Free Republic

A Palo Alto man is charged with clubbing a teenage boy during an odd Portola Valley robbery attempt that ended with him plunging down a ravine in his SUV, a prosecutor said Thursday. Stefan Dombovic, 21, pleaded not guilty Wednesday in San Mateo County Superior Court to robbery, assault and burglary charges stemming from the Sunday night confrontation, District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said. The trouble started when a 13-year-old boy who heard a vehicle pull into his Portola Valley driveway at around 10:10 p.m. Without waking his parents, he went to investigate. The boy spotted a man rummaging through his...

Russian special services had a surveillance tape of the militants fighting about whether to stay or flee just before a bomb they had planted in the school gym went off, prompting Russian commandos to storm the building, a senior Kremlin official said. Investigators were exploring whether the bomb detonated by accident or as a result of the internal dispute.

BESLAN, Russia (AP) - A shaken President Vladimir Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness Saturday in the face of an "all-out war" by terrorists after more than 340 people - nearly half of them children - were killed in a hostage-taking at a southern school. Putin went on national television to tell Russians they must mobilize against terrorism. He promised wide-ranging reforms to toughen security forces and purge corruption. "We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," he said in a speech aimed at addressing the grief, shock and anger felt by many after a string...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov was killed on Sunday in an explosion at a stadium in the Chechen capital Grozny, Interfax news agency reported. The agency also reported that at least one person had died and 25 others were injured in the explosion.