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Lawmakers take up ‘skill games,’ minimum wage, marijuana as Assembly hits midpoint deadline
Virginia lawmakers plowed through hundreds of bills Tuesday as they reached a key deadline for this year’s legislative session.
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Obama cheered
President Obama took aim on Tuesday at Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and accused critics of playing into the hands of the Islamic State in a speech meant to cement his legacy and set a positive tone for his final year in office. Delivering his last annual State of the Union speech to Congress as president, he called for leaders to “fix” U.S. politics and criticized candidates such as Mr. Trump for using anti-Muslim rhetoric that betrayed American values.
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Loss of a legend
Julian Bond, warrior in the struggle for equality, dies at 75
Through the relentless struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, Julian Bond always kept his sense of humor. His steady demeanor helped him persist despite the inevitable difficulties involved, his wife recalled. Mr. Bond “never took his eyes off the prize — and that was always racial equality,” his wife, Pamela Horowitz, said Sunday. “He always ... in that hard struggle kept a sense of humor, and I think that’s what allowed him to do that work for so long — his whole life really,” his wife added.
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Go further
‘I don’t think God wants us to stop’ at removing the Confederate flag, President Obama tells mourners at Rev. Pinckney’s funeral in S.C.
‘I don’t think God wants us to stop’ at removing the Confederate flag, President Obama tells mourners at Rev. Pinckney’s funeral in S.C.
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Personality: Coach Shawn Stiffler
Spotlight on the 2017 Paul Keyes RBI Award winner
The love of baseball was almost inevitable for Shawn Stiffler, head baseball coach at Virginia Commonwealth University for the past five years.
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Controversies rattle HBCU presidents’ meetings with Trump, White House officials
President Trump made historic and symbolic embraces of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities this week, welcoming university chiefs to the White House and issuing an executive order continuing the White House Initiative on HBCUs and moving its office to the White House to facilitate more direct contact with Trump senior staff.
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Speakers support race video and name change for Byrd Middle School
Henrico County Public Schools has not banned the video on racism that upset some parents and their children at Glen Allen High School and created wider community turmoil when the Henrico County School Board chairwoman and superintendent apologized for it being shown. In an interview Tuesday, Andy Jenks, spokesperson for Henrico County schools, told the Free Press, “No,” when asked if the video has been banned.
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Trump scraps program protecting young undocumented immigrants
President Trump on Tuesday scrapped an Obama era program that protects from deportation immigrants brought illegally into the United States as children, delaying implementation until March and giving a gridlocked Congress six months to decide the fate of almost 800,000 young people.
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Lost cause
Richmond City Council rejects resolution requesting General Assembly approval for authority over city’s Confederate monuments
The racist Confederate past has maintained its stranglehold on Richmond’s future.
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Personality: Rev. Tyler C. Millner Sr.
Spotlight on the Virginia Union University Lifetime of Service Award winner
It is not enough to cite the dream if you are not going to live the dream. These are the words and belief of the Rev. Tyler C. Millner Sr., pastor of Morning Star Holy Church in Martinsville. He is the recipient of the Virginia Union University Lifetime of Service Award that will be presented Friday morning at the 40th Annual Community Leaders Breakfast honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Council approves City Hall gun ban; tighter security plan in the works
Fortress City Hall? Maybe. Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s administration, shaken by the May 31 massacre in which a Virginia Beach city employee killed 12 people and wounded four others at that city’s munici- pal center, is preparing to roll out a plan that could end the free and unfettered movement of the public inside Richmond City Hall and possibly in recreation areas, libraries and other city property.
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Women at the first March on Washington: A secretary, a future bishop and a marshal
In front of the crowds and the cameras, the speeches of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other men loomed large 60 years ago at the March on Washington. But the women, including those of faith, who played roles in its organization, its music and its news coverage were mostly left off the official program.
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Construction of new city schools didn’t meet deadline, goal for minority participation
Richmond has built three new school buildings, but can teachers and students use them if the School Board decides to restart in-person learning?
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Race, racial issues major topics for Pulitzer Prize winners for the arts
NEW YORK Stories of race, racism and colonialism in the United States swept the Pulitzer Prizes for the arts, from Louise Erdrich’s novel “The Night Watchman” to a Malcolm X biography co-written by the late Les Payne to Katori Hall’s play “The Hot Wing King.”
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Fulton family receives unexpected blessing of mortgage payoff
It began as a casual conversation. Then it quickly turned into what Travis L. and Latarsha F. Woods can only call “a blessing from God.”
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Support the For the People Act
To the American People: We write to you today as citizens who love this country and care deeply about its future. And right now, the most important thing we can do to protect that future is to rise together in support of the For the People Act currently before the Senate — the most significant piece of legislation to strengthen our democracy since the Civil Rights movement.
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President Obama’s memoir off to record-setting sales start
Former President Barack Obama’s memoir, “A Promised Land” sold nearly 890,000 copies in the United States and Canada in its first 24 hours, putting it on track to be the best selling presidential memoir in modern history.
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Federal lawsuit filed over tear-gassing of inmates at Richmond Justice Center
In late August, during an outbreak of the coronavirus at the Richmond City Justice Center, deputies under the command of Sheriff Antionette V. Irving tear-gassed inmates who raised concerns about safety practices. Dozens of others in the same area also were impacted.
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Denying our humanity
It has been more than 400 years since the first Black people arrived in Virginia on the shores of what would become the United States of America. And more than 400 years later, we are still fighting for recognition of our humanity.
