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Alley blitz underway to fill potholes
Some of the worst alleys in the city are about to get a facelift. The Richmond Department of Public Works this week unleashed a new alley blitz to redo 1,300 alleys from Church Hill to Walmsley Boulevard in South Side and Highland Park in North Side to the Museum District in the West End.
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Team USA expected to bring basketball gold home from Rio
Red, white and blue usually adds up to gold at the Summer Olympics basketball competition. The American contingent has won the gold medal in 14 of the 17 games in which it has participated, starting in 1936 when basketball was played outdoors in Berlin.
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VSU wins Kentucky matchup; meets Winston-Salem State on Saturday
Kavon Bellamy is listed as a running back, but battering ram might better describe his role for the Virginia State University Trojans. He pounds and pounds until he gets where he wants to go. The senior from Hampton leads the CIAA in rushing and, not coincidentally, the Trojans are off to a 3-0 start for the first time since 1997.
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Panthers looking for 3-peat Saturday against St. Augustine’s
William “Will” Stanback suffered a misstep, of sorts, in Orlando, Fla., and lost all football traction. Now he’s back in full stride in Richmond. Call it the “Stanback comeback.”
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Sisters reign at Wimbledon
Serena Williams proved her star power and tennis mastery once again when she won both the single’s title and, with her sister, Venus, also claimed the doubles title Saturday at Wimbledon.
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Manuel leading Huguenot’s football comeback
Huguenot High School junior Merlys Manuel looks forward to getting his Virginia driver’s license later this school year. Already as quarterback, he has been handed the keys to the Falcons’ offense.
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Dry spell broken for Cleveland’s pro teams
It has been a long time between sips of champagne in Northeast Ohio. Led by LeBron James’ MVP performance, the Cleveland Cavaliers scored a heroic Game 7 win Sunday night over the favored Golden State Warriors to clinch the NBA title and end decades of sports frustration in the Midwest city. The Cleveland Cavaliers were an NBA expansion squad in 1970. They reached the playoff finals in 2007, losing 4-0 to the San Antonio Spurs and falling 4-2 to Golden State in the 2015 finals.
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Injury cleared way for championship in high jump
Before Kequan Henley ever took off as a high-flying state champion in the high jump, the tall and springy Armstrong High School student was in love with basketball. Then during his sophomore year in 2014, he suffered a significant injury. “First game of the year, I went up for a rebound and came down on my head. Knocked me out. I woke up in the hospital with a bad concussion,” he recalled.
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VCU’s Melvin Johnson mirroring former Rams star Calvin Duncan
Melvin Johnson grew up in New York, first signed a scholarship offer with a Florida program and then changed his mind and came to Virginia Commonwealth University. Sound familiar?
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Our children pay the price
Editor’s note: The 65th anniversary of the historic Moton School student strike in Prince Edward County over
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Telfair: I was never consulted on Petersburg water contract
Two years ago, cash-strapped Petersburg jumped at a deal that Johnson Controls Inc. was offering. As it has done across the country, the energy and industrial giant offered to pay for installing automated water meters to replace Petersburg’s 11,500 old and outdated meters. The new meters would transmit water usage data to a passing truck and eliminate the need to send staff to physically check meters every two months.
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The white man’s rage
Have you heard? Apparently large numbers of American adults are “angry” about their own circumstances and about where they think the country is headed. For months, numerous politicians, pollsters and pundits have touted this anger as an important factor in the line-up of who’s supporting who in both the Republican and Democratic presidential primary campaigns.
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The U.S. Supreme Court and the elephant in the room
Race remains the unspoken elephant in the room amid the growing controversy over who should replace Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Red herring
We were surprised by Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette W. McEachin asking the Richmond Circuit Court to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Mayor Levar M. Stoney violated any laws in handling the removal of the city- owned Confederate statues.
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Henrico prosecutor lodges hate crimes against KKK member; sets up complaint email for police abuse
Hate crime charges have been filed in Henrico County against a self-proclaimed Ku Klux Klan leader who allegedly drove his truck through a crowd of demonstrators at a Black Lives Matter march early last month.
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Placing profits over people by Julianne Malveaux
Columnists
Who would have thought that amid the Christmas holidays we would learn that billionaire Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is using convicted prisoners to make calls for his campaign?
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Mahomes leads Kansas City to come-from-behind win at Super Bowl LIV
The New England Patriots’ combo of quarterback Tom Brady and Coach Bill Belichick dominated the past two decades of NFL football. Might the Kansas City Chiefs’ tandem of quarterback Patrick Mahomes II and sideline guru Andy Reid become the team to beat in the coming decade?
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Can the VUU Panthers claw their way to victory over the Bowie State Bulldogs?
If Bowie State University is the tower of power in the CIAA Northern Division, then Virginia Union University hopes to play the role of wrecking ball.
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Battle over Dominion Energy’s sponsorship leads to demonstrations at state NAACP events
Instead of leading a protest, the Virginia State Conference NAACP will be the target of demonstrations at its state convention this weekend because of the organization’s ties to Dominion Energy.