Eight American missionaries freed by a Haitian judge landed in Miami, Florida, today, nearly three weeks after the group was charged with kidnapping for trying to take 33 children out of the quake-stricken country.

Passengers on the American Airlines plane that overshot the runway in Jamaica and stopped just seconds away from the sea told of their terrifying ordeal today.

AN American Airlines flight carrying 154 people skidded across a Jamaican runway in heavy rain, bouncing across the tarmac and injuring more than 40 people before it stopped just short of the Caribbean Sea, officials and witnesses said.

A holiday jet crashed on landing in Jamaica today, stopping just short of plunging into the sea.

An American Airlines flight from Miami overshot a runway and broke in two during a heavy rainstorm in Kingston, Jamaica early today, injuring dozens of people.

Passengers said they thought they were going to die as they were hurled over seats and slammed against luggage bins when turbulence hit their flight from Brazil to the US.

Former FBI agent John Connolly was sentenced yesterday to 40 years in prison for the 1982 mob-related killing of a Miami gambling executive.

OJ Simpson will be brought before a judge next week to answer allegations that he broke the terms of his bail in a Las Vegas armed robbery case.

A terminal at Miami International Airport was evacuated briefly today as US authorities checked on a possible explosive device.

Local Miami television station WFOR TV is reporting that US authorities found what appeared to be an explosive device in an X-ray machine at the airport.

US airports and public transport systems are tightening security today following the terrorist incidents in Britain.

A passenger on board a British Airways flight to Miami was taken to hospital today after she fell ill, health officials said.

Federal security workers in the US have started using hand-held scanners to inspect bottled carry-on liquids for explosives at some of the country's busiest airports, the government said today.

The captain of a cruise ship that sank in the Aegean Sea has been charged with negligence.

A US Supreme Court justice today denied a motion by Anna Nicole Smith’s mother, Virgie Arthur, to halt the burial of the former Playboy Playmate and take her body to Texas, according to reports tonight.

A white hearse carrying Anna Nicole Smith’s body drove toward a Bahamas church today where the former Playboy Playmate and reality TV star was to be laid to rest in a beaded gown and tiara after a tightly guarded memorial service.

The coffin holding Anna Nicole Smith’s body was today loaded onto a private flight to the Bahamas for her funeral, after weeks of legal wrangling over where the pin-up should be buried.

Anna Nicole Smith’s body will leave for the Bahamas by private plane tomorrow morning, and the starlet will be buried hours later, said the attorney given control of her remains after weeks of legal fighting.

Police shot a man at one of America’s busiest airports after he grabbed a three-year-old boy at knifepoint and ran through a security area.

The son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor was ordered held without bail today on US passport fraud charges.

By all accounts, Rigoberto Alpizar was frantic as he darted off a plane at Miami International Airport, bumping past passengers and yelling that he needed to get off the aircraft.

SHORTLY after boarding a plane, passengers say they saw a man bolt from his seat and run down the aisle, with his screaming wife and man in a Hawaiian shirt behind.

Shots were fired today on board an American Airlines jet that had landed at Miami International Airport wounding at least one person.

Argentina’s foreign minister was detained and questioned at Miami International Airport after he allegedly requested permission to enter the cockpit of a plane to question pilots about why the flight was delayed.

A street gang leader who led the rebellion that forced Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to flee has been arrested in Miami, officials said today.

A routine security check at Miami International Airport turned into a diplomatic flap when the unhappy subjects turned out to be the future king of Spain and his fiancée.

A man was arrested at Miami International Airport today after officials found a razor blade and a hacksaw blade in his shoe.

A small plane has crashed into the Federal Reserve Bank Building in Miami.

Saddam Hussein’s stepson has been arrested on immigration charges in Florida, where he had enrolled to take classes at a flight school, authorities said.

A US jetliner was preparing for takeoff from Miami with 124 passengers on board when officials called it back to the terminal and arrested both pilots for allegedly being drunk in the cockpit.

Singer Dionne Warwick was arrested when baggage screeners at Miami International Airport said they found 11 suspected marijuana cigarettes inside her lipstick container.

Routine inspection of an express courier package that reached Miami airport uncovered gifts for toddlers and 38lbs (17 kilos) of heroin worth an estimated £1m, Customs officials said.