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Working at ground zero
VCU Medical center’s Jade Jones knows the joy and pain wrapped into caring for COVID-19 patients as a respiratory ICU nurse
Jade Jones is living her life’s dream — in the midst of a deadly national nightmare.
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Turning back time
Thousands of people attended last Saturday’s inauguration of Virginia’s new GOP leaders – Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares
“The spirit of Virginia is alive and well,” Glenn Allen Youngkin declared as after being sworn in as Virginia’s 74th governor.
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New GOP leadership takes office to applause of largely white and conservative crowd
By 9:30 a.m. last Saturday, a line of people extended outside the gate of Capitol Square from 9th and Grace streets all the way to 8th street as they waited to be screened by Capitol Police and allowed to enter the inauguration of Gov.-elect Glenn A. Youngkin.
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Personality: Daniel Harthausen
Spotlight on HBO Max competition show winner
From pop-up food events to TV stardom and back, Daniel Harthausen is cooking up a unique culinary presence in Richmond.
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Sacrifice for success
Parents of student athletes willingly go, and pay for, the extra mile(s)
Willie Starlings, 50, became a sports parent when his son, Joel Starlings, played flag football as a 4-year-old at Hotchkiss Field Community Center in Richmond.
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Richmond’s Randall Robinson reshaped American’s foreign policy, forced change in South Africa
Seared by the segregation he grew up with in Richmond, Randall Maurice Robinson championed change in American policies toward African and the Caribbean nations that he considered unjust and undergirded by racial bias.
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Incarcerated pregnant women fighting addiction need specific resources
Karlee Clements was six months pregnant, “full on into addiction” and begging to go to jail because she was afraid she would kill her child.
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Plagiarism charges down Harvard’s president; a conservative attack helped to fan the outrage
American higher education has long viewed plagiarism as a cardinal sin. Accusations of academic dishonesty have ruined the careers of faculty and undergraduates alike. The latest target is Harvard President Claudine Gay, who resigned Tuesday. In her case, the outrage came not from her academic peers but her political foes, led by conservatives who put her career under intense scrutiny.
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Free Press endorsements for 2015 Virginia elections
Tuesday, Nov. 3, is Election Day. All 140 seats in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates are up for election, along with important local contests for board of supervisors and school board, among others, in Henrico and Chesterfield counties. The city of Richmond has no local elections.
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Graying NAACP rallying to recover from obstacles
A session dedicated to the hot-button topic of police community relations at the 80th Annual Convention of the Virginia State Conference NAACP starkly illustrates the dilemma that confronts Linda Thomas, the newly elected president of the venerable civil rights organization.
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Republicans retain control of Va. Senate
For more than two hours after the polls closed Tuesday, Democrat Daniel H. Gecker held a commanding 3,000-vote lead and appeared to be headed for victory in the 10th Senate District that includes a chunk of Richmond’s West End and South Side.
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Federal recognition for Pamunkeys brings tribe closer to nationhood
Defeated in battles with the English invaders who took their land, the Pamunkey Indians have been on a reservation and under the thumb of Virginia’s government for more than 350 years — long before there was a state. Now the dwindling descendants of Pocahontas, Powhatan and other members of the tribe that met the first English settlers to Jamestown in 1607 are one step closer to gaining their independence — and separation from Virginia.
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Selma
Excerpts from President Obama’s speech at the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches
There are places and moments in America where this nation’s destiny has been decided. Selma is such a place. In one afternoon 50 years ago, so much of our turbulent history — the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war; the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow; the death of four little girls in Birmingham; and the dream of a Baptist preacher — all that history met on this bridge. It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to determine the true meaning of America. And because of men and women like John Lewis, Joseph Lowery, Hosea Williams, Amelia Boynton, Diane Nash, Ralph Abernathy, C.T. Vivian, Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and so many others, the idea of a just America and a fair America, an inclusive America, and a generous America — that idea ultimately triumphed.
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Personality: Todd B. Waldo
Spotlight on president of Robinson Theater Community Arts Center
Todd B. Waldo recalls eagerly watching the restoration of the Robinson Theater at 29th and Q streets in Church Hill in 2008. “I live two blocks from there,” he says. “I still remember the first time I walked by and saw the marquee lights turned on. I was proud of the work. And seeing ‘Robinson’ shining brightly at the front of the building gave me hope.” The newly renovated facility reopened in February 2009 as the Robinson Theater Community Arts Center under the leadership of Executive Director Betsy Hart.
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Advocacy groups plan housing, services safety net for foster youths
Janeva Smith has seen many of her friends in foster care suddenly become homeless when they turn 18. They have nowhere to go, few life skills and little hope for the future. “I’ve had many friends who tried to commit suicide,” said Ms. Smith, who was 18 months old when she initially was placed in foster care in Plainfield, N.J. She was 14 when she entered foster care in Virginia, moving between foster families, group homes and shelters.
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Eruption
Baltimore wracked by outrage as protesters turn violent. City, nation look for answers about race, police brutality.
Just hours after Loretta Lynch’s historic swearing in as the new U.S. attorney general and the first African-American woman to lead the Justice Department, mayhem erupted Monday in the streets of Baltimore following the funeral for Freddie Gray. The 25-year-old Mr. Gray died of severe injuries on April 19, a week after being arrested, handcuffed and tossed into a police van. His spine was nearly severed and his larynx was crushed while in police custody, authorities have reported.
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RRHA resident’s chilly 3-year ordeal
For the past three years, Tina Marie Shaw has had to rely on an electric space heater to keep the winter cold out of her public housing unit in Creighton Court. “I worry about the heater starting a fire,” said Ms. Shaw, who looks after her 9-year-old grandson, Xavia, her pride and joy and an honors student at a Richmond elementary school. To avoid risk to herself and the child, “I unplug (the heater) at night when I go upstairs to bed, and turn it on in the morning.”
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Personality: Dr. Clinton V. Turner
Dr. Clinton V. Turner, former Virginia secretary of agriculture and consumer services and former associate vice president for agriculture and extension at Virginia State University’s College of Agriculture, has been inducted into the George Washington Carver Public Service Hall of Fame. He is the first Virginian and the first VSU alumnus to be inducted.
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Personality: LaShara Smith
Spotlight on president of Richmond Professionals Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers
The engineering profession needs more African-Americans, including women. That’s the word from LaShara Smith, president of the Richmond Professionals Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.
