Ex-Hostage Named to Head University

Fourteen years after being abducted from the American University of Beirut, former U.S. hostage David Dodge has been appointed its acting president, newspapers reported. Dodge, 74, great-grandson of university founder Daniel Bliss, will serve until a permanent president is selected, according to a university statement published in several Beirut dailies. His appointment follows the resignation of Robert Haddad, a Lebanese American who had held the post since 1993. Like Haddad, Dodge will serve from New York because of a U.S. travel ban to Lebanon following a wave of kidnappings in the 1980s. Dodge was kidnapped by pro-Iranian gunmen in 1982 and released a year later in Iran.