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Richmond residents frustrated by police stops
About 30 residents of the city’s Blackwell neighborhood voiced their frustration last Saturday over what some see as discriminatory police stops and other interactions with Richmond Police.
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Personal drama overshadows elected service
We were gravely disappointed by news of the arrest yet again of Henrico School Board member Roscoe D. Cooper III. The 43-year-old Mr. Cooper has given a lot to the community in terms of service. He has been pastor of Rising Mount Zion Baptist Church since 2003, serves on the board of the Capital Area Health Network and was elected to represent the people of the Fairfield District on the Henrico School Board.
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An array of speakers slated for 2018 commencements
It’s graduation season for colleges and universities across Virginia, a time for inspiring commencement speeches, proud parents and cheering graduates.
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VT’s Edmunds brothers make NFL draft history
Lots of brothers have made it to the NFL. Some have played on the same team or been selected in the same draft. But siblings Tremaine and Terrell Edmunds of Danville made history April 26 as the first brothers selected in the same opening round.
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Washington NFL team picks 2 in draft to fill holes
The Washington NFL team finished dead last — 32nd — in defense against the run during the 2017 NFL season. Da’Ron Payne has been chosen to help plug the sieve.
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Golf club apologizes for calling cops on black women members
A golf club in Pennsylvania has apologized for calling police on a group of black women after the co-owner and his father said they were playing too slowly and refused requests to leave the course.
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Personality: Christopher J. Woody Sr.
Spotlight on founder of The Woody Foundation
Christopher J. Woody Sr. is a very happy man with an enormous giving heart.
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Pulse to start service June 24
That’s the day GRTC will launch the biggest overhaul of bus service in generations, one the company hopes that regular riders will cheer and that will bring new people to use public transit.
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GPA miscalculations impact RPS students
Richmond Public Schools officials acknowledged Monday that four years of miscalculating students’ grade point averages have led to errors on students’ transcripts.
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Video shows former NFL player manhandled by Georgia police
A lawyer for Desmond Marrow said this week the charges against the former NFL player should be dropped, as police and prosecutors in Georgia said they are reviewing the arrest in which officers allegedly used excessive force.
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Problems with protecting consumers
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is supposed to “protect” consumers from fraud and predatory lending. But since 45 has ruled the roost, he has empowered exploiters to extract too much money from consumers.
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Economic justice and fair housing
“The housing problem is particularly acute in the minority ghettos. Nearly two-thirds of all non-white families living in the central cities today live in neighborhoods marked with substandard housing and general urban blight. Two major factors are responsible. First: Many ghetto residents simply cannot pay the rent necessary to support decent housing. In Detroit, for example, over 40 percent of the non-white occupied units in 1960 required rent of over 35 percent of the tenants’ income. Second: Discrimination prevents access to many non-slum areas, particularly the suburbs, where good housing exists. In addition, by creating a ‘back pressure’ in the racial ghettos, it makes it possible for landlords to break up apartments for denser occupancy, and keeps prices and rents of deteriorated ghetto housing higher than they would be in a truly free market.” – Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission), 1968 Former Vice President Walter Mondale, who co-sponsored the Fair Housing Act along with U.S. Sen. Edward Brooke, the first popularly elected African-American in the U.S. Senate, was interviewed recently on the occasion of the Fair Housing Act’s 50th anniversary.
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Confronting racism
There was a time not too long ago when businesses in Richmond and across the South would call the police to arrest black people who sat down at lunch counters because they wanted to order. So we found a sad irony in the April 12 arrest of two black men in Philadelphia because they sat down at a Starbucks and didn’t order anything.
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Step up
We are greatly disappointed by Richmond City Council’s failure Monday night to approve a tax on cigarettes. The 80 cents per pack tax, proposed by Councilman Parker C. Agelasto, would have generated $5 million annually that would have been dedicated to the repair and maintenance of Richmond’s aged and dilapidated public school buildings.
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Richmond native returns as star of film, helping others at Richmond International Film Festival
The Richmond of Tamika Lamison’s youth has evolved into a thriving artistic hub. Ms. Lamison, an actor and director who now lives and works in Los Angeles, grew up in South Side in the 1980s. “When I come home, I certainly see a huge effort to completely infuse a great deal of artistic life into Richmond,” Ms. Lamison told the Free Press in a telephone interview last week.
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VSU on the lookout for its next great running back
Auditions for the marquee role of the next Trenton Cannon are now underway at Virginia State University. Realistically, the All-American tailback will be nearly impossible to replace. Finding a replacement might be compared to trying to find a fill-in for the Statue of Liberty.
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VSU opens football season in Norfolk at Labor Day clasic
Virginia State University hopes to start its 2018 football season the same way it opened the 2017 season — by defeating Norfolk State University in the Labor Day Classic.
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VSU opens football season in Norfolk at Labor Day classic
Virginia State University hopes to start its 2018 football season the same way it opened the 2017 season — by defeating Norfolk State University in the Labor Day Classic.
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U.S. Supreme Court hears Muslim travel ban arguments
The U.S. Supreme Court has so far had little to say about Donald Trump’s time as president, even as the nation has moved from one Trump controversy to another. That’s about to change.