Free Republic

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (AP) -- A gunman fatally shot two people and wounded a third inside a Radio Shack store at a strip mall Thursday night, then shot himself to death, police said. Another customer and an employee managed to escape uninjured from the store at the Gateway Shopping Center, police spokesman Bill Proffitt said.Police did not identify the gunman, but police spokesman George Kajtsa said the man "had some mental issues, according to his family.""He was involved in some kind of a road rage incident today that the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department is investigating," Kajtsa said. He had no...

NEW PORT RICHEY - President George W. Bush greeted thousands of cheering supporters Tuesday morning at a campaign rally at Sims Park, preaching to the choir of GOP faithful that he deserves another four years in the Oval Office. Waving tiny American flags and Bush/Cheney signs provided by the organizers, the crowd chanted along as Bush repeated his trademark taunt toward his challenger, Sen. John Kerry: "You can run, but you cannot hide." With the race hinging on Florida, Bush urged people to vote early and encourage their friends to do the same. "If you're looking for sunshine, Florida is...

Police Called When Crowd Of 600 Gets Unruly Waiting For Flu Shots POSTED: 8:38 am EDT October 17, 2004 ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Police were called when a crowd of 600 people got unruly after gathering at a St. Petersburg supermarket for hoped-for flu shots. Less than 300 doses were on hand. Store managers called police after people started screaming and hollering for tickets for the shots. Two officers and a sergeant helped restore calm. Some people spent the night in sleeping bags to be near the front of the line. Elderly men and women waited in wheelchairs and leaned...

President Bush has so polarized this country, and so antagonized most of the rest of the world, that it's easy to forget the breadth of the domestic and international support he enjoyed just three years ago. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the president showed solid leadership when a wounded nation needed it most. And when he quickly ordered our forces to retaliate in Afghanistan against al-Qaida and its Taliban protectors, his decision won virtually unanimous backing at home and abroad. Blah Blah Let's suck on Kerry's Vietnam jungle rot-infested toes Blah Blah Blah

21 May, 2004 RUSSIA: Spread of neo-paganism brings racism and violence Livna (AsiaNews/ agencies)- “Neo-paganism” has gathered such a following in the former Soviet Union that organizations, seminars and books are sprouting up throughout the country, claiming adherents. According to Viktor Shnirelman, compiler of the book “Neo-paganism on the Expanses of Euroasia”, St. Petersburg has become the main center of Russian neo-paganism, though cults and organized ‘churches’ have spread throughout every part of the country. On May 13th there was the arrests of three suspects in two incidents of arson against the church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother...

December 3, 2002 C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet SmallpoxBy JUDITH MILLER he C.I.A. is investigating an informant's accusation that Iraq obtained a particularly virulent strain of smallpox from a Russian scientist who worked in a smallpox lab in Moscow during Soviet times, senior American officials and foreign scientists say. The officials said several American scientists were told in August that Iraq might have obtained the mysterious strain from Nelja N. Maltseva, a virologist who worked for more than 30 years at the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow before her death two years ago. The information came to...

ONE of the few remaining statues of Vladimir Illich Lenin in St Petersburg, the city that formerly bore his name, was pulled down and smashed by persons unknown, police said on Tuesday. The statue of the founder of the Soviet Union was toppled and broken into several pieces in the St Petersburg suburb of Pushkin, they said. After the Russian revolution of 1917, the former imperial capital was renamed Leningrad, but reverted to St Petersburg after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Although many of the thousands of statues of Lenin erected throughout the country still remain, there...

Vandals defiled a Jewish cemetery in St. Petersburg, painting swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti on about 50 graves, Jewish leaders said Monday. Mark Grubarg, head of the St. Petersburg Jewish Religious Community, said the vandalism occurred Saturday night at the cemetery, one of the largest Jewish burial places in Russia's former imperial capital. "We are in shock," he said. The cemetery had suffered some isolated cases of vandalism before, Grubarg said, but nothing approaching the scale of the latest incident. "Any nation is sensitive to acts of vandalism at cemeteries but Jews are particularly sensitive, especially when it concerns fascist signs,"...

** ACTION ALERT ** "WEDDING" Annoucement in St. Pete TimesFREEP St. Petersburg Times - 1-800-333-7505 x8735 ---- PRESS zero to speak with live person and tell them you disapprove of this....

Mavro-Schuler Frank Christopher Mavro and John "Michael" Schuler were married Oct. 29, 2003, at Two Hearts Wedding Chapel in Niagara Falls, Canada. Mavro, above left, is the son of Rosemary and Paul Rogers of Seminole. Schuler is the son of Steve and Linda Schuler of Clearwater. Mavro is a graduate of Union Hill High School (N.J.). He attends St. Petersburg College. Schuler is a graduate of Osceola High School. He attends SPC and served in the Army. They live in Largo.

The St. Petersburg city council passed a law Monday designed to scuttle a rock group's plans to feature an onstage suicide. The hard-rock band Hell on Earth had said that a suicide by a terminally ill person would take place during a concert Saturday to raise awareness of right-to-die issues. In response, the city council met Monday morning to unanimously approve an emergency ordinance making it illegal to conduct a suicide for commercial or entertainment purposes, and to host, promote and sell tickets for such an event. "While I still think it's a publicity stunt, we still couldn't sit idly...

How about a horse for governor? Walking down Nevsky Prospekt on Wednesday, you were likely to be stopped by several clowns introducing a horse to you and asking you to support it. This was, of course, no ordinary horse: According to a large poster next to it, the horse is running for St. Petersburg governor and is supported by the president. Pedestrians crossing Anichkov Bridge, which has statues of men straining to hold prancing horses on its four corners, were asked whether they would elect a horse if the president so requested and were invited to vote by putting an...

Combined Reports / The warship INS Talwar sitting at port in St. Petersburg during a ceremony to mark its official delivery to Indian naval officials. ST. PETERSBURG -- The Indian navy took possession on Wednesday of the first of three Russian-built warships that boast "stealth-type" technology and should significantly increase the navy's reach. The INS Talwar, a 4,000-metric ton Krivak Class warship, was delivered to Indian naval officials during a ceremony at the northern port of St. Petersburg. The ship has been designed to make it less visible to enemy radar than conventional destroyers, and the Indian navy uses the...

It is not easy to manage the legacy of a great man, especially when the evil that he had fought, and often defeated, returns with a vengeance after his death. Which is why it was both in sorrow and in anger that I refused recently to endorse the plan to erect a monument to my late husband, Andrei D. Sakharov, in his hometown, Moscow. For I know that Andrei would have turned in his grave if I'd allowed his name and his likeness to become a part of the Potemkin village that the Russian government is trying to erect before...

A major terror attack on the city of St Petersburg during its tricentennial celebrations was thwarted last weekend, according to Russian security sources. A plot to drive trucks laden with explosives into the city where dozens of world leaders and thousands of civilians were attending the festivities, was planned by 'Islamic fundamentalists' said one senior official who confirmed the threat was 'serious'. He added the perpetrators had been identified, but were still at large. He declined to provide further detail for risk of disclosing 'operational data'. Security was so tight at the summit - one of the largest gatherings ever...

Bush rescues Putin's St Petersburg bashBy Pavel Ivanov Once the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin in his poem Peter the Great referred to St Petersburg, now the unofficial second Russian capital, as the "window to Europe". He emphasized that by founding Russia's "northern capital", the great emperor opened the country to the outside world and thus started a new epoch leading to Russia's joining the exclusive club of world powers. By staging the grandiose celebration of St Petersburg's 300th anniversary at the end of the last week, the current Russian authorities tried to remind the world that this window is...

<p>SUMMIT SHOW: Ballet dancers perform in front of fireworks Saturday at Peterhof Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.</p> <p>STRELNYA, Russia - Having wined, dined and entertained about 45 global leaders long into Friday night, President Vladimir Putin shuttled Europe's heads of state to an opulent czarist palace outside St. Petersburg on Saturday morning to request politely they open their borders wider to visiting Russians.</p>

Offer cements renewed Bush-Putin strategic partnership forged in St. Petersburg yesterday.(referring to strained relationship over the Gulf War-ed)

Russia's second city, St. Petersburg, is hosting 10 days of events to mark its 300th anniversary. The celebration peaks this weekend, with the arrival of 45 foreign leaders and an estimated 15,000 official guests. Commemorative flags billow from nearly every major building. Tall ships ply the ink-colored river Neva, and music sounds from flower-laden parks and squares. Residents and tourists alike are celebrating the official date of the city's founding in 1703 by Czar Peter the Great, who hailed St. Petersburg as a Window on Europe. An estimated two million foreigners are expected to visit the city and its cultural...