Kenyan, Ethiopian runners clinch top spots in marathon
Runners from Kenya and Ethiopia were first to the finish line last Saturday in the 38th Annual Anthem Richmond Marathon. More than 19,000 runners competed in the main event — the 26.2-mile marathon — along with its companion races, the half marathon and 8K.
VCU Rams take on Duke Blue Devils in NY
Here comes the rubber match. Virginia Commonwealth University and Duke University have met twice before in basketball, in 2007 and 2012, with each school winning once.
First Baptist Chesterfield project lacks black participation
First Baptist Church of South Richmond has poured nearly $6 million into buying land and developing its long-planned satellite sanctuary in Chesterfield County.
‘Faith and Public Safety’ forum Sunday
By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Sunday services will be unusual at St. Peter Baptist Church in Henrico County. The pastor, Dr. Kirkland R. Walton, is replacing the traditional 11 a.m. service on Nov. 22 with a two-hour forum titled “Faith and Public Safety,” it has been announced.
World religious leaders condemn Paris carnage
Pope Francis raised the specter of a World War III “in pieces,” Muslims issued statements of condemnation, while evangelical Christians in America debated whether to speak of a “war with Islam.” These were some of the responses last week by religious leaders around the world to the series of attacks Nov. 13 in Paris that left more than 120 people dead and hundreds of others wounded.
7 to be introduced at PROC Beautillion
Seven young men will be introduced to society at the 21st Annual PROC Beautillion on Saturday, Nov. 21, at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
Personality: Elijah Coles-Brown
Spotlight on youth orator, winner of NAACP Great Expectations Youth Award
Elijah Coles-Brown is a young man who has something to say and when he opens his mouth, he says it well.
Va. pioneer to receive Medal of Freedom
97-year-old NASA mathematician headed to White House for highest civilian honor
Former NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson could not have calculated her trajectory to the White House. The 97-year-old Newport News resident will be among 17 Americans receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor — at the White House on Tuesday, Nov. 24.
RVA Reads gives a book a month to pre-schoolers
A city program is helping to put books into the hands of hundreds of Richmond’s youngest schoolchildren with the goal of exciting them about reading. Called RVA Reads, the program distributes a new book each month to 3- and 4-year-olds, according to Michael Wallace of the city’s press office.
Henrico School Board candidate seeks recount
Tara Adams has requested a recount in the Henrico County School Board race the PTA volunteer and financial services specialist appears to have lost by just 43 votes.
Voting opens Thursday for Brown Middle School to win STEM lab
Help Lucille Brown Middle School win a state-of the-art lab for STEM subjects, science, technology, engineering and math. That’s the appeal the Richmond school and its supporters are issuing to the community as the school competes for a $100,000 grant from the Northrop Grumman Foundation to install a lab that would give Brown Middle students access to the latest learning tools and technologies.
Leonard W. Lambert, longtime Richmond lawyer, dies at 77
“My mother said it was important to be educated and give something back to the church and to the community.” Leonard W. Lambert Sr. told the Free Press those were the life lessons his mother, Mary Frances Warden Lambert, taught him and his six siblings long before her death in August 2014.
Locked out
Report: Fewer mortgages approved in predominately African-American, Latino areas
The greater the number of African-Americans and Latinos living in a Richmond neighborhood, the tougher it is for home buyers in the neighborhood to get a mortgage approved or for existing owners to get their home loans refinanced. That’s the rule of thumb that prevails among banks and online mortgage lenders, according to a new report from the Richmond-based fair housing watchdog group, Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia.
Coalition to City Council: Slow your roll on rapid transit
Slow down the rush to install bus rapid transit (BRT) in Richmond and take the time to ensure that the service will not become an expensive boondoggle.
Budget deal better than default
The House and Senate passed a bipartisan budget deal recently that addresses spending caps, the debt limit, Medicare premiums, Social Security Disability Insurance and many other items important to Virginians. This budget addressed issues that Congress desperately needed to tackle, and I’m happy to have voted in favor of the deal.
Study all the candidates
Not too far off from these so-called presidential debates will be the Republican and Democratic parties’ nominating conventions.
Testing failing our students
Across the country, parents have been in revolt against high-stakes standardized testing, with kids tested over and over again while creativ ity is cut out of classroom curricula. Parents — particularly in targeted urban schools from Chicago to Boston — also are marching against the forced closing of neighborhood schools, displacing kids and shutting down needed neighborhood centers. Now there is more and more evidence that the parents have it right — and the deep-pocket “reformers” are simply wrong.
Racial bias in jury selection
Illegal and unconstitutional jury selection procedures cast doubt on the integrity of the whole judicial process. They create the appearance of bias in the decision of individual cases, and they increase the risk of actual bias as well. – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Peters v. Kiff (1972)
On their shoulders
From the black soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War to the University of Missouri students and football players of color who learned this week the power of unity and strategic action, the fight by African-Americans for respect and equal treatment in this country has been a long one.
N.C. Moral Monday leader urges local NAACP to mobilize
“This is no time for foolishness,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II in an energizing message at the Richmond Branch NAACP’s Freedom Fund Awards Gala last Saturday.
