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Starbucks to close 8,000 U.S. stores for racial bias training
Starbucks Corp. will close 8,000 company-owned U.S. cafés for the afternoon on Tuesday, May 29, to train nearly 175,000 to prevent racial discrimination in its stores.
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Health systems securing naming rights to GRTC’s Pulse
Richmond area taxpayers apparently will not have to spend as much to subsidize rides on GRTC’s new bus rapid transit service, also known as Pulse, thanks to two area health care giants, VCU Health System and Bon Secours Richmond Health System.
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‘The Silent Support Syndrome’
There seems to be a reluctance by white moderates in Virginia — elected officials and otherwise — to challenge the public existence of Confederate statues in the Commonwealth. I refer to such as “The Silent Support Syndrome.” Following the American Civil War, Virginia was one of the last seven states to re-join the United States of America, along with Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas. Virginia was among the first states to erect statues to Confederate generals and soldiers in the 1890s.
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Early mistake?
Richmond’s new schools superintendent, Jason Kamras, recently named five of the six top officials he is bringing in to be a part of his cabinet in running the city’s public school system.
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Preston Beverly moves from No. 2 to No.1 as coach at Richard Bland College
Richard Bland College has chosen Preston Beverly to usher its basketball program into the National Junior College Athletic Association Division 1.
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Atlanta March on Monday marked route of MLK funeral 50 years ago
Relatives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led more than 1,000 people on a march Monday in downtown Atlanta, where large crowds gathered 50 years earlier for the slain civil rights leader’s funeral procession as a mule-drawn wagon pulled his casket through the streets.
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Liberty president censors student newspaper over critics
Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. stifled an effort by the school’s newspaper to report on an event last weekend organized by his critics, said a student editor.
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Personality: Camilla Tramuel
Spotlight on chair of 50th anniversary commemoration of historic New Kent school case
In the shadows of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a little known Virginia school desegregation case was instrumental in changing the lives and education of schoolchildren across the commonwealth as well as the country.
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School Board moves on plan for 4 new schools
The Richmond School Board has started the process to replace four aging school buildings, three in South Side and one in Church Hill.
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Mayor on hook for school modernization plan with charter change signing
Backed by a unanimous legislature, Gov. Ralph S. Northam has signed a new charter measure for Richmond that will require Mayor Levar M. Stoney to come up with a fully funded plan for modernizing every city school without a tax increase or explain why he cannot.
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Confederate flag replaced at Riverview Cemetery
A Confederate flag flying in Riverview Cemetery in Richmond’s West End has been replaced with a new banner — the Christian flag, a white banner with a red cross centered in a small, blue square in the flag’s top left corner.
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From hoops to music, Cornell Jones still playing to win
Cornell Jones may have lost the hops that made him such an exciting basketball performer, but his distinctive soulful voice remains a Richmond treasure.
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Evicted
Richmond ranks No.2 nationally in displacing people from their homes and apartments by eviction
Marcel Slag has been fighting evictions for 28 years as a lawyer with Central Virginia Legal Aid and its now independent Justice Center.
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104-year-old city real estate firm sold
Brothers Jeffrey Finn and John S. Finn Jr. are breathing new life into the oldest African-American-owned real estate company in continuous operation in Richmond.
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City natural gas price going down
Richmond residents who cook and heat with natural gas will get a price break on its cost next month because of a sharp jump in production.
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Personality: Jalia L. Hardy
Spotlight on state winner of VML’s ‘If I Were Mayor’ essay contest
If Jalia Hardy were mayor of Richmond, she would focus on the city’s economy as well as youths and educational programs. She would listen to ideas and suggestions from citizens and create a nonprofit organization that would give care packages of food and toiletries to the homeless.
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Young people able to understand what leaders don’t
Re “ ‘Our ballots will stop bullets:’ Thousands take to streets in Richmond, D.C. and across the nation to demand gun control and school safety,” Free Press March 29-31 edition:
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Coretta Scott King wanted secrets about her husband’s death exposed
Efforts must be increased to break down the wall of secrecy surrounding the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Villanova wins crown
Villanova University has climbed to the top step of college basketball’s highest staircase. And the Wildcats made it the old-fashioned way — minus any “one and done” elite, NBA-bound freshmen players.
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Notre Dame wins women’s championship with last-second shot
Arike Ogunbowale has a hard name to pronounce and apparently a hard jump shot to defend. She also is pressure-proof it seems.