Nation in brief: Police kill suspect in officer shooting

A gunman opened fire on four Miami-Dade County police officers during a traffic stop Thursday, killing one and injuring the other three. Police killed a suspect hours later, authorities said.

Officers from police departments across South Florida had been searching for 12 hours for a suspect, who investigators identified as Shawn Sherwin Labeet, 25. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez said Labeet was found shortly before midnight Thursday in a Pembroke Pines apartment complex about 30 miles north of the initial shooting scene.

“There was an exchange of gunfire and the subject was shot and killed,” Alvarez said.

Richmond, Va.

Democrat Warner to run for Senate

Former Gov. Mark Warner announced Thursday that he will run next year for the U.S. Senate.

Warner, still popular 20 months after leaving office and with a personal fortune exceeding $200 million, threatens to take from the reeling GOP a Senate seat it has held since 1972 and widen the Democrats’ one-seat majority.

Warner announced his candidacy in a video e-mailed to supporters. He is trying to win the seat held by Republican Sen. John Warner, who is retiring after 30 years in office.

The two are friends but are not related.

The Villages, Fla.

Thompson takes no Schiavo stand

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson gave no opinion Thursday when asked about efforts by President Bush and Congress to keep Terri Schiavo alive, saying he does not remember details of the right-to-die case that stirred national debate.

Thompson was asked in an interview for Bay News 9’s “Political Connections” program whether he thought Congress’ intervention to save the life of the brain-damaged woman two years ago was appropriate.

“I can’t pass judgment on it. I know that good people were doing what they thought was best,” Thompson said. “That’s going back in history. I don’t remember the details of it.”

Congress passed a bill after Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed in March 2005 to allow a federal court to review the case, and Bush returned from his Texas ranch to sign the bill into law. But a federal judge refused to order the tube reinserted, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court.

Thompson, a former Tennessee senator who left office in 2003, did say, “Local matters, generally speaking, should be left to the locals. I think Congress has got an awful lot to keep up with.”