Story
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.
Story
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.
Story
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.
Story
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.
Story
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.
Story
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.
Story
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.
Story
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.”
Story
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.
Story
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.
Story
Delivering help to those in need
Most people are still asleep when Joseph E. “Joey” Matthews starts his collection run Sunday mornings.
Story
Fallout continues from college admissions scandal
Colleges and companies moved swiftly this week to distance themselves from employees swept up in a nationwide college admissions scheme, many of them coaches accused of taking bribes as well as prominent parents accused of angling to get their children into top schools by portraying them as recruited athletes.
Story
Overcharged? 4 Richmond School Board members question surging costs to build new schools in city
The projected cost of the three new schools that Richmond is preparing to build has jumped an average of $107 per square foot in just five months, adding tens of millions of dollars to the cost, according to four members of the Richmond School Board.
Story
Gov. Northam appoints 'diversity czar,' boards in upholding promise after blackface scandal
Dr.Janice Underwood will be the state’s first “diversity czar.”
Story
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.
Story
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.
Story
$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.
Story
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.
Story
‘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.
Story
Nearly 1,000 good reasons
Editorials
Some people claim there is no reason to enact tougher gun laws in the United States. We wholeheartedly disagree.
