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Violent crime in city down in 2015
Mayor Dwight C. Jones and Police Chief Alfred Durham trumpeted a major decrease in violent crimes committed in the city during 2015 at a news conference last Friday. But the grim reality of crime’s impact on the community was illustrated when Charlene Boone stepped to the podium during the officials’ announcement last Friday at the Richmond Police Training Academy.
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Richmond Public Schools losing budget director during critical season
Richmond Public Schools is losing one of its chief budget architects as the School Board and Superintendent Dana T. Bedden prepare to kick off their budget negotiations for fiscal year 2017 with Mayor Dwight C. Jones and Richmond City Council. Betsy Drewry, RPS director of budget and planning, will leave her position Friday, Feb. 5, to become director of budget and finance for Prince George County, she told the Free Press at Monday’s School Board meeting at City Hall. Ms. Drewry is exiting after 18 months in the position. She was the Prince George school system’s budget chief for 14 years prior to coming to Richmond.
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Gov. Northam acknowledges his own uncomfortable truths
Nearly a year after public revelations of racist photos published on his medical school yearbook page, Gov. Ralph S. Northam offered a mea culpa at Virginia Union University’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Community Leaders Breakfast and acknowledged the lessons he has learned confronting some of his own painful truths.
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Rosa Parks’ home displayed in Italy amid racial justice backdrop
The rundown, paint-chipped Detroit house where civil rights icon Rosa Parks took refuge after her historic bus boycott is going on display in Italy in a setting that couldn’t be more incongruous: The imposing central courtyard of the Royal Palace in Naples.
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U.Va. kicks off all-ACC football season against rival Virginia Tech on Sept. 19
This will be an upside-down season for the Virginia Cavaliers.
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Now’s the time for police reform, by Jesse L. Jackson Sr.
As the worldwide demonstrations continue three weeks after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman, the question is whether o
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City attorney cautions officials against any emergency order to remove Confederate statues
Calls for City Hall to remove the last three city-owned Confederate statues on Monument Avenue before people are injured or killed trying to pull them down appeared to die this week after Interim City Attorney Haskell C. Brown III cautioned that city officials and any contractors hired to do the work could face felony charges.
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Even for conservatives, no denying reality by Rev. Dean Nelson
Too many white people on the right and left only want to listen to Black people who agree with them on everything.
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Low-key efforts waged to remove statue of segregationist Harry F. Byrd Sr. from Capitol Square
In the midst of widespread efforts to remove Confederate memorials, a similar change may be on the way for Richmond’s Capitol Square.
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NASA names D.C. headquarters for engineer Mary W. Jackson of ‘Hidden Figures’ fame
The early African-American women at NASA will not be hidden anymore.
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Are you safer today? by Dr. E. Faye Williams
We have an impeached president in our country because he has done so much destruction to our country. He has even destroyed who others believe we are.
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Prison gerrymandering hurts black poliical power by Marc H. Morial
“When districts with prisons receive enhanced representation, every other district in the state without a prison sees its votes diluted. And this vote dilution is even larger in the districts with the highest incarceration rates. Thus, the communities that bear the most direct costs of crime are therefore the communities that are the biggest victims of prison-based gerrymandering. The Census Bureau’s decision to count incarcerated people in the wrong place interferes with equal representation in virtually every state.” — Prison Policy Initiative, The Prison Gerrymandering Project
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VUU to take on VSU Feb. 22 at Barco-Stevens Hall
The rematch between Virginia Union and Virginia State universities on Saturday, Feb. 22, might be billed “No. 1 scorer versus No. 1 team.”
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Faith groups sue Trump administration over refugee resettlement order
Three faith-based groups that assist with refugee resettlement are suing the federal government, arguing a recent executive order granting state and local officials the authority to block refugee resettlement violates federal law and inhibits their ability to practice their faith.
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VSU's team virtually all new
This has been something of a “meet-and-greet” basketball season at Virginia State University. With the top five scorers gone from last year’s CIAA championship squad, name tags might be helpful in knowing the “rookies.”
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John Brown: Saint or madman? by John Michael Cummings
I grew up in the 1970s, a stone’s throw away from John Brown’s Fort in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. Today, many are throwing verbal stones at the fort.
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Sen. Kaine speaks out to restore aid to HBCUs
A powerful Republican senator is holding up millions of dollars in federal aid to historically black colleges and universities in Virginia and elsewhere and to other minority-serving institutions.
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Clearing the way for Medicare for All by Jesse L. Jackson Sr.
Affordable health care for all is now at the center of the presidential debate. Two of the top three contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination — Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — support Medicare for All. The third, former Vice President Joe Biden, and those hoping to take his place as the leading centrist in the race, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, have attacked the plan to contrast their candidacies from Sens. Sanders and Warren.
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From rally to power
Who would have thought that in less than 15 days, I would have to coordinate and manage 1,000 young black student leaders from more than 24 cities on 17 buses in the name of gun reform and safety? The reality is sometimes the work chooses you.
