Free Republic

The president of Uzbekistan on Wednesday offered his country's assistance in investigating the deadly terror attack in the lower Manhattan area of New York City. The suspect in the attack was identified as an Uzbek national, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, but the country has been linked to at least three other terrorist incidents over the last year. In April, Uzbek national Rakhmat Akilov drove a truck into pedestrians in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people. Earlier that same month, Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Russian citizen who was born in Kyrgyzstan...

The State Department has informed Congress that it plans to shutter its last two consulates in Russia over caps set by Moscow on the number of diplomats that are allowed in the country. In a letter to congressional leaders sent Dec. 10 and obtained by The Hill, the administration said it will permanently close its Vladivostok consulate and temporarily halt work at the consulate in Yekaterinburg. The letter confirming the closures was sent three days before news broke of a major hack of U.S. government agencies that is believed to have been conducted by an elite Russian cyber espionage unit....

Russia's navy has been forced to cancel its annual flagship event in St Petersburg, in a humiliating blow for Vladimir Putin. Navy Day is a major national holiday and is held on the last Sunday of July, celebrated by the public and military alike. The event is used by the Kremlin to show off its latests ships and technology, as it attempts to project its naval power to the watching world. As the maritime capital of Russia, St Petersburg holds a Main Naval Parade along the River Neva, which is normally attended by the Russian president. Usually ships from the...

Newly released CIA memoranda suggest the tech gurus behind the Alfa Bank hoax also tracked Donald Trump’s movements to devise another collusion conspiracy theory. Newly released CIA memoranda suggest the tech gurus behind the Alfa Bank hoax also tracked Donald Trump’s movements to devise another collusion conspiracy theory. While smaller in scale than other aspects of Spygate, the Yotaphone hoax represents an equally serious scandal because it involved both the mining of proprietary information and sensitive data from the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and the apparent surveillance of Trump’s physical movements. When Special Counsel John Durham charged former...

[Catholic Caucus] Florida bishop preserves thriving Latin Mass community by establishing shrineBishop Gregory Parkes said the new Latin Mass shrine in Tampa Bay will be a ‘place of pilgrimage for those throughout the Diocese devoted to the liturgical fruits of the antecedent liturgy.’A Florida bishop has announced that a growing parish with a strong devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) will become a diocesan shrine and be placed under the pastoral care of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP).Bishop Gregory Parkes of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, announced on March 25 that the Epiphany of...

EXCLUSIVE — Another radical leftist was caught on Tesla Sentry Mode, this time throwing his dogs feces at a parked Cybertruck in St. Petersburg, FL. The owner needs help locating this suspect to pursue criminal and legal action— if anyone has any information, please DM us. 0:06 VIDEO AT LINK..................

After years of Russiagate conspiracy theories about how the Russians had somehow rigged the 2016 presidential election using Facebook ads, the Senate Intelligence report awkwardly revealed that the Russian operation had focused most of its attention on black nationalists. The Senate report revealed that "most of the videos" put out by the Russian IRA troll factory on YouTube "pertained to police brutality and the activist efforts of the Black Lives Matter organization" and found that "no single group of Americans was targeted... more than African-Americans" around "race and related issues". But that was an understatement. The Russians had created their...

The country’s prime minister said the incident, the latest in a series of disruptions to undersea infrastructure, underscored the danger of a so-called Russian shadow fleet.The Finnish police on Thursday boarded an oil tanker that the authorities said they suspected was involved in damaging vital undersea cables. They suggested the tanker was part of a shadow fleet used by Russia to avoid Western sanctions.The Estlink 2 submarine cable, which carries electricity between Finland and Estonia, was cut on Wednesday, Finland’s police said in a statement, the latest in a slew of disruptions to undersea infrastructure that are being investigated as...

A Florida GOP congressional candidate was recently secretly recorded threatening Republican rival Anna Paulina Luna with “a Russian and Ukrainian hit squad” that would make her “disappear.” That’s according to a recording obtained by Politico that comes from a conservative activist who says she taped her conversation with William Braddock over concerns about his “unhinged” dislike of his competitor. During a 30-minute call with a conservative activist that was recorded before he became a candidate, William Braddock repeatedly warned the activist to not support GOP candidate Anna Paulina Luna in the Republican primary for a Tampa Bay-area congressional seat because...

A former congressional candidate was charged over allegations that he threatened to dispatch a hit squad to murder his political opponent while he was running against Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) William Braddock, 41, of St. Petersburg, Fla. is accused of making the alleged threats on June 8, 2021 — including one where he threatened to “call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” to take out his rival. Prosecutors did not outright name the victim, but at the time, he was vying against fellow Republican Luna and he was allegedly caught on audio calling the lawmaker a “dead squirrel” and “a...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Trial began Tuesday in Florida for four activists accused of illegally acting as Russian agents to help the Kremlin sow political discord and interfere in U.S. elections. All four are or were affiliated with the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement, which has locations in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis... In his opening statement, Justice Department attorney Menno Goedman said the group’s members acted under Russian direction to stage protests in 2016 claiming Black people have been victims of genocide in the U.S. and took other actions for the following six years that would...

A Florida woman has found herself behind bars after she allegedly barged into a gas station while naked and drunk, threatening to kill staff members with a peeler/corer knife. Celia Barrett, 35, was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated assault, disorderly intoxication, criminal mischief, exposure of sexual organs and trespassing after the incident that unfolded at the RaceTrac at 2551 54th Ave. in St. Petersburg, according to an arrest affidavit from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. Barrett, who was previously trespassed from this gas station back in November, returned on Sunday evening after taking six shots of liquor,...

A giant warehouse near St Petersburg has gone up in smoke after the Russian workers there set the entire facility ablaze. The action was reportedly taken after Russian police raided the Wildberries warehouse to find people to conscript to fight the war in Ukraine. According to Russian media sources the incident is currently under investigation by the state prosecutor's office. According to APA's Russian bureau, there is currently no available information regarding the number of casualties or injuries caused by the fire. The fire took hold of the 50 thousand square metre site and required hundreds of firefighters to bring...

During the traffic stop, she allegedly attacked a Florida Highway Patrol trooper with her fingernails. The incident occurred around 8:30 p.m. in St. Petersburg, FHP said. A Mercedes being driven by Bianchi allegedly raced past a trooper on the Gandy Bridge. As the trooper was trying to take her into custody for driving under the influence, she allegedly became “violent” and dug her fingernails into the trooper’s hands... also charged with resisting officer with violence, battery on law enforcement, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, speeding and no insurance. She was taken to the Pinellas County Jail, where her...

The man charged with having a deceased female body in his vehicle after leading police on a 37-mile pursuit along Interstate 75 is now set for a preliminary hearing. David Maurice Reed, 54, of St. Petersburg, Florida, was arraigned Friday in Laurel District Court on charges of murder - domestic violence, tampering with physical evidence, first-degree fleeing and evading police in a motor vehicle, second-degree criminal abuse, second-degree wanton endangerment with police officer as victim, careless driving, resisting arrest, and no operator's/moped license. Reed was spotted in Madison County on Wednesday, Jan. 18, weaving in traffic along I-75. The vehicle's...

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. – A Florida man is facing charges after police said he assaulted a police horse. St. Petersburg Police said Alisha Lalani, 27, walked up to them while they were on duty on Saturday and used an open hand to slap the rear of the animal. According to a arrest report, the horses were wearing police insignia and flashing blue lights when Lalani approached them. Police said Lalani told them he didn’t know he was not allowed to hit the horses. Lalani was arrested and faces a charge of battery on a police horse.

A Florida woman was arrested on Thanksgiving after driving recklessly toward a closed course for a 5K turkey trot that was in progress, according to WESH. Some 3,000 runners were participating in the Coffee Pot Turkey Trot in St. Petersburg, Florida, when Ashlee Lauren Morgan, 38, was “driving recklessly south on Coffee Pot Boulevard Northeast, approaching the Snell Isle Bridge,” according to the St. Petersburg police department. She was pulled over and three officers requested her credentials. She refused, according to reports, and fled the scene “at a high rate of speed onto the race course.” Another officer attempted to...

He was perhaps too buzzed on Thanksgiving. A Florida business owner has been busted after his girlfriend accused him of drunkenly battering her with her sex toy. Christopher Pacitto, the 45-year-old CEO and owner of Velocity Engineering Services, was arrested after a 4:30 a.m. bust-up with his girlfriend at a St. Petersburg motel on Thanksgiving Day, an arrest affidavit shows. During an argument, the 6-foot-2, 300-pound business owner started packing his bags — then throwing all of his girlfriend’s items out onto the floor, the complaint says. “During that process” he “hit her with a sex toy on her torso,...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — A St. Petersburg woman was arrested Saturday afternoon after police say she allegedly threatened a man with a sword. An arrest report said Quiana Manning, 41, had gotten into an argument with the man over a parking spot in her apartment complex. Police said the woman exited her vehicle and approached the victim’s box truck while wielding a sword, described as being approximately two feet in length. According to the report, the woman raised the sword close to the man’s open driver’s side window and told him “you can get f— up.” The document said...

Inflation is impacting the entire United States population as prices continue to be a burden for families, but certain California cities are feeling the impact more than others. In a new study from WalletHub, cities were ranked on how much inflation is rising. The study pointed to the year-over-year inflation rate of 8.2% last month, but noted that some cities are feeling costs increase more than others. In the report, 23 Metropolitan Statistical Areas were examined. The site looked at the Consumer Price Index information available for the most recent month and compared it to two months ago and one...