"We each took an aisle," Ledez said. The two men did a sweep of the plane to ensure that nobody had been left behind.

Inside, it looked like "disaster had hit. It was really hard to see. Stuff was everywhere. It was very smoky."

Satisfied the craft was empty, they headed to the front of the plane, where the exit didn't have an emergency chute. The first man jumped, but just as Ledez was about to, an explosion rocked the rear of the plane. He jumped at least five metres to the ground and just started running. "The only time I had a rational thought was when I was in the plane and about to jump out. I thought, `Oh my God, I could die.'"

I love to play baseball. I'm a baseball player. I've always been a baseball player. I'm still a baseball player. That's who I am. ... I was a baseball player when I was ten or 12 years old pretending to be Willie Stargell or Johnny Bench or Luis Tiant, when my bat was an old fungo, my ball was a plastic golf ball, when the field was the street and my older brother Del and I would play all day.

I have a message for the young kids. Life is about obstacles, endeavors in life are not to be overlooked. Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but how we react to what happens, not by what life brings us but the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results.

The next exciting moment I had in broadcasting took place in Kansas City, a hot day like this, twice as hot, humid. Broadcasters on television took off their jackets and in this case their pants to stay cool. And don't laugh yet. It gets worse. And finally I had to go from the radio booth to the elevision booth, which I did, a little cat walk. I went right across there and it was wonderful and I'm sitting down doing the game happily and all of a sudden a hand on my shoulder. I turned around. It was a policeman. He said, "Put on your pants." Some woman had complained. I didn't think my legs were that bad to be honest with you.

...baseball more than any sport is who we are. It is reflected in our immigration patterns, our history because we're all immigrants. We should want the world to see us not for our politics, not for our business, but for baseball as our metamorphic soul, inclusive, not exclusive, diverse, not divisive, fraternal, not fractionalized.

If any of you are familiar with the Cape Cod League you probably might have heard of Arnie Allen, a special needs gentleman who for 40 years was a batboy for the Falmouth Commodores. He was diagnosed with brain cancer in the summer of 2002. 72 hours later a duffel bag of Angels paraphanalia arrived in Falmouth, courtesy of two Falmouth players, Darin Erstad and Adam Kennedy. Of course the Angels went on to the world series in 2002 and after winning one incredible sixth game coming from five nothing deficit in the eight inning. Before game seven Erstad and Kennedy pulled me aside before they went out to stretch, they told me, we know you are going to be speaking at the Hall of Fame in deductions in two weeks on the Cape. They said in unison, "as you speak, could you do us a favor, Arnie will be there probably for the last time. Could you just tell him that Darin and Adam Kennedy said, we are thinking of him before they went out and won the World Series?"

Royalty came to town last night and did not disappoint. Rock Hall of Famer Paul McCartney lived up to the history of the Beatles and more with a 21/2-hour show that was off the charts for its brilliance before a sold-out crowd at the FleetCenter.

. . . . . .

McCartney kept building the momentum, whipping through ''Eleanor Rigby,'' a crackling ''Back in the U.S.S.R.'' (with guitarist Rusty Anderson ripping off hot licks), and on to Wings' ''Maybe I'm Amazed'' and ''Live and Let Die,'' along with a smoking version of the Beatles' ''Can't Buy Me Love,'' before settling into the more soothing, peace-laden grooves of ''Let It Be'' and ''Hey Jude.''

. . . . . .

Whatever has been motivating McCartney lately - whether it's his romance with fiancee Heather Mills or the wakeup call from Harrison's death - it has all been poured into this magnificent comeback performance.

The new building on Causeway Street has not exactly been a house of good luck. The Celtics never had played a playoff game at the FleetCenter before yesterday, and the Bruins were 4-6 in postseason play at the Vault.

But some old magic visited the arena Friday when the greatest living Beatle put on a show for the ages ...

Mr. Sharon: But if you go into Iraq, won't you just raise another Saddam and more suicide bombing like 9/11? There will be an entire generation of Arabs who will hate you for attacking Baghdad -- especially in such a one-sided, asymmetrical war, when the tanks and planes are all on your side. Aren't you worried that ten Arabs will die for every lost American -- how will that play in Europe and the Middle East?

When John Paul II looks into the eyes of the American cardinals next week and sees that the integrity of their authority is gone, simply gone - what will he do? The old man has one last opportunity for greatness - an opportunity presented by the awful truth of what the church has become.

In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times' Web site.

"I think it's a sucker bet," Winer said in a phone interview. "There are half a million Web logs now, and in five years there'll be a lot more."

... the innovators who are busy inventing that future live in a world of their own. They see and act on premises not yet apparent to others. In the computer industry, these are the folks I affectionately call "the alpha geeks," the hackers who have such mastery of their tools that they "roll their own" when existing products don't give them what they need.

She scans crowds for a heavy coat, a sweaty brow, whitened knuckles and other signs of an imminent confrontation with walking death. When the moment comes, she will do the opposite of what most people would do. She will attack, trying to overpower the bomber before he or she turns her into another victim.

"Either you respond or you freeze," Uzan said. "A lot of people are depending on you. It's very hard to train for this. How do you train for something like that? You work mainly on your mind, how fast you are, how alert you are."

. . . . . .

... three police officers struggled with Salah, held him face down and pulled off his shirt and pants. A bomb squad expert arrived and tried to defuse the explosive, but Salah rolled around trying to press the trigger button on his stomach against the cement ...

The Arab blood Mr. Arafat has spilled includes anyone agitating for democracy, anyone suspected of collaborating with Israel, Jordanians who stood in his way in 1970, and Lebanese who stood in his way in 1982. Only a couple of months ago, he pulled a pistol on one of his Cabinet members. He is, as he always was, a brutal terrorist ? the complete moral equivalent of Osama bin Laden. Indeed there is no act bin Laden has performed that was not cheered excitedly by Mr. Arafat's hate-imbued people.

We are witnessing a parade of young people who finally figured out what they want to be when they grow up: dead. And we are witnessing a culture that cheers and glorifies this ghoulish march.