Fun, sun and watermelon // Kristopher Adams, 6, and his sister, Kristianna, 5, cool off with some juicy watermelon last Sunday at the 34th Annual Carytown Watermelon Festival in Richmond. The free event attracts an estimated 118,000 people each year. In addition to collectively devouring a few thousand watermelons, the crowd enjoyed entertainment from 50 bands and other performers on five stages and browsed the wares of more than 100 street vendors and retail store merchants.

Cityscape // Tree pruning is now underway to help protect power lines throughout the city. Left, Ron Branch, a lift foreman, is among the workers removing branches that could knock down lines in a storm. He is an employee of Pennsylvania-based Asplundh Tree Expert Co., one of the private contractors Dominion Energy has hired to do the work. Asplundh general foreman David Fox describes the work as “regular maintenance to help keep customers’ lights on.”

He said the company has nine trucks in operation and trims trees in the Richmond area on a three-year cycle. This work was taking place in the 2300 block of Broad Rock Boulevard in South Side.

Pretty petunias in the West End

Reconciliation rally // Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney addresses a crowd of hundreds Sunday during a solidarity rally at Richmond’s Slavery Reconciliation Statue at 15th and Main streets in Shockoe Bottom. Participants at the hour long vigil remembered the victims of the weekend’s violent clashes in Charlottesville over that city’s planned removal of Confederate statues. They also prayed for President Trump and direction in the ongoing battle against racism and hatred.

At right, Dr. Cheryl Ivy Green, president of the Baptist Ministers’ Conference of Richmond and Vicinity, leads people in prayer at the gathering where clergy members joined politicians, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe, far right, and Delegate Delores L. McQuinn of Richmond, second from right, and Congressman A. Donald McEachin.