St. Thomas police have reportedly released three males who were picked up Monday as suspects in a downtown store holdup.
The three have not been charged as the investigation continues into the armed robbery of the Snap Shop photo studio on Norre Gade.
The owner, Betsy Berretta, was injured during a struggle but no shots were fired by the three armed suspects who stormed the business at mid-afternoon Monday.
The three were picked up several hours later in Four Winds Plaza, and because one of them was wearing a cast on his arm, police believed he fit the description of one of the holdup men.
It is not clear whether police still consider the three prime suspects. At last word, authorities were seeking eyewitnesses who may be able to provide positive identification.
Police have asked anyone with information to contact police detectives at 774-4050 or emergency 911.

A major investigation may soon be launched in the retail pricing structure for gasoline on St. Thomas and St. John, reaching beyond prior probes into the high cost of motor fuel in the district.
WVWI/Radio One quoted unnamed sources on Tuesday evening as saying that the effort will be aimed at determining whether dealers who ought to be competitors are actually collaborating to set prices. They were quoted as saying the investigation may involve federal authorities.
Sen. David Jones of St. Croix recently threatened to bring charges of price fixing unless dealers voluntarily lowered their price per gallon by 15 cents. No rollback has occurred.
One industry source told Radio One that service station owners are waiting to see what action will be initiated before they act.
Although the report suggested that some initiative is imminent, no timetable was given.

A major investigation may soon be launched in the pricing structure for retail gasoline prices in the St. Thomas-St. John district. And it will go beyond the reach of prior inquiries into the high cost of retail gasoline in this district.
WVWI Radio One quoted unnamed sources Tuesday evening as saying that the effort will be aimed at determining whether dealers who ought to be competitors are actually collaborating to set prices, and that federal authorities might be involved in the investigation.
Recently, St. Croix Sen. David Jones threatened to level charges of price fixing unless dealers voluntarily lowered the price per gallon by 15 cents. That has not occurred.
One industry source told Radio One that gas companies have taken a wait-and-see approach to see what action will be initiated before they act.
Although the report suggested that some initiative is imminent, no timetable was given.

Once again, I am utterly flabbergasted at the intestinal fortitude of some mid ranked people who just happen to work (?)for the V.I. government. Do the people that approved these raises (at GERS) at this particularly terrible fiscal time in the history of the Virgin Islands, think that they can actually get away with this?!
I can't stand it and I live 3000+ miles away!
I tell friends of mine about some of the unusual practices that the VI government has had in the past, and no doubt will have in the future and they just don't believe me until I show them the news in The Source.
This situation though, has to be the most flagrant I've ever heard of. This sounds more like stuff that goes on in communist countries or dictatorships. And, it's being done right under the nose of Uncle Sam too.
Shame on us (U.S.) for supporting this garbage time after time.
After hearing that the inspector generals office gave this jolly group a big fat 0 for their efficiency and competency, how could this be justified?
I'm sorry……. I guess I'm just stunned.
Eric K. Roeske
Watertown, Wisconsin

The Department of Education’s plan to bus St. Croix’s special-needs students to school on Vitran has drawn the threat of a lawsuit.
At the end of November Education officials announced that transportation for special education students, which was being provided by Abramson Enterprises, was being discontinued. Abramson, which also provides regular public school bus service on St. Croix, and the DOE are now in litigation over back pay the government owes the company for busing the special-needs students.
Ralph Mandrew, president of the V.I. Workers Union, which represents Vitran drivers and the special education drivers who work for Abramson, said the drivers who transport special-needs students are trained for the job. In addition, he said, Abramson buses are specially equipped and carry a trained aide to assist the children.
Because of the safety aspect and the fact that the government made the decision to use Vitran for special education transport without consulting the union, Mandrew said he plans on filing an injunction against the plan.
"Let me make this clear," Mandrew said, "the V.I. Workers Union intends to file an injunction if they go through with this. This is a unilateral change.
"The question is will the government be hiring extra people to ride those buses?"
Education officials couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday. Sen. Norman Jean Baptiste, chairman of the Senate’s Education Committee, was doubtful of the plan. He said federal and local law mandates that aides and special equipment be made available to special education students.
Compounding Baptiste’s doubts was a committee meeting he held last month to discuss the issue, but education officials, including Education Commissioner Ruby Simmonds, failed to show. Those officials have been subpoenaed for the next meeting on Jan. 19.
"I don’t see the wisdom of the Department of Education transferring the service to Vitran," Baptiste said.

Flying to Hong Kong is one of the big bargains in air travel, and spending time there can be one of the world's great gastronomical excursions.
United Airlines www.unitedvacations.com offers round trip air from the U.S. West Coast plus five or six nights in a deluxe hotel for $800 to $1,000. Another $50 gets you a flight from Miami.
Frommer's Budget Travel www.frommers.com has several tempting options, including a $599 package covering round trip air, five nights in a hotel with Chinese breakfast, and a city tour.
You arrive at a spectacular new airport geared to getting you into the city as quickly as possible. Clearing immigration and customs is the barest formality, with more than adequate personnel to assist you. Carts are available to carry your luggage to the airport train or bus. The train whisks you to Kowloon or Hong Kong Island, where free shuttle busses take you to your hotel. You'll need Hong Kong money (about 7.5 Hong Kong dollars equals one U. S. dollar) for your train ticket, but you can exchange money as well as purchase the ticket at a handy airport kiosk.
Our impression of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island: people, designer shops, malls upon malls, hustle and bustle! We stayed in the New World Apartments next to the Cultural Center and on the water facing Hong Kong Island. Star Ferries transportation, a hop/skip/jump down the promenade, cost 30 cents (U.S. — and for the remainder of this article prices will be given in U.S. currency) for a 10-minute trip between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.
A "must do" is the funicular ride up to Victoria Peak to lunch in the Tower. This cantilever restaurant manages to serve excellent food for a reasonable price and gives you an unsurpassed view. I had the ham hock luncheon special for about $10; my wife enjoyed the quiche for $7.50. By the time we were finished, the entire bill for three people with beer, food and desert was $38.41. Across the street with a view of the south side of HK Island was a McDonald's packed with kids eating Combos for $2 to $3.
Having ridden up the mountain, we decided to walk down one of the many paved paths. HK Island has the world's longest escalator. It goes one direction at a time — geared to the locals going down to work in the early morning, and back up thereafter. Tourists can ride up, then walk down and, by bearing to the right, end up in the antique section. Kowloon has separate flower, bird, fish, vegetable, and clothing markets. Hong Kong has a central market for food items (at the lower end of the escalator), plus a banking section and separate markets for antiques and dried foods.
The bird market is a block of birds and crickets. Many Chinese men raise birds ranging from macaws to larks. Most of the species we saw were relatively small. Crickets are for good luck and are known for their singing. At the flower market, two blocks of cut flowers and plants, cars were constantly pulling up to pick up orders and trucks were constantly arriving to replenish inventories. As with most of Hong Kong, it was a case of optimal operations in minimal space.
The antique stores are simply overwhelming. Some offer authentication of their merchandise, but at a price. Many "antiques" are of recent manufacture. Generally speaking, you get what you pay for, but only the most naive would pay the asking price. If you are clever or stubborn, you can purchase many items for 40 to 60 percent of the initial asking price. Most pieces are not tagged, and the merchant gives you the once over before announcing an opening price.
One of our better meals was a Sunday brunch East Indian buffet. The diners were predominantly Indian, and British with experience in India. Most patrons seem to know each other, and the cooks went out of their way to do themselves proud. Thank God for yogurt, which was most helpful in the transition from Indian buffet to Western tummy. The cost came to about $15 each plus drinks.
Another memorable meal was a special weekend high tea at the New World Panorama overlooking the Straits of Hong Kong. It featured crepes, cheeses, raw fish, cream soup, fresh fruit – a cornucopia of excellent food. The total was $42.78 for three persons enjoying a killer view and eating as well as at any Virgin Islands luxury resort.
The most expensive meal we had was at the Golden Elephant, a Thai restaurant on the Kowloon strip. We paid $71.52 for a peak-hour dinner, plus $3.18 for tea and $9.54 for beer. Pricing and offerings at this luxury buffet vary with the time of day. We were most fortunate to sit next to a gentleman from Taiwan who talked us through many of the items that we didn't recognize. We cooked many of the items in a hot pot on the table, sampling the soup as we went along. Fish, crab, prawns, goat, duck; raw, smoked, cooked, sauced, plain; you name it, we ate it. Dessert was mostly bland to cover the spicy items, but was also a bit eclectic including instant fruit Popsicle and cotton candy.
We spent many glorious hours in multiple malls with multiple floors featuring designer goods. Now and then you could find a real bargain, and my wife came home with several silk suits. There are factory outlets in Hong Kong, but many of them are a real pain to find. Trips to the New Territories are possible but really eat into one's travel time.
One glorious day we took a ferry to Lanna Island and walked the length to eat seafood — along with a couple thousand other people. We landed in the midst of a wedding, trekked across the island in a solid worm of humanity, two abreast, and still found a table on the water with plenty of interesting food. The ferry cost a couple dollars, the succulent repast with three dishes and two beers came to about $20, and we had a wonderful time watching Chinese families eat.
Beer in Asia comes in a 750 liter bottle and costs under $1in the stores and $2 to $3 in restaurants. Seated at the table behind us were three Philippine maids on an outing. They ate five or six dishes and drank multiple beers. The Chinese family next to us appeared to be mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, a maid and a child 8 to 10 years old. They had a wonderful time talking, laughing, and eating so many dishes we lost count.
We spent another glorious afternoon at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. Our Yacht Club of St. Thomas membership was reciprocated, and we indulged in a full curry buffet while playing at being posh colonialists. While most of the club members are Asian, the tone is still most British. The killer buffet cost $10.33, and our bar tab was $5.83 for the afternoon.
The Hong Kong Symphony was preparing to participate in the Beijing millennium celebration, and we were able to hear their presentation for about $5 at the Cultural Center. This outstanding complex has multiple theaters and chamber salons for concerts, recitals, plays, operas and musical productions. It also has a grand gallery displaying artifacts and a space museum.
We spent more than an hour strolling through the HK Convention Center, a winged building that must be experienced to be believed. It covers multiple city blocks of waterfront landfill. The two main convention halls are so immense that I suspect either one could accommodate all of downtown Charlotte Amalie from the Emancipation Garden post office to Rothschild Francis "Market" Square and from Back Street to the Waterfront.
In addition to fine ferry service, Hong Kong has an excellent subway, good buses and moderately priced taxis. We chose to walk most of the time and to use the ferries when necessary. We always felt safe, and everyone we dealt with was most hospitable. We would recommend Hong Kong to anyone.
Next: China By Train

After five trial Harbour Days in Frederiksted last month, the organizer of the event has deemed the idea "premature."
Harbour Days was to be an offshoot of the successful Harbour Night, where vendors, artists and bands present their talents to cruise ship passengers in a night time street fair. The daytime version, however, encountered opposition from taxi drivers and merchants in both Frederiksted and Christiansted.
Hugh Dalton, owner of the public relations firm Dalton Associates and the promoter of Harbour Nights, said that while the Harbour Days idea is a good one, there needs to be at least two ships in port to make it viable.
Without the extra, or larger, ships, Dalton said it is "too premature to divide up the pie among the vendors."
Dalton was referring to vendors who set up there booths at the clock tower in Frederiksted. They were the most vocal opponents of Harbour Days because they would have had to pay to set up shop in the Harbour Day area along the waterfront.
The clock tower vendors had enlisted the help of Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen, who assailed Dalton’s efforts at starting the daytime event. In a Dec. 17 letter to Acting Tourism Commissioner Monique Sibilly Hodge, Hansen said that Dalton was acting "irresponsibly."
"Since the inception of Harbor Day, it appears to have an effect on the business community," Hansen wrote. "The establishments of Christiansted and Frederiksted have been badly affected. It needs to be understood that tourism related businesses are adversely affected also. The Taxi Association is disillusioned by the actions of Mr. Dalton."
While Dalton conceded that not everyone was happy with his brainchild, he said his primary goal was to enhance the status of St. Croix, and particularly Frederiksted, as a cruise ship port of call.
"What we found out was there was merchant competition in Frederiksted and Christiansted and the taxis made less money because they weren’t taking people to Christiansted," Dalton said. "My objective was for St. Croix to have a good first impression, create more business in Frederiksted and create an identity for St. Croix over the other islands."
And Dalton denied accusations that he was making a undue amounts of profit from his Harbour Day endeavor, saying that the negative reaction to the idea was akin to "shooting the messenger." He said promoter’s fees for the daytime event cost six times that of Harbour Night.
"To be honest, this was for my love of Frederiksted and the vendors," he said. "If we get more ships in, we all make more money."

Dear Source,
The news that the GERS Board granted the staff of the GERS hefty raises is shocking and unbelievable.
These are not the best of times for the Virgin Islands economy and considering the shaky position of the Government's finances, this decision is misplaced.
I believe that the Board felt that since the GERS is an independent agency, the decision to raise salaries by an average of 50% has nothing to do with the Government's financial problems.
Commissioners in the Governor's Cabinet who have the same or higher degree of fiduciary responsibilities earn one-half of these new salaries. What is the simple justification?
The Board should tell the government employees and the retirees why they allowed this kind of raid on the GERS Fund. We cannot compare the Virgin Islands GERS with that of another jurisdiction and use that for the excuse to raise salaries.
President Clinton just re-nominated Alan Greenspan to another four-year term, and that immediately sent stocks tumbling on the DOW. Stocks will lose value over the next year for investors fear higher interest rates to come.
This will not help the VIRGIN ISLANDS GERS. REVERSE THOSE RAISES TO A MORE MODERATE LEVEL, NOT 50 PERCENT.
Editor's note: Eric Dawson was born and raised on St.Thomas. He served four terms as a Virgin Islands legislator, was chief legal counsel to the Legislature and was commissioner of Economic Development for the V.I. He is currently on the staff of the U.S. Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C.

A week after a fire caused extensive damage in the Wharfside Village shopping complex, V.I. Fire Service investigators are still searching for the cause.
Fire Marshal Glen Francis said the probe was going slowly, in part because he and his staff had to wade through fire debris that had not yet been cleared away.
A blaze early in the morning of Dec. 28 destroyed the second floor office of the Pusser’s Restaurant. St. John fire crews from Cruz Bay and Coral Bay were able to contain the blaze. Deputy Fire Chief Brian Chapman said smoke and water had left extensive damage in the Pusser’s Company Store and in a storage room used by the shopping center located down a hallway from the store.
Damage was also reported to a first-floor water sports shop and to a loft above the second floor storage room.
Francis said that mainland-based insurance representatives were present on Tuesday, Jan. 4, as the investigation proceeded. Chapman said a final estimate of the property damage would come from the shopping center’s insurers.
Wharfside Village owner Paul Sabers, contacted by St. John Source Tuesday afternoon, said he was in a meeting and could not comment on the circumstances surrounding the fire.
The Dec. 28 blaze was the second at the seaside shopping center. A fire in 1992 caused extensive damage to the Wendy's fast-food restaurant that was then located there.

Gov. Charles W. Turnbull has asked the Government Employees Retirement System board to rescind the "excessive" pay increases it gave certain administrative employees of the system.
In a letter to the GERS Board Tuesday, the governor said, "I find the magnitude of these increases excessive, and the timing inappropriate in these trying financial times."
The raises of more than 50 percent for top GERS administrators came to light Tuesday in a story in the V.I. Independent. The increases — putting the top officials above the $100,000 mark — were granted Dec. 16, 1999, but made retroactive to October 1998.
Smaller retroactive raises of about 5 percent were granted to GERS rank-and-file employees. The disparity provoked strong union criticism.
The governor's letter continued, "In particular I consider retroactive increases in salaries of 50 percent or more amounting to tens of thousands of dollars to be an abuse of the board's discretion and an insult to the hard-working men and women of this territory who entrust their retirement funds to the system."
Last October the governor had refused to execute these increases when they came before him. He termed the manner in which they were subsequently put into effect an affront to his office.
The GERS became a semi-autonomous agency in December, and the board's first action was to reinstate the 1998 pay hikes that the governor had halted.
With the system functioning as a semi-autonomous agency, the GERS board can set its own policies.
The governor isn't the only one who was incensed by the untimely increases. Sen. Violet Anne Golden demanded answers Tuesday to her questions about the increases.
"I want to know what these officials, who were basically given a failing grade for their work by a recent inspector general's audit report, did to earn such large pay increases," she said.
Golden asked how an increase of more than a quarter of a million dollars could come out of a system that is already underfunded. She said that even if the auditors had found that the GERS had been doing a commendable job, it would still be "unconscionable to give these increases at this time."
She pointed out that the administrators aren't professional money managers. "They are only administrators of a system with serious fiduciary responsibilities," she said, adding that "union officials and members have every right to be concerned about this sudden and unexplained move by the GERS Board."
Central Labor Council president Luis "Tito" Morales expressed his displeasure Tuesday with the board's action, calling it "an injustice to the system." He also questioned why four assistant administrators were required to manage 40 to 45 employees.
Golden said it appeared to her that two assistants would be adequate for the task. She noted that so far "GERS has been unable to maintain loan records. . . or to know who owes what, or when a loan has been paid." She suggested that with fewer employees, perhaps there could be better focus on the work at hand.
"We have a problem in our retirement system management," Golden said. "This misjudgment travesty did nothing to rectify the situation."
The GERS Board members are: George A. Farrelly, Corine D. King, Leona E. Smith, Francisco Frank Stapleton, John P. deJongh Jr., Eleanor D. Josiah and Vincent G. Liger.
Editor's note: For details of the pay increases, see earlier story "GERS Board Gives Officials Giant Pay Increases."