Conn.-based healthcare information company. So when Lipitor's patent protection came to an end Nov. 30 and a generic alternative became available, an awful lot of patients had a decision to make: Should they stick with the drug they knew or switch to something less expensive?

A sweetener made from the juice of a Mexican cactus is an increasingly common ingredient in bottled teas, energy drinks, nutrition bars and desserts from health food stores. In just the last few years, agave syrup's popularity has soared: The number of agave products on the market more than tripled between 2003 and 2007, according to market analysis firm Data Monitor. This year, a major food manufacturer -- McCormick & Co. -- placed the syrup on its list of top 10 flavors for 2009.

Two El Segundo toddlers found dead in their beds last spring were poisoned by oleander leaves from a neighbor's yard that they picked and ate, coroner's officials said Tuesday. The case of Alexei and Peter Wiltsey, ages 2 and 3, represents the first confirmed accidental deaths by oleander poisoning in county history, said coroner's spokesman Scott Carrier.

James Cameron's science-fiction blockbuster "Avatar" takes place in 2154 on the lush moon Pandora. To help make the set believable, Jodie Holt, chairwoman of the department of botany and plant sciences at UC Riverside, was approached to consult on the film's plant life, as well as how a botanist would study such flora. Holt, a plant physiologist, talked about her involvement in the film and the "Pandorapedia," a detailed catalog of the moon's features, including its many plants. How did you become involved in the film?

The boom in house plants has led to a minor industry in this country: beautiful, unusual and very expensive plant pots. If you find that term a little crude, go for the French cachepot--literally, "hide-the-pot." The canny and civilized French have known for a long time that a spectacular display can be made of an ordinary plant, just as a spectacular fashion statement can be made by women who choose the right accessories.

California's energy grid operator announced that two mothballed generators at a natural-gas-powered plant on the Huntington Beach coastline are back in service, a critical piece of the plan to replace power from the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant this summer. San Onofre has been shut down for three months because of equipment issues, and it's unclear when it will return to operation. Officials have expressed concern that in the event of a heat wave or transmission outage, parts of Los Angeles County, south Orange County and San Diego County could face power shortages over the summer without the plant's 2,200 megawatts of energy.

The problems at the San Onofre nuclear power plant are serious enough that the facility will not be able to operate at full capacity when it reopens, perhaps as early as June. The announcement comes as officials continue to investigate problems in the reactors that have forced the plant to remain shut for three months, the longest closure in San Onofre's history. Southern California Edison estimated that the company's cost for inspections and repairs at the plant would be between $55 million and $65 million.

Five men who called themselves anarchists were preparing to commemorate May Day, the international workers holiday, by taking violent political action. They planted what they thought were demolition charges on a bridge crossing the Cuyahoga Valley National Park south of downtown Cleveland and drove to a spot several miles away. There, they punched in the code that they thought would detonate the explosives, federal officials allege. But nothing happened. Instead, law enforcement officers from a variety of agencies including the FBI arrested the five Monday night, charging them with conspiracy and trying to bomb property used in interstate commerce.

In Chinese, penjing means “potted scenery.” Beginning Tuesday (today) through May 10, you can see at least 20 penjing, the precursor to Japanese bonsai, during the Landscapes in Miniature exhibit at Lan Su Chinese Garden Portland, Ore.  “In the West, we understand 'garden' to mean plants, but a Chinese garden includes poetry, calligraphy, rock, water and plants,” says Glin Varco, the horticulture manager for the garden....

Southern California Edison announced Friday that it will collaborate with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography on seismic studies looking at offshore faults near the San Onofre nuclear plant, beginning later this year. Edison requested approval last year from the California Public Utilities Commission to recover $64 million from ratepayers for seismic studies that will help to determine the future of the plant. Caroline McAndrews, Edison's director of nuclear strategic projects, said the collaboration with Scripps will account for about half of that.

The American public is divided about whether to eliminate federal subsidies for any form of energy and is giving less support to nuclear power and U.S. funding of renewable energy, a new poll has found. Fifty-four percent of respondents opposed doing away with subsidies for oil, gas, coal, nuclear or renewable energy, while 47% favored the idea. Support for building more nuclear power plants has fallen dramatically, to 42% from 61% in 2008. The Yale-George Mason University poll being released Thursday found that 76% of Americans support regulating carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas pollutant and that two-thirds believe the U.S. should pursue policies to reduce its carbon footprint.

Amy and David Messinger's home in the Hollywood Hills posed vexing problems common to many properties in Los Angeles. The steep front and rear slopes were difficult to navigate, much less landscape. One side yard opened to the top of yet another embankment. The other side yard was flat lawn reduced to a muddy mess by sprinklers and poor drainage. For help, the Messingers hired landscape designer Joan Grabel of Park Slope Design in Studio City. Grabel, an artist-turned-gardenmaker, is known for creating functional, sustainable outdoor rooms with painterly flair.

Impatiens. They are perhaps the most loved, and hated, of flowers. Non-gardeners adore the No. 1 selling bedding plant because it is so easy to grow and always in bloom--so constant it seems extruded from plastic. Some serious gardeners wouldn't plant one if their horticultural life depended on it because they're so common. But while the common impatiens are being praised or pilloried, growers have been busy developing and discovering new kinds.

LAGOS, Nigeria - The chaotic color of the megalopolis cascades past the window of his silver Mercedes SUV. A police escort with a flashing blue light clears the road ahead. Restless and irritated, the billionaire is in his bubble. With a slim, elegant finger, he prods his cellphone screen to redial after the call drops. He grills a squirming subordinate about a production problem that has persisted all week. The call drops again. A small sigh. He redials. "The day before yesterday you gave me a different excuse.