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GRTC fuel savings may reduce push to raise fares
Diesel fuel is a lot cheaper these days — and that’s good news for public transit companies such as GRTC. Richmond’s public transit company expects to save $1 million a year through 2018 as the result of a $1 per gallon decline in the fuel’s price.
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Metropolitan Business League sells Jackson Ward headquarters
The Richmond area’s largest African-American business group has waved goodbye to its former home in Jackson Ward. The Metropolitan Business League last month sold its longtime headquarters at 2nd and Marshall streets to a subsidiary of Washington-based Douglas Development, which has been buying up chunks of Downtown for more than 10 years.
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Case against Bill Cosby continues to escalate
The latest in the Bill Cosby case has drawn attention to an unusual condition. A lawyer for one of the women who accused the comedian of sexual assault raised the possibility that he might have the little-known condition called somnophilia.
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$5.9M settlement for Garner family in chokehold death
The family of Eric Garner, who died after a white police officer put him in a chokehold a year ago, renewed calls this week to criminally charge the police officer, a day after the family reached a $5.9 million settlement with New York City.
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Like the swastika, Confederate flag stands for hate
I am getting sick and tired of hearing people complaining about taking down the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse. What is it with these people always crying the blues over that flag and the fact the South lost the war 150 years ago?
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Vanquishing the Confederate flag
A flag of any sort represents a country or a cause. Displaying the Confederate flag in the United States of America — whether it is the battle flag or another — is an issue of symbolism and statutory law. Last week, 150 years after using it within the Confederate States of America (a country) in armed rebellion against the United States for the cause of a Southern economy based on the forced labor of Africans, the government of South Carolina lowered the Confederate flag from its Capitol grounds.
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A small step toward justice
On Tuesday, President Obama did something I thought he should have started in 2010 when he signed the Fair Sentencing Act — he commuted the sentences of 46 people in federal prison on drug offenses.
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Eye opening
There is no question that the Confederate battle flag stands for white supremacy, intolerance and oppression. The Stars and Bars, as the flag is known, was birthed in the days when Virginia and other Southern states separated from the United States and created a country built on the perpetual right to buy and sell human beings into slavery. Our bloody Civil War secured our union and abolished human bondage while uplifting millions of people to the rights of citizenship. The Confederate flag then was reborn as the symbol of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups whose missions are to ensure black people forever submit to third class status.
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Housing workshop set for July 25
The Better Housing Coalition is offering a free workshop on renovation lending and historic tax credits from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, July 25.
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50 Cent out of dollars?
Rapper and actor 50 Cent filed for federal bankruptcy protection Monday, days after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit.
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Players of color star in MLB All-Star game
Baseball, the American pastime, is becoming more and more international, with a growing concentration of players of color.
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View online how tax dollars are spent
Want to know how the city is spending your tax dollars? Jump on your computer and go to this website — www.data.richmondgov.com.
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Good Samaritan Ministries opens summer camp
Pastor Michael D. McClary has spent nearly 30 years helping alcoholics and drug users in Richmond follow the Christian road to recovery that transformed him from an addict to a minister. The 65-year-old minister has undertaken the effort as the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Good Samaritan Ministries on South Side.
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FIREWORKS OVER RICHMOND-Others watched the fireworks from the Virginia War Memorial on South Belvidere Street.
Published on July 9, 2015
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FIREWORKS OVER RICHMOND - Many sat in chairs and on blankets on the lawn next to the Lee Bridge to view the aerial show.
Published on July 9, 2015
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FIREWORKS OVER RICHMOND -Thousands of spectators gathered to see the skies painted in spectacular colors last Friday at the city’s annual fireworks show at Brown’s …
Published on July 9, 2015
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Relocating rebel statues doesn’t change memory or attitude
Re: Letter to the editor “Free Press founder was right about Monument Avenue,” July 2-4 edition: I agree that Confederate flags should not adorn any government property, although I beg to differ with the opinion of the letter writer, Ben Ragsdale, and the opinion previously expressed by Free Press founder, the late Raymond H. Boone, about Monument Avenue.
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Free Press exposé propelled fight against racist flag
It was mid-summer 1992. A black airman with the Virginia Air National Guard walked into the Richmond Free Press newsroom and asked to see a reporter.