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School day care?
Empty public school buildings may be central to city task force plan to help parents with day care as they return to work
Sharonda Robinson hoped against hope that Richmond Public Schools would reopen this fall so her sons, ages 6 and 8, could be in school taking classes while she went to work.
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Dems pull out big guns to energize virtual convention for Biden
Democrats launched the third day of their virtual national convention on Wednesday, with headliners broadening the focus from a multipart rebuke of President Trump to an energizing message of change in boosting former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential bid.
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Gray calls for probe of mayor’s use of $1.8M to remove Confederate statues
The fate of two Richmond-owned Confederate statues and one of Christopher Columbus remain on hold even as City Council has put in place a process to sell off 10 others.
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Collaboration helps erase graffiti at historic cemeteries
Nearly three weeks after historical African- American and Jewish cemeteries were tagged with graffiti, volunteers and other workers have cleaned the marks — “777” — that were spraypainted on headstones and entrances to Evergreen, East End, Barton Heights and Sir Moses Montefiore cemeteries, including the gravesite of noted businesswoman Maggie L. Walker.
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School supplies, show giveaways start for ‘back to school’
As Richmond area students prepare for virtual learning this semester, they still will need school supplies and other items as online classes begin Tuesday, Sept. 8.
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‘Silence is violence’
Pastor and author Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil talks about racial justice and faith
Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil has been on stages, in classrooms and pulpits, preaching for decades about bridging racial divides. In her new book, “Becoming Brave — Finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now,” the associate professor of reconciliation at Seattle Pacific University said there is no more time to wait.
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New liberal Christian groups working to dump Trump from office
Liberal-leaning Christian groups and faith leaders have formed a slate of new political action committees and initiatives in recent weeks, most of which criticize President Trump in ways that could help Democrats with religious voters in November.
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Former NFL player Jason Wright named president of Washington pro football team
The Washington NFL team hired Jason Wright as team president on Monday, making him the first Black person to hold that position in NFL history.
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Laws as weapons of the unjust, by Oscar H. Blayton
We read in disbelief that a Black man who has already spent almost 23 years in a Louisiana prison for stealing a pair of garden clippers has now been denied any measure of mercy and must spend the rest of his life behind bars for his minor crime.
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Faith and Sen. Kamala Harris
Re “5 faith facts about VP pick Kamala Harris – a Black Baptist with Hindu family,” Free Press Aug. 13-15 edition:
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‘All these people are heroes’
Meet the men behind the projections on the Lee monument
Dustin Klein and his partner in projection, Alex Criqui, have lost count of the number of days they have been making their art at the Lee statue on Monument Avenue at the area protesters call Marcus-David Peters Circle.
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Magic moment
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California, daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is first Black woman chosen as running mate by a major party’s presidential candidate
For the first time, a Black woman will be on a major party’s presidential ticket.
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Police reform is major component of VLBC’s agenda for special General Assembly session
A bevy of proposals that could make it easier to sue police for using excess force, create civilian oversight of police complaints and simplify the process of expunging criminal records are floating into a special session of the General Assembly that is scheduled to open Tuesday, Aug. 18.
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Hanover School Board turnaround orders Confederate signs down by Sept. 7
The Hanover County School Board did an abrupt and unexplained about-face Tuesday night and voted 6-1 to remove the signs from two schools named for Confederate leaders before Sept. 7.
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City Electoral Board certifies 6 mayoral candidates, 22 for City Council and 19 for School Board
Incumbent Mayor Levar M. Stoney will have five opponents as he seeks a second term.
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Virginia Supreme Court halts most evictions through Sept. 7
Thousands of families in Richmond and across the state are heaving a sigh of relief after a sharply divided Virginia Supreme Court temporarily halted local general district courts from issuing a writ of eviction for failure to pay rent — though not for other reasons like property damage.
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COVID-19 brings adjustments to area colleges
Richmond area colleges and universities plan to step up sanitation measures and reduce campus populations by turning to more online classes in dealing with coronavirus as the fall semester begins.
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CAHN buys South Side medical building
The nonprofit Capital Area Health Network is the new owner of the Manchester Medical Building at 101 Cowardin Ave., previously one of the area’s largest African-American-owned medical office buildings in the city.
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Black women rising despite decades of bias, by Julianne Malveaux
Women won the right to vote a century ago. On Aug. 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment passed. The white women’s equal rights struggle began in 1776, though, when Abigail Adams, the wife of our second president and member of the Constitution-drafting Continental Congress, sent her husband a letter. She urged him to “remember the ladies.” She further wrote, “All men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
