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Group proposes $350M development to replace city's old Public Safety Building
Richmond’s old Public Safety Building on 9th Street near City Hall would be replaced by a $350 million office development under a plan that has been submitted to the city administration.
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Hustling backward in Richmond
Richmond City Council voted 7-2 on Monday night to increase the meals tax 1.5 percent, expecting annual revenue of $9 million. This will be leveraged to borrow $150 million over five years and earmarked for renovating and building new schools for Richmond Public Schools.
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New Richmond Police stables put on hold
Samson, Scooter and Toby, the horses in the Richmond Police Department’s Mounted Unit, will not be getting a new home. Without any fanfare, City Hall has dropped plans for developing a modern 12-stall stable at Crestview and Government roads in the East End.
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Foundation poised with cash to purchase Woodland Cemetery
The Evergreen Restoration Foundation has raised the $50,000 needed to purchase Woodland Cemetery, a historic African-American cemetery in Henrico County that is the burial ground of Arthur Ashe Jr., the Richmond-born tennis great and humanitarian.
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Richmond’s homeless population deserves better
Thank you for the very detailed information you provided in the Dec. 29-31,2022 edition of the Richmond Free Press concerning the homeless entitled “Why?”
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Price is right for HBCUs
Morgan Price has made gymnastics history – just like her coach did decades earlier.
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City rejects South Side church bid for abandoned school
A church that has competed to buy the long vacant Oak Grove Elementary School property in South Side has been eliminated from contention — leaving an apartment developer as the only bidder with an offer still under review.
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VUU Panthers meet VSU Trojans Saturday at Hovey Field
Virginia Union University football Coach Alvin Parker feels like his team has taken an unfair beating — not on the field, mind you, but in the polls.
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Profits over patients
How hospital chain used poor neighborhood to turn huge profits
In late July, Norman Otey was rushed by ambulance to Richmond Community Hospital. The 63-year-old was doubled over in pain and babbling incoherently. Blood tests suggested septic shock, a grave emergency that required the resources and expertise of an intensive care unit.
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Urban garden’s reach grows deeper into city’s ‘food deserts’
An urban garden that started out selling fresh produce and fruit at discount to two Richmond convenience stores will grow to serve 13 stores by this summer. But Tricycle Gardens wants to be more than a fresh food provider for Richmond’s food desert pockets. The nonprofit farm wants to be a magnet for grocery stores and farms in those pockets by highlighting the demand for fresh foods. “We want to show there’s a vibrant food community,” said Tricycle Gardens project manager Claire Sadeghzadeh.
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Plans proceed to put federal money toward homeless services, affordable housing
City Council is recommending that the administration pour $5.6 million in new federal dollars into homeless services and pump $7.1 million into a city fund to boost assistance to developers creating apartments and homes with reduced rents and price tags.
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Gun buyback programs are ‘waste of time’
Jeremy Lazarus is correct when he reported that gun buy-back programs do not work; they do nothing to stop gun violence.
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CoStar to expand in Richmond, building a new riverfront office tower and creating up to 3,000 new jobs
Up to 3,000 new jobs and a new 26-story riverfront office tower that will rank as the tallest office building in Virginia.
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Black Americans want vaccine
“They’ve read all this stuff rate is half the white rate. Black people who don’t intend online, from different news sources, which is confusing. But then they meet me, as someone who has had the shot, and I can give them some real answers.”— Armando Mateos of Working Partnerships USA, a Silicon Valley-based community organization working to help dispel misinformation about the pandemic and vaccines.
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As social media guardrails fade and AI deepfakes go mainstream, experts warn of impact on elections
Nearly three years after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the false election conspiracy theories that drove the violent attack remain prevalent on social media and cable news: suitcases filled with ballots, late-night ballot dumps, dead people voting. Experts warn it will likely be worse in the coming presidential election contest. The safeguards that attempted to counter the bogus claims the last time are eroding, while the tools and systems that create and spread them are only getting stronger.
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Name change coming for Washington NFL and Cleveland MLB teams?
More than a dozen Native American leaders and organizations sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday calling for the league to force the Washington NFL team owner Dan Snyder to change the team name immediately.
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Evergreen Cemetery sold to Enrichmond Foundation
Unkempt, but historic Evergreen Cemetery has a new owner eager to preserve and protect the burial ground for banker Maggie L. Walker, crusading journalist John Mitchell Jr. and as many as 50,000 other African-Americans. After months of talks, Enrichmond Foundation, the nonprofit support arm for city parks and recreation, completed the purchase of the 60-acre cemetery from a private family corporation.
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VSU eyes comeback after Lenoir-Rhyne defeat
Jabari Blake is a proven winner. Now he hopes to elevate his high school success to the college level.
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Regional recycling program at risk with Chesterfield, others pulling out
Chesterfield County is poised to pull out of a regional curbside recycling program, which could require Richmond and Henrico County to boost their subsidies to maintain the program.
