Free Republic

As many as 300 schools in South Florida have been placed on lockdown today after a woman called a radio station to warn that her husband was allegedly preparing to open fire at an area school. Capt. Dan Rakofsky of Pembroke Pines Police Department said today that an e-mail threat deemed to be "credible" was also received prompting the security measures. "Inititally we received information on a threat from a local radio station indicating a woman had called in to say her husband was going to show up at a school in Pembroke Pines and start shooting," said Rakofsky.

The Muslim convert accused of trying to hijack a Ryanair plane from Sweden to Stansted attended an American flying school leaving with a qualification to pilot light aircraft. The revelation that Kerim Chatty, 29, had taken flying lessons in the US - just like the September 11 terrorists - came as detectives investigated reports that he was planning to crash the plane into an American embassy in Europe, possibly London. An intelligence officer in Sweden told Reuters: "We know for sure that the plan was to crash the plane into a US embassy in Europe." If London were the target,...

The man suspected of killing one Miami-Dade cop and wounding three others Thursday morning in a shootout in south Miami-Dade was cornered and shot dead in a Pembroke Pines apartment complex sometime before midnight, a law enforcement source told The Miami Herald. Miami-Dade police would not confirm the information about suspect Shawn Sherwin LaBeet, but scheduled a news conference for 12:30 a.m. at its headquarters in Doral. After receiving a tip Thursday evening that LaBeet was hiding in an apartment complex in Pembroke Pines, Miami-Dade sent its SWAT team, the source told The Herald.

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. (March 15) - Carlos G. Rojas didn't know what to think when the military life insurance checks started showing up at his office. He didn't know anyone who would have named him a beneficiary, and the checks totaled $200,000. He called Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance, which pays death benefits to military families, and the customer service representatives insisted the money was his and he should cash the checks, he said. Rojas couldn't do it. "It's not like picking up a penny you just found," said Rojas, a 29-year-old marketing consultant. "Somebody's life was connected with that money."...