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Ticket in N.C. leads to license suspension in Va.
Horace G. Dodd has a warning for Richmond motorists heading South: Do not get a traffic ticket in North Carolina. The 68-year-old South Side resident found out the hard way that North Carolina has turned traffic tickets into a major source of revenue.
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Party loyalty becomes debate issue for Dems
The two men seeking to capture the Democratic gubernatorial nomination traded political barbs over their party bona fides during a debate Tuesday night in Henrico County.
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Allen Iverson lone Virginian to be inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame
Richmond’s high schools got an early glimpse of Allen Iverson’s athletic greatness. Before taking his talents to Georgetown University, the NBA and what will soon be the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Iverson left his mark on RVA.
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Host Chris Rock rocks the Oscars
Comedian Chris Rock launched his return stint as Oscar host Sunday by immediately and unabashedly confronting the racially charged elephant in the room — the furor over the all-white field of performers nominated for Hollywood’s highest honor.
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RRHA board takes major step to redevelop Creighton Court
New homes and apartments could begin to rise in Creighton Court within one to two years, if the financing can be arranged, according to the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
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Questions swirl around judge
Lawyers representing Mayor Levar M. Stoney and the city have rushed to the Virginia Supreme Court, requesting the state’s highest court overturn a Richmond Circuit Court judge’s 60-day injunction barring the mayor from using emergency authority to take down Confederate statues.
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City, schools officials struggle over how to fund school building improvement plan
Richmond officials continue to struggle over a funding plan for the public school system’s facilities. In a two-hour meeting Monday night of the Education Compact, Mayor Levar M. Stoney, and members of the Richmond School Board and Richmond City Council exchanged ideas and concerns on the best way to move forward to replace or improve the city’s aging and decrepit school buildings.
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Poor People’s Campaign vows to continue push to end poverty, racism, militarism
A multiracial, intergenerational crowd of thousands of social justice activists, union workers and people of faith prayed, cheered and listened intently last Saturday as speakers on the National Mall called for a re-energized approach to fighting poverty and other social ills they say are plaguing the country.
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RRHA begins major move to turn over public housing to private interests
Residents of public housing can expect to see their apartment complexes come under the control and management of private landlords.
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Rev. Janie M. Walker retiring as co-pastoral director of Richmond Hill
After a 15-year relationship with Richmond Hill, the Rev. Janie M. Walker, co-pastoral director of the religious community on Church Hill, is retiring. Rev. Walker, whose last day is May 15, has led the residential ecumenical Christian community since 2014.
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A new lease
T.K. Somanath resigns from the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority amid criticism regarding heating crisis
Battered by criticism over his handling of a heating crisis in the Creighton Court public housing community, T.K. Somanath abruptly resigned Sunday as chief executive officer of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
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From hatred to hope
The 131-year old, 12-ton bronze symbol of white supremacy honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue is taken down as scores watch in person and online
An empty pedestal covered with colorful anti-racist slogans. That’s all that remains of the state’s greatest symbol of white supremacy – the statue of the traitorous Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee riding his horse, Traveller.
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With crackdown on panhandling, people wrestle with their conscience
Driving to his downtown clothing business, Hans Herman Thun finds it impossible to ignore the beggars. They catch his attention with handwritten, cardboard signs such as “Homeless and hungry,” “Anything helps! God bless” and even “I’ll be honest — I could really use a beer.”
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Begin Again
City Council majority strikes $1.5B Coliseum and Downtown development project, urging the administration to start over with public inclusion
Start over — and this time include the public. That’s the cry from the five members of Richmond City Council who followed through Monday night in eliminating the $1.5 billion Coliseum replacement and Downtown redevelopment plan, just as they said they would do when the nine-member governing body met last week as a committee.
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Frozen
RRHA puts hold on all public housing evictions through December, but residents are skeptical, concerned bigger issues are not being addressed
The Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority has frozen all evictions for the rest of the year, following months of growing scrutiny and backlash from residents and housing advocates over the organization’s actions and priorities.
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Personality: Douglas Powell aka ‘Roscoe Burnems’
Spotlight on Richmond’s first poet laureate
Douglas Powell is many things — a poet, author and spoken word artist who performs under the alias Roscoe Burnems. He is a National Poetry Slam champion, a former TEDx speaker, a husband, father and teacher who has contributed to a number of creative endeavors in Richmond. And now, Mr. Powell has been selected to serve as the city’s first poet laureate.
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Personality: Dr. James J. Fedderman
Spotlight on the incoming president of the Virginia Education Association
When Virginia schools return to some kind of normalcy in the future, its education system will be facing a bevy of challenges. With the effects of the coronavirus resulting in cuts in state education spending, localities have turned to cuts in expected pay raises, salary freezes and furloughs that have and will produce struggles for teachers, staff, parents, students and others. For those navigating this aspect of a tumultuous period in Virginia, the Virginia Education Association is working to create a path forward alongside its president-elect, Dr. James J. Fedderman.
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$10,000
Biden announces big student loan forgiveness plan
President Biden on Wednesday announced his long-awaited plan to deliver on a campaign promise to provide $10,000 in student debt cancellation for millions of Americans — and up to $10,000 more for those with the greatest financial need — along with new measures to lower the burden of repayment for their remaining federal student debt.
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Personality: Jer’Mykeal D. McCoy
Spotlight on president-elect of the Urban League of Greater Richmond Young Professionals
The Urban League of Greater Richmond Young Professionals has helped its members become entrepreneurs and homeowners, engage in the community’s civic affairs and enhance their careers and leadership abilities. Jer’Mykeal D. McCoy, the organization’s incoming president plans to continue that work and increase the number of members.
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‘Rethinking Incarceration’
Author on justice, race and Jesus as a prisoner
The problems in the United States’ criminal justice system go all the way back to slavery, according to Dominique DuBois Gilliard, who directs racial reconciliation work for the Evangelical Covenant Church. Both slavery and incarceration are means of racial and social control, said Mr. Gilliard, who sees these controls working together throughout American history — from Jim Crow to lynchings to the war on drugs to the privatization of prisons.
