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Hundreds to benefit from payday loan settlement
Hundreds of low-income Richmond area residents will benefit from the settlement of a lawsuit challenging the lending practices of Advance ‘Til Payday, a company that charges up to 960 percent interest on loans of $100 to $300. The settlement will result in the dismissal of at least 50 garnishment actions and 800 judgments that Advance ‘Til Payday had obtained in court against borrowers who defaulted on the loans, according to Jay Speer of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, which brought the suit.
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New $20 bill forces us to face past
Harriet Tubman soon will become the first African-American to appear on U.S. currency. This monumental decision is not only politically correct, as some have suggested, it is morally and socially correct.
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Brother versus brother
Jenkins’ buzzer beater gives Villanova the NCAA championship
It’s hard saying what will be remembered most about Kris Jenkins — his game-winning shot or the background story making it all possible. Jenkins swished a 22-foot buzzer beater, giving Villanova (aka “Thrillanova”) a 77-74 victory for the NCAA championship over favored University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill on Monday night in Houston.
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VUU enjoying turnaround
Long story short — Coach Jay Butler has turned things around at Virginia Union University. In recent times, VUU’s men’s basketball team would return from the CIAA Tournament in Charlotte, N.C., with no victories and little cause for optimism. The image brightened last week as VUU won its first tournament game since 2009 (over Shaw University), nearly tacked on a second win against two-time defending champ Livingstone College, and did so with a roster oozing with skilled underclassmen.
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Flint: A lesson in callousness
Flint, Mich., is impoverished. The auto plants have closed. Forty percent of the city’s 100,000 residents live below the poverty level. It is majority minority. It has been in fiscal crisis since 2011, with the state taking over budgetary control and a state-appointed “emergency manager” driving policy focused on cutting spending.
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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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VUU takes its game on the road
Keshon Tabb, a law-abiding citizen by nature, transforms into a pickpocket once he laces up his basketball sneakers.
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Councilwoman to challenge Stoney for mayor, sources say
For months, City Councilwoman Kim B. Gray, 2nd District, has been the only person mentioned as a possible opponent to Mayor Levar M. Stoney in his November re-election bid.
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McCoy removed as Chesterfield Branch NAACP president
LaSalle J. “L.J.” McCoy Jr. has led the Chesterfield Branch NAACP for 11 years. But on Nov. 12, Mr. McCoy abruptly was replaced.
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Coach Gilbert leaves Lady Panthers for Detroit Mercy
Virginia Union University’s next women’s basketball coach has a tough act to follow.
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Prison problems during pandemic, by Jesse L. Jackson Sr.
Across the United States and around the world, prisoners are among the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. Overcrowded facilities, shortages of food and medicine and totally inadequate testing expose prisoners who are disproportionately poor and afflicted with prior conditions that render them vulnerable to the disease.
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Area meal programs feed first responders, help restaurants
City Hall is planning to pump more than $500,000 over the next two months into Richmond-based restaurants that serve meals to Richmond police officers, firefighters and ambulance staff.
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Barr, truth and the Mueller report
The much-anticipated and long-awaited Mueller report has been handled in an unbelievable way. We first received four pages about a 22-month study that told us nothing truthfully. U.S. Attorney General William Barr led us to believe everybody had been “picking on the poor innocent president.”
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At 45, the Kingsmen softball team still on top
In its 45th year of operation, Kingsmen softball is still knocking it out of the park.
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VSU’s yearlong wins unbroken
Virginia State University may have forgotten what losing even tastes like. It’s been more than a calendar year since it was on the wrong side of a football score.
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Federal commission approved for 400th commemoration of Africans, African-Americans in U.S.
In late August 1619, a storm-tossed English warship flying a Dutch flag stopped at one of the earliest English settlements in Virginia and changed the future of America and the world.
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Thanksgiving food, fellowship at area meal programs
A new $25 million fund is being set up through the National Trust for Historic Preservation to help ensure that historical sites important to African-American history are no longer endangered.
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U.S. Supreme Court upholds Bladensburg Peace Cross
A 40-foot-tall cross-shaped war memorial standing on public land in Maryland does not represent an impermissible government endorsement of religion, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a major decision testing the boundaries of the federal Constitution’s separation of church and state.
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Personality: Victor L. Rogers
Spotlight on new leader of Urban League Young Professionals
Victor Lamar Rogers is on a mission to engage younger African-American men and women in community affairs.
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‘You just don’t know what's coming'
As the pandemic wears on, hundreds of families line up in a drive-thru for food from the Chesterfield Food Bank
For Tatanisha Rodriguez, the experience of going to a food bank for help for the first time just a week shy of Christmas produced a multitude of emotions and reactions.
