Mayor Vince Gray said at a press conference today that in building the District's trade relationship with China, the continuous building boom in the world's second-largest economy could use the knowledge of D.C.'s tech sector. more ›

1988 was a great year to be 13 years old and living in the Washington D.C. area. In March of that year, I saw Michael Jordan play in person for the first time, as his Chicago Bulls played the Washington Bullets at the Capital Center in Landover, Maryland. Jordan scored 25 points, but there were none of the fancy breakaway dunks I had come to appreciate -- still it was a thrill for me to see the man play just a few hundred feet away. more ›

It's official -- the Nats are definitely sellers as baseball's non-waiver trade deadline looms. I had only just pondered losing Matt Capps to the Twins a few hours ago, and now it's time to say goodbye to Cristian Guzman, who was traded to the Texas Rangers this afternoon. Guzman had a disastrous first season with the Nats in 2005 and missed all of 2006 -- but he had been holding down the shortstop position, prior to accepting a reduced role due to Ian Desmond's defensively-inept emergence this season. It's tough to say goodbye to a somewhat productive bat and a reliable fielder, but at least Jim Riggleman's game of musical chairs in the middle infield just got a little less crowded. more ›

The United States and Russia went back to the future this morning, trading ten uncovered Russian deep-cover agents -- including three based in Arlington -- for four Americans who were being held in Moscow under similar accusations. The whole deal went down in about an hour and a half on a remote tarmac at Vienna's Schwechat Airport. The Wall Street Journal's got all you need to know about the complaints lodged against the deported Russians, while MSNBC has a fun timeline of U.S.-Russia spy swaps throughout the years. Michael Zottoli, Patricia Mills and Mikhail Semenko were scheduled to have a hearing in federal court in Alexandria before the Feds stepped in and negotiated the swap deal; all ten of the accused Russian agents the government could round up pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to work as unregistered foreign agents this week in New York. I guess now we'll never know whether any of the spies had asked any Virginians to show them a plutonium isolation module. more ›

According to various reports, the Redskins have traded former starting quarterback Jason Campbell to the Oakland Raiders in exchange for a 2012 fourth-round draft pick. Man, could the last couple of months have turned out any worse for Campbell? Coming off a season in which he was (probably unfairly) blamed for several Redskins losses, Campbell was tasked with learning yet another offensive system, found out that he was losing his job from a reporter and now has to go play for Oakland, a franchise that hasn't won more than five games in a season since 2002 and whose front office inadvertently passed -- passed! -- on their second-round draft pick last night. Say what you want about his skills, but there's no doubting that Campbell was consistently given a raw deal for most of his time here in Washington. The fact that he's heading to one of the only teams in the league with executive leadership more laughable than the Redskins' is just the icing on the cake. more ›

How about some gigantic, colossal, blockbuster breaking football news to close out your Easter Sunday? ESPN's Adam Schefter reports that the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles have nearly completed arrangements on a trade that will send six-time Pro Bowl quarterback Donovan McNabb to Washington in exchange for draft picks, likely a second-round pick in this year's draft and another selection next season. Obviously, some very big news that poses a ton of questions with still months before the regular season kicks off. Will Jason Campbell remain with the team as McNabb's backup? (We can't imagine Campbell's too pleased with the news; Examiner reporter John Keim notes that Campbell wasn't even informed about the trade until he contacted him for comment. Ouch.) Will McNabb continue to wear number 5 in Washington? (Dan Steinberg tweets that he probably shouldn't.) In what direction will the Redskins go with the fourth pick in the draft, now that the quarterback position has been filled? Most importantly, will Redskins faithful actually be able to root for a quarterback that they've booed lustily for ten-plus years? That's just scratching the surface -- we can't even begin to imagine what this will do to the collective psyche of Philadelphia fans -- of the fallout to come from what is likely one of the biggest NFL trades, well, ever. more ›

The Washington Post's MIchael Lee reports that the trade we mentioned in today's Saturday Morning Post has now been agreed to by both sides. Washington has traded Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Josh Howard, Drew Gooden, James Singleton and Quinton Ross. more ›

Most of the baseball world was focused on who was buying and who was selling in the hours before yesterday's trading deadline. Of course, there were no such inquiries about where the Nationals fell on that spectrum. As the deadline approached, it was thought that the Nats might sell high on moving outfielder Josh Willingham -- hitting two grand slams in one game just days before the deadline certainly gave his trade value a little bump. But Willingham, likely the biggest chip that the Nationals would have seriously considered trading for prospects, is still a Nat today. more ›

Let's engage in a hardball hypothetical, shall we? Player A is a 25-year-old outfielder, hitting .244 with 6 HR, 30 RBI, and 18 runs. Not the greatest stats, but Player A is generally appreciated by the fans, and has moderate-to-good defensive capabilities, even though he might be slightly late to practice once in a while. On the other hand, Player B is a 29-year-old outfielder on the decline. Player B is currently batting .197 with only 3 HR and 16 RBI in 58 games, even though he has a reputation as a power hitter -- somehow, this power hitter's slugging percentage is lower than his poor on-base percentage. Player B is a defensive liability most of the time acceptable defensively, but strikes out nearly a third of the time he comes to the plate. Player B is also generally understood to be grossly overpaid. more ›

We mentioned the rumor in today's Nats Roundup, but now it's official: the Nationals just put the finishing touches on a trade, sending once-promising outfielder Lastings Milledge and out-of-sorts reliever Joel Hanrahan to Pittsburgh in exchange for utility outfielder Nyjer Morgan and middle reliever Sean Burnett. Milledge, who had been toiling in Triple-A Syracuse for most of the year, will likely be remembered by Nationals fans as potential lost -- after all, there was a contingency who believed that Milledge was the Nationals' centerfielder of the future no fewer than three months ago. The team did get good value with the trade, though: both Morgan (.277, 27 RBI, 18 SB) and Burnett (3.06 ERA, 23 Ks in 32.1 IP) are serviceable players who are upgrades over what the team gave up. The move begs the question though -- if the much-discussed prank to vote a demoted Milledge into the All-Star Game as Washington's representative had actually worked and he was traded, what would have happened? Now the world will never know. more ›

It's been a fairly frustrating offseason for United fans, at least from a personnel standpoint. First, there were the rumors that the front office may have turned down the chance to sign Ghanaian national captain Stephen Appiah, now on trial at Tottenham Hotspur. Then there was the loss of playmaker Marcelo Gallardo, who broke from the team in order to return home and play in Argentina. More recently, the team lost out on signing Brazilian defender Roger because the 34-year-old's family didn't want to live in the States. more ›