Quickie Sports Chowdah Update- Royal Flush, Red Sox Find Way Past Kansas City

John Rieger-USA Today

RED SOX- After dropping the first two games at Kauffman Stadium- including a disappointing start by Jake Peavy where the Red Sox gave up 6 runs in the bottom of the 6th- the Red Sox needed Felix Doubront to stem the damage on Saturday night.

The Red Sox gave Doubront an early lead thanks to an RBI double from Stephen Drew in the top of the 4th, followed by an RBI single from Will Middlebrooks and a Jacoby Ellsbury double that brought home Middlebrooks to get Boston out to a 4-0 lead.

Kansas City came back in the bottom of the 5th with a leadoff walk to Alcides Escobar, followed by back to back RBI doubles from Eric Hosmer and Billy Butler before  Alex Gordon got on board with a single, chasing Doubront from the mound with nobody out and bringing in Workman from the bullpen. Workman got the next batter to strike out before allowing an RBI single to center to make it a 4-3 game. Mike Moustakas then popped out to short and Workman got Brett Hayes to strike out swinging to escape the 5th inning still hanging on to a 4-3 lead.

However, given how adept the Royals had been at scoring off of Red Sox pitching in this series, the 1-run lead hardly seemed secure for Boston. In the top of the 6th, Kansas City starter Jeremy Guthrie got two quick outs from Drew and Saltalamacchia before Middlebrooks beat a throw to first from Royals 3B Moutsakas with two away. That brought up Ellsbury, who managed to find a gap in left center field to bring home Middlebrooks for an insurance run, although Ellsbury was thrown out trying to take third on the throw home. Boston headed into the bottom of the 6th with a 5-3 lead.

Breslow and Tazawa would come out of the bullpen and help shut out the Royals, despite each of them allowing doubles with less than two away. Koji Uehara would come on in the bottom of the 9th to close out the game with a 1-2-3 inning to preserve the 5-3 win and give the Red Sox their first win in Kauffman Stadium this season. Felix Doubront didn't last long enough to factor into the win, with Brandon Workman getting credit for the W. Meanwhile, Jacoby Ellsbury had an outstanding night at the plate, going 4-5 with 2 RBI. The win is only the third so far in Boston's 10-game road trip that's seen them go up against the Astros and will see them head to Toronto next.

Sunday's game should wrap up the season series between Kansas City and Boston with John Lackey [7-9; 3.21 ERA] going up against James Shields [6-8; 3.36 ERA]- although Lackey is a career 2-1 with en ERA right around 2.00 in his last five starts against the Royals, his most recent start at Kauffman stadium dates back to 2009, when he was still with the Angels. First pitch is at 2:10 PM ET and the game will be televised on NESN.

OTHER RED SOX NEWS- Red Sox catcher David Ross has begun a rehab assignment with the Portland Sea Dogs  this weekend. Ross had been batting .185 with the Red Sox this season with 4 HR and 6 RBI altogether. The last game Ross appeared in was June 14th against the Orioles where he went 0-3 with two strikeouts.

Iron Horse Roundup For July/August 2013

AFP Photo

MONTREAL, MAINE & ATLANTIC- In the wake of last month's deadly runaway train wreck that devastated the southern Quebec town of Lac Megantic, Hermon, ME-based Montreal, Maine & Atlantic filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal bankruptcy court in Bangor, ME.

The MM&A has also petitioned Canadian civil courts for relief under that country's Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act. The company appears to have set aside nearly $786,000 as “indemnification and/or contribution in connection with wrongful death litigation and other claims,” according to a listing of the company’s 20 largest creditors.

MMA still owes $27.5 million of a $35 million loan it received from the Federal Rail Administration in 2005, according to Gardner’s affidavit. The railroad also has a $6 million line of credit with the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway Co. issued in June 2009. That company has sought to protect its security interest, the affidavit said.

Other creditors include JD Irving subsidiary New Brunswick Southern, a subsidiary of San Antonio, TX-based Valero energy [NYSE- VLO], Minneapolis, MN-based Flex Leasing LLC and the Canadian Pacific railroad [NYSE- CP; TSX- CP].

Although a federal bankruptcy judge ruled that the MM&A could continue to operate under Chapter 11 reorganization, the line through Lac Megantic is still closed, effectively severing the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic in two. At the end of July, Maine state officials had entered into talks with four other unnamed railways to continue service in anticipation of the MM&A shutting down.

The MM&A laid off 79 workers in the wake of the Lac Megantic disaster. Meanwhile, Canadian officials have raised the death toll in Lac Megantic to 47 during the July 6th derailment.

Xoan Soler- La Voz de Galicia

SPAIN- The driver of a train that derailed and killed 78 passengers in northwestern Spain has been provisionally charged with multiple counts of negligent homicide, although he wasn't required to post bond or sent to jail because he wasn't considered a flight risk.

Garzon was questioned for almost two hours at the court in Santiago de Compostela, the northwestern town near where the accident occurred.

Garzon was driving the train carrying 218 passenger in eight cars that hurtled far over the 80-kph (50-mph) speed limit into a high-risk curve on Wednesday evening, tumbling off the tracks and slamming into a concrete wall, with some of the cars catching fire.

The Spanish rail agency has said the brakes should have been applied four kilometers (2.5 miles) before the train hit the curve

However, a local resident who rushed to the scene of the accident said in an interview broadcast Sunday that minutes after the crash Garzon had told him he had been going fast and couldn’t brake.

The resident, Evaristo Iglesias, said he and another person accompanied the blood-soaked Garzon to flat ground where other injured people were being laid out, waiting for emergency services to arrive.

“He told us that he wanted to die,” Iglesias told Antena 3 television. “He said he had needed to brake but couldn’t,” Iglesias said. He added that Garzon said “he had been going fast.”

In its report about the accident, Antena 3 television showed a photograph of Iglesias in a pink shirt and cap helping to carry the driver after the train accident. The station also aired television footage of Iglesias working beside the wrecked train to help other survivors.

Garzon was reportedly on the phone with an agent at the next station to determine which track his train was to come in on. While in the USA, train crews are now prohibited from talking on the phone while operating the train, Spain's state-run RENFE uses what's referred to as 'tren-tierra' or train to land lines to communicate between stations and crew. Shortly before the accident, the train passed from an area where computers control most of the train's functions to one where the driver has to brake and accelerate accordingly. It's believed that Garzon may have missed this transition point while he was on the phone.

ARGENTINA- Transportation officials in Argentina's capital of Buenos Aires have released in-cab CCTV footage of engineers reading, napping or playing on their phones while the train is in motion.

In one clip, the driver is seen stepping up to the camera in his train cabin, attempting to obscure the lens so his activities cannot be seen. Other drivers are more overtly distracted, with some taking a nap, reading a book or playing on their mobile phone.

Argentina's Interior and Transport Minister Florencio Randazzo has since vowed to lead a crackdown on dangerous train drivers.

He plans to ban phone calls and unauthorised people in the cab

Mr Randazzo has introduced daily medical checks on all drivers to gauge their fitness to drive and to reduce the risk of them falling asleep at the controls.

Under the new system, all those caught distracted on camera will either be disciplined or fired.

The release of the footage comes more than a year after a commuter train plowed into a terminal in Buenos Aires, killing 49 and injuring hundreds.

FRANCE- Investigators in France believe a faulty switch system was to blame in a deadly derailment that killed six passengers at a station south of Paris last month.

After leaving the tracks, the train crashed into the station at Bretigny-sur-Orge.

A passenger speaking on France's BFM television said the train was going at a normal speed and was not meant to stop at Bretigny-sur-Orge.

He described children unattended in the chaotic aftermath, and swarms of emergency workers at the scene.

Two train cars, numbers 3 and 4, initially derailed, then knocked the other cars off the track, SNCF chief Guillaume Pepy said.

"Some cars simply derailed, others are leaning, others fell over," he said

A spokesman for the French state-run railway- SNCF- said the train was carrying an estimated 350 passengers when it derailed at 5:15 PM local time at Gare Bretigny sur Orge. The official death toll from the accident was 7 with more than 20 injured.


CALIFORNIA- Governor Jerry Brown has ordered a 60-day 'cooling down' period between San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit and workers threatening to strike over an expired contract with the transit agency.

Last month, a 4-day strike had left Bay Area commuters scrambling for alternate transportation. It was the first strike for BART since 1997.

Prior to Brown's announcement, both the Service Employees International Union and Amalgamated Transit Union were hoping the looming deadline of Sunday, Aug 11th would be sufficient to pressure BART management to agree to a renewed contract on the union's terms. Prior to Brown's intervention, the unions had threatened to resume their strike after this weekend.

The two month delay would take away some leverage from unions representing BART employees as it would allow the agency time to recruit replacement workers from out of retirement. An odd clause in the contract originally signed in 1979 would have prevented BART from hiring replacement drivers until the workers actually went on strike, and even then the replacement workers would only after completing a 15 week training course.

Reuters/Denis Balibouse

SWITZERLAND- Transportation officials in Switzerland are investigating the cause of a head-on collision between two passenger trains in the western part of the country. The crash killed the driver of one of the trains and injured at least 35 passengers.

The two Swiss Federal Railways regional passenger trains collided with one another head-on at Granges-Marnand in the Vaud Canton outside of Lucerne on July 29th. Although some press outlets have speculated that one of the trains left the Granges-Marnand station too early and collided with an incoming train, officials have yet to determine the exact cause of the crash and are moving both wrecked train sets to another location to closer examine the wreckage.

SOO Line SD60 #6053 leads an SD60M over county highway G38 outside of Washington, IA with a northbound Kansas City-St Paul manifest freight train on June 2012. Eric Rasmussen photo.

CANADIAN PACIFIC- In a surprise move, the Canadian Pacific Railroad announced that they are seeking bids for more than 40 former Soo Line SD60s and SD60Ms. The solicitation comes as the CPR is more than halfway through an extensive rebuild of their SD60 fleet. Some of the units are being stored at CP's St Luc yard in Montreal. All of the overhauled units have been rebuilt to Tier 0+ EPA compliance and feature AESS Locomotive Automatic Engine Start/Stop and Positive Traction Control in compliance with an upcoming PTC mandate expected to take effect starting in 2015- several more are supposed to undergo rebuilding at Montreal's CADRAIL facility.

The Soo Line ordered the SD60s from EMD in 1987 and with CP Rail's takeover, the burly 3800 HP six axle EMDs could be found anywhere from the Canadian Rockies to upstate New York although they were (and still are) outnumbered by CP Rail's far more prolific fleet of SD40-2s.

Canadian Pacific has also started putting up their fleet of former Milwaukee Road GP40s for sale- Respondek Rail Corp and United States Sugar Corp have already purchased a pair.

With the arrival of rebuilt GP20C-ECO and SD32C-ECO from Caterpillar [NYSE- CAT] subsidiary Progress Rail, Canadian Pacific returned their only two Gensets to National Railway Equipment in Illinois in July. The two Gensets- #2100 and #2101- were largely paid for by a province of Ontario 'green energy' intiative.

Sattelite Images Show Most of Syria's Largest City Reduced to Rubble After a Year of Fighting

Bird's eye view images of Syria's largest city posted on the Amnesty International website show blocks of apartments, mosques and shops leveled by more than a year of fighting between the Syrian military and anti-Assad forces. The satellite photos show an orchestrated campaign of aerial bombardment, demolition of houses and killing of civilians by Syria's army according to the London-based human rights group.

Gripped by more than a year of conflict the thriving commercial hub has been transformed into a series of battlefields and front lines, its residents struggling to live on amid the widespread disease, dirty water and crippling food shortages.

The aerial pictures show the extent of the destruction of the city, one of the oldest and most historically rich in the world. The Ancient City of Aleppo is a Unesco World Heritage site, this year placed on the UN organisation's list of World Heritage in Danger.

“Aleppo has been utterly devastated, its people fleeing the conflagration in huge numbers," said Amnesty International's Senior Crisis Response Adviser Donatella Rovera.

In addition to being Syria's largest city, Aleppo is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world with the city [then known as Halab- NANESB!] being mentioned in Babylonian records around 2000 BC. A 2004 Census listed Aleppo's population as more then 2 million- the fighting has in Aleppo alone has killed at least 10,000 people with more than half of the casualties being civilians.

Meanwhile, the Assad regime denied reports that rebels had ambushed president Bashr Al-Assad's motorcade on its way to a Damascus mosque.

Although Assad's troops have been able to successfully re-take many key parts of central Syria, foreign jihadists with the Jaish al-Muhajireen wa Ansar group seized an airfield outside of Aleppo on Monday. Besides taking the airfield, control of the northern part of Syria leaves supply lines to neighboring Turkey open for the rebels. Earlier in the year, rebel forces had managed to seize Damascus' international airport before being re-taken by the Syrian military. However, there were unconfirmed reports that fighters from the Free Syrian Army managed to shoot down an Iranian cargo plane on approach to the airport on Thursday- Iran and Russia have been key backers of the Al-Assad regime since the outbreak of Syria's Civil War.

The two year old Syrian civil war has claimed the lives of at least 100,000 people, drawn foreign fighters seeking to establish an shari'a governed Islamic state and at times has also threatened to spill over into neighboring Turkey and Lebanon as well.

Old Gray Lady Takes A Bath: New York Times Sells Boston Globe to Red Sox Owner John Henry

Business and Red Sox principal owner John Henry has entered into an agreement to buy New England's largest newspaper from the New York Times[NYSE: NYT] for $70 million.

The impending purchase from The New York Times Co. marks Henry's "first foray into the financially unsettled world of the news media," the Globe said Saturday. The deal will give Henry the 141-year-old newspaper, its websites and affiliated companies, it said.

The Times announced in February it was putting the Globe and related assets up for sale four years after calling off a previous attempt to sell it. The company's CEO said at the time selling the Globe would help the company focus attention on The New York Times brand.

Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy confirmed the planned sale of the Globe and other media properties to Henry.

The Times said the all-cash sale, expected to close in 30 to 60 days, includes BostonGlobe.com, Boston.com, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Telegram.com, the direct mail marketing company Globe Direct and the company's 49 percent interest in Metro Boston, a free daily newspaper for commuters.

The New York Times purchased the newspaper from the family of Globe co-founder Charles Taylor in 1993 for a total of $1 billion- effectively making New England's largest daily newspaper a wholly owned subsidiary of the Times. The sale to Henry represents a loss of approximately $930 million.

Other potential suitors included western Massachusetts TV station owner John Gormally, Los Angeles-based private equity group Revolution Capital and Phoenix, AZ-based Najafi Cos., which also owns the NBA's Phoenix Suns.

Readership and subscriptions had been flagging in recent years- to the point where the Times threatened to shut down the newspaper in 2009 after the unions representing the paper vetoed $10 million in pay cuts. However, the publication won praise for their in-depth coverage of the April 15th Boston Marathon bombings and the manhunt that led to the death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and capture of his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Watertown, MA.

Perhaps the best known Globe alumni is Hall of Fame baseball writer and frequent ESPN guest Peter Gammons. The sale of the Globe to Henry has also raised conflict-of-interest concerns over sports coverage- although coverage of the team by most New England media outlets has been mostly positive since Herny's group acquired primary ownership of the Red Sox in 2002.

More Accusers Come Forward As San Diego Mayor Filner Goes Into 'Therapy'

As San Diego's Mayor Bob Filner entered counseling on Monday, more women went public with accusations that the recently-elected Democrat had groped, harassed or propositioned them. The most recent accuser was a nurse who had sought Filner's help in dealing with the VA for a Marine wounded in Iraq.

Vocational nurse Michelle Tyler and U.S. Marine Katherine Ragazzino spoke Tuesday about a meeting with Filner in which the mayor implied that he would help solve Ragazzino’s issue with the VA only if Tyler agreed to attend a public event with him or have dinner with him.

Ragazzino suffered a traumatic brain injury and PTSD while serving in Iraq.

The two women were meeting with Filner as a follow up to a previous meeting with then-Congressman Bob Filner two years ago.

In the mayor’s office, Filner allegedly asked Ragazzino to leave the meeting and then began giving compliments to Tyler.

Tyler described a conversation with Filner where he asked if she were single and then asked her to meet with him on a personal basis.

“It was extremely disturbing to me that he made it very clear that his expectation was that his help for Katherine depended on my willingness to go to dinner with him, spend personal time with him and be seen in public with him, “ Tyler said.

“I felt that his rubbing my arm and telling me help for Katherine was contingent on my going out with him was extremely inappropriate and unacceptable,” Tyler said.

“I was not there looking for a date.”

Filner had previously served as the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Veteran's Affairs between 2007 and 2011. Tyler is the eleventh woman to accuse Filner of harassing or groping and the third in as many days.

A Marilyn Monroe impersonator said that Filner grabbed her backside while she was at fundraiser late last year.

The incident allegedly occurred in December at a fundraiser to retire the 70-year-old Democrat's debt from the mayoral campaign.

"He grabbed me a little too tight, then proceeded to slide his hand down my arm and then did a little grab on my derriere,” Emily Gilbert told Fox5 San Diego. "I didn’t want to make a scene. There were kids around.”

She tried to laugh it off but was embarrassed by the crude behavior, she told Fox5.

Gilbert's husband, a Marine officer, was furious when he heard of the incident.

Filner "needs to resign," he told Fox5.

Not long after Gilbert and her husband went public, a tenth woman claimed to have had an unnerving encounter with the mayor at a La Jolla, CA church in June where he grabbed her hands and said "I just can't take my eyes off of you" before asking her out. Later that day, she told a co-worker about the encounter before finding out that the mayor was already engaged.

Olga Diaz, a fellow Democrat and deputy mayor of the nearby city of Escondido, CA said that she also had a strange encounter with the mayor at an event where she was asked whether or not she had a husband.

Filner is being sued by former communications director Irene McCormack-Jackson for sexual harassment and at the end of July, the San Diego city council announced that they were suing Filner to recover any costs from a lawsuit or settlement against the mayor.

Sports Chowdah Update: Shine on You Crazy Diamond(Backs)- Sox Take Two Out of Three From Arizona; MLB Announces More BioGenesis Suspensions

Brian Snyder- Reuters

RED SOX- Jake Peavy made his much-anticipated Red Sox debut on Saturday night at Fenway in an interleague game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Arizona got on the board first with a solo home run off of 1B Paul Goldschmidt in the top of the 4th before Shane Victorino belted a solo homer to left field to get Boston on the board in the bottom of the 5th. In the bottom of the 7th, the Red Sox broke the 1-1 deadlock thanks to an RBI single by Ellsbury and a sac fly by Victorino to make it 3-2 Boston.

Peavy would go seven complete innings and come out for the top of the 8th- allowing a leadoff single to Will Nieves before Farrell had Craig Breslow come out of the bullpen. However, Breslow would his Cliff Pennington with a pitch and allow a single to Gerardo Parra to load the bases with nobody out. Junichi Tazawa came on in relief of Breslow and gave up a single to Aaron Hill- the Diamondbacks sent Pennington home to try and tie the game, but he was out at the plate on a throw by Johnny Gomes from center field. Tazawa then got Goldschmidt to strike out and Eric Chavez to fly out to left field to end the Arizona threat in the 8th. The Red Sox still led 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th when Mike Napoli drew a leadoff walk and Saltalamacchia hit a 1-out homer into the Red Sox bullpen to give the Sox some insurance heading into the 9th with a 5-2 lead.

Fresh from catching Salty's home run ball in the pen, Koji Uehara would come on in the 9th and give up a leadoff walk to Martin Prado before getting former Red Sox outfielder Cody Ross to hit into a fielder's choice and former Twin Jason Kubel to ground into a double play.

After the Diamondbacks threatened to spoil Peavy's Boston debut with bases loaded and nobody out in the 8th, the Red Sox go on to win Saturday's game by a 5-2 final. Peavy notches his first W with the Olde Towne Team after going 7 innings, allowing 4 hits, two earned runs and striking out seven batters.

With Friday night's 7-6 loss to Arizona, Sunday was the rubber game in the weekend series. The day game pitted Brandon McCarthy against Felix Doubront and was pretty much a scoreless pitcher's duel until the bottom of the 5th when Stephen Drew and Brock Holt led off the inning with back to back singles. The Red Sox got on the board when Drew came home from 3rd to put the Red Sox on the board and Holt came home on a Pedroia double to make it a 2-0 lead for Boston.

The Red Sox led off the bottom of the 6th with another pair of back-to-back singles- this time from Saltalamacchia and Drew- before Holt laid down a sac bunt to put runners at second and third with one out. Ellsbury and Victorino then managed to hi back-to-back RBI singles to give the Red Sox a 4-0 lead. Meanwhile, Doubront was cruising through seven innings. Matt Thornton came on to relieve Doubront in the 7th, but gave up a leadoff single to Tuffy Goesewich before leaving the game with an apparent injury [it was announced he'd travel with the team to houston and be examined by medical staff there- NANESB!]. Drake Britton came on to close out the inning.

Koji Uehara came on in the 9th and gave up a leadoff single to Gerardo Parra before getting the next three batters out to preserve the shutout and clinch the win for Boston.

Doubront pitched seven complete innings, allowing five hits and striking out five in Sunday's start. The win means the Red Sox are still in first place in the AL East by 1 game.

On Monday, the Red Sox will head to Houston's Minute Maid Park to take on the struggling Astros. This upcoming 10-game road trip will take the Sox to Houston, Kansas City and Toronto. John Lackey [7-8; 3.23 ERA] will get the start against Brett Oberholtzer [1-0; 3.77 ERA]. The game gets underway at 8:10 ET (7:10 CT) and will be televised on NESN.

ELSEWHERE IN MLB- Major League Baseball announced the suspension of 13 more players as a result of their ongoing probe into the south Florida Biogenesis anti-aging clinic that allegedly provided MLB players with Human Growth Hormone.

The most prominent name on the list includes Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who still has five years and $114 million remaining on his contract with the Yankees. A-Rod received a 211-game suspension, which would be the remainder of the 2013 season and the entire 2014 season. There was talk of a lifetime ban for A-Rod from MLB, which would've freed the Yankees from their considerable monetary and contractual obligations to Rodriguez.

Other suspensions include Tigers shortstop Jhonny Peralta, Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz, Padres shortstop Everth Cabrera, Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli and Phillies pitcher Antionio Bastardo as well as five minor-leaguers. MLB reported that many of the players agreed to waive their right to appeal in exchange for a lighter suspension. However, A-Rod never agreed to any such deal and is technically eligible to play against the White Sox this week should he appeal his suspension.

Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun accepted a 65 game suspension from MLB last month- the sanctions came a year and a half after he successfully appealed a suspension from another positive test, claiming the sample was mishandled.

NFL- Are you ready for some football?

Me neither, but the NFL preseason kicked off last night with the annual Hall of Fame game in Canton, OH with the Dallas Cowboys beating the Miami Dolphins by a 24-20 final. New England's first game will be this Friday against the Philadelphia Eagles at 7:30 ET.

US Diplomatic Posts Shuttered Throughout Middle East as Lawmakers Cite 'Specific', 'Serious' Threat in Region.

In light of a number of what lawmakers called credible and serious threats, the State Department announced that they were keeping some of their embassies and consulates in the Middle East and Africa closed through Saturday. The State Department's closing of the diplomatic missions coincides with the end of the muslim holy month of Ramadan and a series of high-profile jailbreaks last week in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Pakistan where Taliban and Al Qaeda inmates were being held.

The State Department has announced that it will keep several embassies in the Middle East and Africa closed throughout the week “out of an abundance of caution” in the wake of terror threats that shut them down.

Posts in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Cairo, Riyadh, Dhahran, Jeddah, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Sanaa, Tripoli, Antanarivo, Bujumbura, Djibouti, Khartoum, Kigali and Port Louis have been instructed to close for normal operations from Monday through Saturday, department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The State Department also said some of those embassies were already going to be closed in accordance with local customs marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Those authorized to reopen Monday are in Dhaka, Algiers, Nouakchott, Kabul, Herat, Mazar el Sharif, Baghdad, Basrah and Erbil.

Capitol Hill lawmakers, including top-ranking members of intelligence committees, on Sunday described the terror threat that closed 22 U.S. embassies and consulates across the Muslim region as the most serious one since before the 9/11 attacks and related to specific act or plot.

The sources said the chatter included Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri demanding that key leaders of the terror network in the Arabian Peninsula step up their activities in the wake of recent killings of top terrorists.

A Mideast diplomat said al-Zawahiri’s “pressuring” of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to launch new terrorist attacks on American and other Western targets is “unprecedented.”

The sources also said the U.S. outpost closings and the travel alert were prompted in part by a series of recent Al Qaeda-led prison breaks that have freed hundreds of operatives over the last month, including one this weekend in Aleppo, Syria. Other recent breaks have been orchestrated in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan and Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan.

Canada has also shut down their diplomatic mission in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka amid growing unrest in that nation while the UK, France and Germany closed down their respective embassies in Yemen.

On Saturday, a car bomb detonated outside of the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The explosion killed nine, including children from a nearby mosque. A spokesman for India's Foreign Ministry said that no Indian officials were harmed in the attack.

At Least 38 Killed in Southern Italy Bus Crash

Officials in Italy are trying to determine the cause of a deadly bus crash in the hills of Naples that killed 38 people this week. According to eyewitnesses, the bus plowed through a number of vehicles before crashing through a guardrail and plunging nearly 100 feet down an embankment.

The coach was taking about 50 people, including children, back to Naples following a pilgrimage.

The cause of the accident is not yet known. Some reports say the vehicle was travelling at speed.

The head of the local fire brigade division, Alessio Barbarulo, said barriers on bridges would normally prevent such accidents but "evidently it seems the impact was so strong that even the barrier gave way".

A survivor said the driver, who was among the dead, appeared to have lost control of the bus, possibly after a tyre punctured.

Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said the vehicle had passed its annual inspection in March, and there was no indication of technical problems.

Tests are being carried out on the driver's body as part of the investigation into what caused the accident.

The crash took place in the mountains some 50km east of Naples along the Autostrada A16- a toll highway linking Naples with Canosa di Puglia on Italy's Adriatic coast. Some of the hospitalized include occupants of the cars that the bus struck before crashing into the guard rail and going over the embankment.

This week's crash is even deadlier than last year's Costa Concordia shipwreck off of the Isloa de Giglio off the coast of Tuscany. The captain of the vessel is currently undergoing trial in Grosseto, Tuscany on multiple charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship.

Middlesex County DA Charges Man With Poisoning of Former Bulger Witness

Police have made an arrest in the death of  59 year old Stephen Rakes, who's body was found in Lincoln, MA last month. Initially ruled a suicide, an autopsy revealed that Rakes had died after drinking an iced coffee laced with cyanide.

William Camuti, 69, of Sudbury, is charged with attempted murder, misleading police, and unlawful disposition of human remains in Rakes' death. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Friday and was ordered held without bail until a hearing Tuesday.

At a press conference Friday afternoon, Ryan said Camuti lured Rakes to a McDonalds restaurant in Waltham. Ryan said Camuti put two teaspoons of potassium cyanide in Rakes' iced coffee and then drove around with Rakes in the car until he died. Ryan said he then dumped the body and removed all his identification.

Ryan said investigators believe Camuti acted alone and Rakes' death was not connected to the Bulger trial.

Camuti was convicted in 1993 of 11 counts of mail fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud investors. Court records show Camuti was soliciting money from a group of Waltham businessmen, promising to invest their money in mortgages and never following through.

Investigators say that Camuti owed Rakes a substantial amount of money and that was a likely motive in the poisoning. The Middlesex County DA's office believes the Bulger connection was a coincidence, since Rakes wasn't even on the prosecution's witness list for the current trial.

In the 1980s, Rakes owned a South Boston liquor store that he alleged Bulger and his right-hand man Steve Flemmi extorted him into selling for $67,000 in cash one night in 1984. Rakes and his family briefly fled to Florida before being summoned back to Boston by Bulger. Rakes then-wife reported the case to her uncle, a Boston Police detective, who in turn reported the takeover of the store to FBI agent John Connolly- unaware that Bulger and Flemmi were informants for the FBI and that Connolly was their handler.

Rakes said that Bulger then threatened him into changing his testimony and perjuring himself when an earlier criminal complaint was brought against Bulger in 1991, claiming the sale was voluntary. When Whitey went on the run, Rakes was charged with perjury.

Bulger and his girlfriend Catherine Greig were arrested by the FBI in Santa Monica, CA in June 2011 after more than 15 years on the run. Agents were following up on a tip from one of their neighbors [a former Miss Iceland pageant winner, no less!- NANESB!]. The agency broke the case open shortly after they decided to air a series of announcements focusing in Greig on daytime TV talk shows geared more towards women.

Up All Night Sports Chowdah Update- Sox Complete Sweep of Mariners With Extra Innings, Huge Rally.

RED SOX- Holy crap!

While I'll be the first to admit that the last couple of seasons have left me jaded, I wasn't expecting things to turn around this quickly for the Red Sox organization.

Since the All-Star break, we've seen the Red Sox take two out of three against the Yankees at Fenway [including a walkoff homer in extra-innings on a nationally televised game- NANESB!], Lester return to form in a solid start against an AL East opponent, a huge announcement involving the retention of Dustin Pedroia and one of the most sought-after players at the trade deadline land in Boston. And that was in the span of less than two weeks.

As the calendar quite literally flipped over from July to August, the Red Sox were still on the diamond- deadlocked at 4-4 after Mariners 3B Kyle Seager hit a solo homer off of Junichi Tazawa in the top of the 8th.

Although Seattle managed to get plenty of runners on base in extra innings, they were left stranded while it seemed as though the Red Sox couldn't get any runners on once the game went beyond 9.

Jared Wickerham- Getty

But with two out and bases loaded in the bottom of the 15th, Stephen Drew gave Boston the belated walkoff win with an RBI single to right field, with a 4-5 final. The win, coupled with the Arizona Diamondbacks shutting out the Tampa Bay Rays earlier that night, gave the Red Sox sole possession of first place in the AL East.

On Thursday, the Red Sox would end up facing Felix Hernandez. I gotta be honest- with King Felix going up against Ryan Dempster and a depleted Red Sox bullpen, I was ready to cede the game to Seattle. It looked as though my less-than-optimistic projections were set to come true when the Mariners jumped out to a 7-1 lead in the top of the 5th.

What happened starting in the 8th inning defies belief but makes me think that this team has that special something like the 2004 "idiots". Shane Victorino led off the bottom of the 8th with a seemingly meaningless solo homer to make it 7-2. But the Mariners escaped the 8th without any further damage before Tom Wilhelmsen came on in the bottom of the 9th to close out the game for Seattle and immediately walked Daniel Nava and gave up a single to Ryan Lavarnway before Nava came home on a Brandon Snyder RBI double to make it 7-3. After Jacoby Ellsbury was walked to load the bases with nobody out, Oliver Perez came out of the pen, only for Victorino to hit a 2 RBI single, making it a 7-5 game. Pedroia would than hit an RBI single to make it a 1-run game before Perez got Big Papi to strike out for the first out of the inning.

Already with a spectacular defensive play that sent him crashing into the Monster on Thursday night, Boston outfielder Johnny Gomes decided that wasn't enough and drove in the game-tying run with a single to shallow center field. Into the batters box stepped SS Stephen Drew with the chance to be the hero again, but he ultimately got on base after being walked by Perez. Instead, it would be up to Daniel Nava- who apparently decided he had enough of this extra-innings crap.


Red Sox win by an 8-7 final on an improbable 9th inning rally. completing a 3-game sweep of the Mariners and extending their AL East lead over the idle Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night.

On Friday night, interleague play at Fenway resumes when the Arizona Diamondbacks come to town for a weekend series. Jon Lester [10-6; 4.27 ERA] is scheduled to go up against Randall Delgado [3-3; 2.85 ERA]. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM ET and the game will be televised on NESN as well as the MLB network in some markets.