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Dreams deferred
Hopewell brothers jailed 72 days until charges dropped
At first, the story seems all too familiar. Two Hopewell teenagers rob two pedestrians at gunpoint near a private school, but are quickly caught when responding police officers scour the area and arrest them a few minutes later as they are buying sodas and pastries at a nearby convenience store. With police boasting about having strong evidence, the teenage brothers are kept in jail for two and a half months — twice refused bond because they are charged with a crime of violence involving a weapon. But just as suddenly, the case evaporates. The evidence does not stand up, and the brothers are freed to resume their lives.
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Movie screening to raise money for Sudan refugees
Virginia Commonwealth University is hosting a screening of the movie “The Good Lie” 4 p.m. Saturday, March 21, at the VCU Commons Theater. The goal is to raise money to aid Sudanese refugees living in camps across the Sudan border in Gambela, Ethiopia, according to Manyang Reath Kher, founder and CEO of the Henrico County-based Humanity Helping Sudan Project. The group is organizing the fundraiser. An estimated 200,000 Sudanese now live in such refugee camps, Mr. Kher said.
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Horace Fisher III, 66, longtime music teacher
Horace Fisher III was raised with an abiding love of music. “He told me his mother, Gertrude Anderson Fisher, would play music as she cleaned the house on Saturdays and they would sing to the music,” said his wife, Brenda C. Fisher. “And his father, Horace Fisher Jr., liked classical music.” Her husband, Mrs. Fisher said, also loved old musicals. Drawing from his deep affection for music, Mr. Fisher taught band and chorus in Richmond Public Schools for 35 years. He also acted locally and nationally in theater productions for three decades.
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Activist to speak on faith, politics
Activist and author the Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou will share his experience protesting in Ferguson, Mo., and the role of faith in political activism 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 19, at Good Shepherd Baptist Church, 1127 N. 28th St. in Richmond. Rev. Sekou, a 2014 visiting scholar at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, is the author of “urbansouls,” a collection of essays about at-risk youths in St. Louis, and “God, Gays, and Guns: Essays on Religion and the Future of Democracy.”
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Male choruses perform this weekend
Soul-stirring gospel music will fill the air at Hood Temple A.M.E. Zion Church in Jackson Ward this weekend. The church, led by the Rev. Tony D. Henderson, will celebrate the 57th anniversary of the Hood Temple Male Chorus 4 p.m. Sunday, March 15, with performances by the church’s and other visiting choruses.
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RRHA reviewing new sites to relocate Fay Towers
The Frederic A. Fay Towers once again seem to be upholding the city housing authority’s reputation for slow-moving development projects. Instead of breaking ground last summer as promised, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority is still struggling to determine the site where it will build a replacement for the aging high-rise in Gilpin Court, just north of Downtown.
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Bedden to stay in Richmond
“Everyone should check your emails,” Richmond School Board member Jeffrey M. Bourne eagerly alerted his colleagues late Tuesday afternoon prior to a hastily called board budget meeting. The six other board members in attendance then quickly turned to their hand-held electronic devices and scrolled to an email sent to them by Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Dana T. Bedden at 5:07 p.m.
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Dems need winning formula
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel just got spanked. Despite a campaign war chest of more than $15 million and the support of President Obama, the former congressman and White House chief of staff could not avoid a runoff in the non-partisan election. Garnering 45 percent of the vote to runner-up Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s 34 percent, he did not clear the 50 percent bar for victory. Mr. Emanuel, the darling of the mainstream Democratic Party, has earned the dubious distinction of being in the first Chicago mayoral runoff in nearly 20 years. He also runs the risk of being the first incumbent mayor ousted since Harold Washington beat Jane Byrne in 1983.
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Whipping up war, disrespect
If we needed further proof of the Republican disrespect shown to President Obama, the nation witnessed the latest insult Tuesday with the visit of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, where he addressed a joint session of Congress. His appearance was at the invitation of House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican who flouted protocol and decency by neither consulting nor informing the White House first.
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Personality: Dana A. Kuhn
Spotlight on founder of nonprofit that helps ill afford medications
Dr. Dana A. Kuhn understands the terrible toll expensive chronic illnesses can take on families and their loved ones. “While providing counseling for families, I observed their emotional, psychological and financial struggles,” the Midlothian resident says. “One family I counseled was forced to live off of one income because one parent had to become their child’s primary caretaker. “They had to sell their home and eventually divorced so their child, whose condition continued to worsen, could qualify for health care under Medicaid. Not only did they lose their child, they were financially ruined. No family should experience that.”
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Pastor gets the boot
Parson departs amid Richmond Christian Center’s move to survive
More than a year after filing for bankruptcy, the Richmond Christian Center is gaining a fresh shot at survival after seizing financial power from founding pastor Stephen A. Parson Sr. The pastor, who launched RCC in his living room more than 31 years ago, is no longer a member of the church’s ruling Board of Trustees and has been stripped of control of the church’s bank account.
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UR chooses Ronald A. Crutcher as next president
For the first time in the 185-year history of the University of Richmond, the new head of the private liberal arts college that borders Richmond and Henrico County will be an African-American. Dr. Ronald Andrew Crutcher has been named as the 10th president of the university. The announcement was made Monday at the institution founded in 1830.
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Grassroots effort mounts to keep Bedden
Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Dana T. Bedden interviewed Wednesday for the superintendent’s job in snow-covered Boston and prepared to meet Thursday with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. The Boston School Committee is expected to name its top choice for the job early next week, according to reports. Meanwhile, a growing number of Dr. Bedden’s supporters in Richmond are continuing their efforts to convince him to stay and lead the aggressive RPS turnaround effort he began after becoming the struggling school district’s superintendent in January 2014.
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Wronged
Retired factory worker Leonard Mc Millian had his home invaded by a police squad and spent more than an hour in handcuffs when police responded to calls about crimes at his home that proved bogus. Actor and songwriter Jerome Arrington spent a miserable seven weeks in jail after Richmond police arrested him for a street robbery he did not commit. Both men are African-American. Neither has received an apology for their ordeals, which appear to be relatively rare in a city where officers respond daily to dozens of calls. Still, their stories suggest that things can go dismayingly wrong even when police and prosecutors believe they are going by the book.
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Clean air, but at what price
On the surface, accepting the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan sounds like a great idea — reduced carbon emissions and pollution, ideally leading to cleaner air. Yes, this is a great idea. But at what cost? This is just another example of the federal government get- ting involved in state matters and proposing regulations that create catastrophic consequences. I’ve learned that Virginia is held to a higher clean air/carbon standard than our neighbors (Virginia is required to reduce almost twice as much carbon emission as West Virginia and Kentucky), and it will cost us billions to shut down the power stations that have been operating fine for decades.
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Personality: Mary Alice Nesbitt
Mary Alice Nesbitt purposefully walks from the kitchen to the fellowship hall, then back to the kitchen at Centenary United Methodist Church in Downtown. The 84-year-old North Side resident is on a love-driven mission to help feed the city’s hungry. She has volunteered for the past 30 years to help prepare and serve meals at the Grace Street church led by the Rev. Matt Bates.
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VSU to go all the way in CIAA tournament?
Flip a coin. That may be as good a way as any to predict the winner for the 70th CIAA men’s basketball tournament that commences Feb. 24 in Charlotte, N.C. There is no clear dominant team this winter and Time Warner Cable Arena has proven to be an equal opportunity venue since the tournament set up shop there in 2006.
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Elkhardt’s closing signals harsh reality for mayor, City Council
Elkhardt Middle School is a fresh reminder of the increasingly shabby and dilapidated condition of most of Richmond’s school buildings — a condition that the mayor’s office and City Council have yet to seriously address despite repeated reports and warnings in recent years. Set to be shut down this Thursday night, with students, teachers and staff moving 10 miles north across the James River into the vacant Clark Springs Elementary building, Elkhardt on South Side reflects the stark reality the city is facing — the need to provide big money to keep Richmond’s school buildings usable, a reality that no longer can be papered over with rosy talk about bike races, baseball stadiums and football training camps.
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Church headed by controversial pastor burns
Tampa firefighters battled a blaze at a church led by controversial pastor Dr. Henry J. Lyons, former head of the 7.5 million-member National Baptist Convention.
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Richmond Outreach Center sheds properties
The Richmond Outreach Center continues to try and shed high-priced properties in the wake of the sex scandal involving its former senior pastor, Geronimo “Pastor G” Aguilar. The South Side church has had its former School of Urban Ministry at 3000 Chamberlayne Ave. on North Side for sale since October.
