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VUU president accused of fraud
Dr. Hakim J. Lucas was supposed to be the ideal fit when Virginia Union University’s board named the 40-year-old as the historic institution’s 13th president in August.
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Funding guidelines, old decisions hamper RPS, study finds
Richmond Public Schools is stuck in a system of inefficiencies based largely on state and federal funding guidelines and operational decisions made years ago.
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Resources available to reduce stress, violence
Increased attention has been on African-Americans who experience violence in the household, neighborhood or overall society. Negative life experiences, such as violent households and violent communities, can have a mental and physical cost.
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Goldman to pursue new City Charter change
Should Richmond’s top priority be modernizing obsolete public school buildings or replacing the 47-year-old Richmond Coliseum? Veteran political strategist Paul Goldman wants to give city voters the opportunity to weigh in on that issue.
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GRTC stands to get more money under mayor’s proposed budget
GRTC turns out to be one of the big winners in Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s proposed budget. The mayor is asking Richmond City Council to boost the total GRTC subsidy by about $1.65 million from the current level in a bid to keep the transit company solvent as it prepares for a major overhaul of its routes and to subsidize the new GRTC Pulse or Bus Rapid Transit service.
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Jehovah’s Witnesses move annual conventions online for second year
For the second consecutive year, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have canceled their large, in-person annual three-day conventions in Richmond and around the globe because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Henrico schools to reopen virtually this fall
The Henrico School Board voted unanimously last week to reopen schools this fall using a full virtual learning format for the first semester.
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Episcopal Diocese of Maryland distributes $175,000 in reparations grants
The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland has made an inaugural grant distribution of $175,000 after church members overwhelmingly approved a reparations fund a year and a half ago.
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Who will get the ventilators?, by Julianne Malveaux
The “big and bad” United States is seeing its world dominance recede. We are being van- quished both by a virus and by the ignorance of the commander in chief.
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Trial in ‘Operation Varsity Blues’ college admissions scandal gets underway
The first full trial in the college admissions bribery scandal opened Monday with defense attorneys seeking to portray the two parents accused of buying their childrens’ way into school as victims of a con man who believed their payments were legitimate donations.
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Pride Month marred by anti-LGBTQ+ bills, by Marc H. Morial
“We are powerful because we have survived, and that is what it is all about—survival and growth.” — Audre Lorde
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City Council green lights projects for 2nd Street, North Side, East End
New apartments finally could rise on the site of the former Eggleston Hotel at 2nd and Leigh streets in Jackson Ward. City Council gave a thumbs up Monday by voting 9-0 to allow the long-stalled project to receive a grant of $250,544 over seven years through the city’s Economic Development Authority. Developer Kelvin Hanson, who initially proposed Eggleston Plaza five years ago, said he hopes to have the $5.8 million project underway this summer.
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Plans shape up for developments in Gilpin Court area
The Stallings family is preparing to go even bigger on developing its property in Gilpin Court, which lies north of Interstate 95 in Downtown and is best known for the public housing community.
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Begin Again
City Council majority strikes $1.5B Coliseum and Downtown development project, urging the administration to start over with public inclusion
Start over — and this time include the public. That’s the cry from the five members of Richmond City Council who followed through Monday night in eliminating the $1.5 billion Coliseum replacement and Downtown redevelopment plan, just as they said they would do when the nine-member governing body met last week as a committee.
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The aftermath of mass shootings infiltrates every corner of survivors’ lives
More than a year after 11-year-old Mayah Zamora was airlifted out of Uvalde, Texas, where she was critically injured in the Robb Elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers, the family is still reeling.
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‘Like every other day’
10 lives lost on a trip to the store
They were caregivers and protectors and helpers, running an errand or doing a favor or finishing out a shift, when their paths crossed with a young man driven by racism and hatred and baseless conspiracy theories.
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President Obama’s memoir off to record-setting sales start
Former President Barack Obama’s memoir, “A Promised Land” sold nearly 890,000 copies in the United States and Canada in its first 24 hours, putting it on track to be the best selling presidential memoir in modern history.
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Cities face crisis as fewer kids enroll and schools shrink
On a recent morning inside Chalmers School of Excellence on Chicago’s West Side, five preschool and kindergarten students finished up drawings. Four staffers, including a teacher and a tutor, chatted with them about colors and shapes. The summer program offers the kind of one-on-one support parents love. But behind the scenes, Principal Romian Crockett worries the school is becoming precariously small.
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Henry L. Marsh III, a former state senator and Richmond’s first African- American mayor, is greeted on Aug. 27 by School Board member Cheryl L. …
Published on January 7, 2021