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Walmart, Target quit Thanksgiving shopping cold turkey; Black Friday still looms in the air
Forget about rushing out this year on Thanksgiving Day to get a jump on Christmas shopping. Target is joining Walmart in closing its stores Thanksgiving Day, ending a decade-long tradition of jumpstarting Black Friday door buster sales.
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Evictions will deepen U.S. economic crisis, by Marc H. Morial
“The issue of inability to pay, poverty and unemployment – that existed pre-COVID-19. The difference between now and then is that the pandemic has shifted the line of poverty. There are more people at risk than before.”— Attorney Raphael Ramos of Wisconsin’s Eviction Defense Project.
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Make people the priority with city investment
Re “Slave memorial and museum gets jumpstart under mayor’s plan,” Free Press July 30-Aug. 1 edition:
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Police, others stymied by outside agitators at demonstrations
Are “outside agitators” and white supremacists infiltrating the Black Lives Matter protests against racial injustice and police brutality?
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‘Defunding police’ rejected
Richmond City Council kills proposal to examine police funding in social, mental health and community services and move the money to other departments
No to reducing the Richmond Police budget to assuage demonstrators’ demands to “defund police.”
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Confederate icons swept from Virginia Capitol building
After 88 years, the statue of Confederate traitor Robert E. Lee is gone from the State Capitol.
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Henrico schools to reopen virtually this fall
The Henrico School Board voted unanimously last week to reopen schools this fall using a full virtual learning format for the first semester.
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Slave memorial and museum gets jumpstart under mayor’s plan
A long-stalled effort to develop a museum and memorial park in Shockoe Bottom to tell the story of enslaved people in Richmond seems to have gained fresh momentum, but that could quickly evaporate.
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Personality: Tani Washington
After four years of researching, writing and making oral presentations in high school forensics and debate competitions, Tani Washington has made history.
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Edna Keys-Chavis, first African-American and female city clerk, dies at 66
Edna Keys-Chavis made history in 1990 when she became Richmond’s first African-American and the first woman city clerk — the official record-keeper for City Council.
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Charles Evers, Mississippi civil rights and political figure, dies at 97
Charles Evers, who led an eclectic life as a civil rights leader, onetime purveyor of illegal liquor in Chicago, history-making Black mayor in deeply segregated Mississippi and contrarian with connections to prominent national Democrats and Republicans, died Wednesday, July 22, 2020. He was 97.
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Clash of the quinquagenarians: Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. to fight
Professional boxing is turning back the clock.
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Oprah’s O magazine to end monthly print editions after 20 years
O, The Oprah Magazine is ending its regular monthly print editions with the December issue after 20 years of publication.
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Restore the Voting Rights Act, by Marc H. Morial
“Although the court did not deny that voter discrimination still exists, it gutted the most powerful tool this nation has ever had to stop discriminatory voting practices from becoming law. Those justices were never beaten or jailed for trying to register to vote. They have no friends who gave their lives for the right to vote. I want to say to them, ‘Come and walk in my shoes.’” — Congressman John Lewis reacting to the U.S Supreme Court’s Shelby v. Holder deci- sion in 2013.
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The National Park Service, which preserves her home at 1101⁄2 E. Leigh St. as a national historic site, and the city Department of Parks, Recreation …
Published on July 23, 2020
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Judge steps down
Richmond Circuit Court Judge Bradley B. Cavedo recuses himself from Confederate statue cases as formal complaint filed against him with judicial commission
Richmond Circuit Court Judge Bradley B. Cavedo has given up his fight to preserve the statues of racist Confederate gener- als in the city, potentially opening the door to removal of the biggest statue of all — the one to Robert E. Lee at Monument and Allen avenues.
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Rep. John Lewis
A lion of the Civil Rights Movement and ‘conscience of Congress’ dies at 80
Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, a lion of the Civil Rights Movement whose bloody beating by Alabama state troopers in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation, and who went on to a long and celebrated career in Congress, died late Friday, July 17, 2020. He was 80.
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Tearful, rambling Kanye West launches presidential campaign
In his first rally for his last-minute presidential campaign, rapper Kanye West ranted against abortion and pornography, argued policy with attendees and at one point broke down in tears during rambling remarks Sunday at a Charleston, S.C., wedding venue and convention center.