Terror Hits Beantown

Hello, everybody. We closed off last week with Adam Scott's win at the Masters on Sunday (its first finally for Australia after Greg Norman's numerous attempts), but his green jacket celebration would be short-lived as the attention of the world would later shift from Augusta to 1,000 miles up the road in Boston.

Two bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon on Monday, injuring 140 and killing three as a result. The first blast came from the north side of Boylston Street just yards from the finish line with the second to follow and came four hours into the race and two hours after the men's winner, Lelisa Desisa of Ethopia, crossed the finish line (Kenya's Rita Jeptoo was the women's winner).

Broken bones, shrapnel wounds, and ruptured eardrums were among the reported injuries. Two unexploded bombs were found near the end of the 26.2-mile course which attracted 23,000 runners from around the world; 34 of them are from Alaska including ten from Fairbanks, and they were all very fine at the end.

The FBI has taken over the lead role in the investigation and all of downtoqn Boston has been sealed off with the Federal Aviation Administration creating a no-fly zone over the site of the two explosions. Security was stepped up all over the country with the Secret Service expanding the White House security perimeter by shutting down Pennsylvania Avenue; however, the White House itself was not on lockdown. President Barack Obama in a news conference late afternoon made his intention that "any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice."

At the moment, we don't know who was the mastermind behind the bombings, but they are the latest in a series of many that have rocked our country over the years.

September 11, 2001 is perhaps the most notable, but others come to mind, including:

• 168 people killed and more than 500 injured as a car bomb was set off outside the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995. The two people behind it, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were convicted and executed in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison respectively.
• The Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics which killed only two people and injuring over 100. It wasn't till 2003 when Eric Robert Rudolph would be arrested and sentenced to life; he was also responsible for a later bombing in a Birmingham, Ala. abortion clinic in January 1998.
• The radical left group Weather Underground's two bombings at the U.S. Capitol and State Department buildings in 1971 and 1975.
• The World Trade Center bombing in 1993 that left six people dead and 1,000 in hospital; five extremists would be convicted. 

After Martin Luther King Jr's assassination in 1968, there was riotous bedlam in many parts of the country except Boston, where James Brown was set to do a show there. He saved the city as only he can, by televising his concert live. And now, 45 years later, we need somebody to help save Boston again after this senseless tragedy that almost destroyed them. The culprits behind it, whoever they are, may run away, but they cannot hide. And I can assure you: There will be a finish line when they're taken to custody. So long and stay strong.