Monday, March 10, 2014

Few New Leads in Search for Missing Jet Carrying 239; Is Putin Pushing Ukraine's View West? Burnley Rallies Past Blackburn Rovers

BALTIMORE, Maryland March 10, 2014 2:00 am- The most amazing news about the search for a missing Malaysian Airlines Flight with 239 people on board, going on now for more than two days is that there is virtually no news at all. News sources usually overflowing with information have nothing new to report. The big news for the second day of the frantic search is that, near nightfall in the waters off of Vietnam, a search plane saw something floating in the water. The searchers on the plane said it "might" have been a door from the missing airplane. They said it was already too dark to be sure. Also, a review of Malaysian Military Radar has raised the possibility that the plane may have turned around and headed back to Kuala Lumpur, where the flight originated. Aircraft and ships from nearly one-half dozen nations, including the United States, are combing the South China Sea and other adjacent bodies of water, looking for anything that could lead to discovery of the missing plane. It left Kuala Lumpur just after midnight Saturday and was due in Beijing, China at 6:30 am. Air controllers lost contact with the flight about one hour after it took off. At the time the plane, with a very experienced captain in the driver's seat, had attained an altitude of 35,000 feet.

Reuters said this morning that sources within the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a prime topic of investigators is the posibility that the airplane disintegrated at 35,000 feet. This posibility would answer several questions. It would explain why searchers are not finding a debris field floating in the ocean. And it would explain wny there was no mayday call from the cockpit. Reuters said the source indicated that the kind of incident that would have led to such a sudden disintegration is a bomb or some other catastrophic event that led to a similar explosion.

Russians tighten Crimean Grip In the Crimea, Russia has bolstered its military presence and showed no signs of pulling back from holding a referendum late this week on wresting this historic Black Sea peninsula away from Ukraine and adding it to Russian holdings. But American Legislator Ron Paul, a Kentucky Senator, made the observation Sunday that if Russian Strong Man Vladimir Putin doesn't blink and annexes Crimea at Ukraine's expense, he will certainly drive the remaining portion of Ukraine into the Western Sphere of Influence. As things currently stand, there are enough ethnic Russians in Ukraine to keep native Ukrainians from turning the country to the west. With the huge chunk of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine taken away from the Russian block of voters, native Ukrainians will have a much easier time of pointing the large Eastern European country west.

Sports: Burnley rallies past the Blackburn Rovers Burnley will awaken this Monday morning eight points clear of its nearest competitor in the English Championship League. The Claret, one of English soccer's oldest teams, has 12 matches remaining as it seeks a return to the Premier League. Sunday it beat Blackburn in the 101st renewal of the series between the two Lancashire teams, 2-1, scoring twice in the final 20 minutes to erase a Blackburn advantage that had stood since midway through the first half. It was the first Burnley win in the series since April, 1979. Danny Ings, a steady scorer throughout this magical season for Burnley, scored the winning goal in the 79th minute. It was his 25th of the season. Jason Shackell headed home the first Burnley score six minutes earlier. Before that, Blackburn had the home crowd cheering as it maintained a 1-0 lead provided them in the 24th minute by Jordan Rhodes.

The top of the 24 team Championship League looks like this today: Leicester City leads with 74 points, followed by Burnley with 69 points. These two teams occupy the two automatic promotion positions. In the four places - third through sixth - that will play a single eliminaton tournament at season's end for a third promotion spot - are Derby County with 61 points, the Queen's Park Rangers with 60 points, Nottingham Forest with 55 points and, tied for the sixth spot, Wigan Athletic and Reading with 52 points each. There are nine clubs bunched with between 39 and 48 points which still entertain hopes of sneaking into the top six spots. A full table can be viewed here: http://espnfc.com/tables/_/league/eng.2/season/2013?cc=5901

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