Digest

Armed man was ill, not terrorist

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published October 24, 2007

HOMESTEAD

A Kuwaiti-born math teacher wielding butcher knives and vodka bottles he intended to ignite as explosives was trying to commit suicide, not an act of terrorism, when he attacked military police at Homestead Air Reserve Base, FBI officials said. Tahmeed Ahmad, 22, had been added to a federal terrorist watch list, but officials concluded he was not a credible threat, said Lt. Col. Tom Davis, a base spokesman. Ahmad drove to the base's west entrance Sunday night, got out of his car and then charged the officers, according to an FBI criminal complaint. The officers were not injured. Ahmad's mother said the first-year teacher at Miami Central High School is mentally ill and had recently been in a mental institution, where officials reported he tried killing himself.

MIAMI

Greek archbishop is returning home

Archbishop Christodoulos, leader of Greece's Orthodox Church, will return to Greece for chemotherapy after a liver transplant early this month was halted because cancer had spread to his abdominal cavity, his doctor said Tuesday. Transplant specialist Andreas Tzakis, director of the University of Miami's organ transplant institute, said Christodoulos would likely go home this week. The archbishop, 68, was diagnosed with cancer in June after undergoing intestinal surgery, and had spent 40 days in a hospital in Athens. He waited 50 days for a compatible liver.

FORT MYERS

Plane crashes into cars near mall

No one was injured when a small plane crashed into parked cars in Fort Myers. Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen says the single-engine Taylorcraft Grasshopper was leaving Page Field General Aviation Airport when it crashed into a parking lot near Edison Mall. The pilot, Doug Jenkins, was having engine problems and tried making it back to the field. Jenkins had one passenger. The plane hit two parked cars. Bergen says no one was injured.

[Last modified October 24, 2007, 01:13:16]