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Garden at MLK Middle School is part of new city Food Justice Corridor
Richmond’s new Food Justice Corridor is starting to take root. On Saturday, nine new raised garden beds were installed in an interior courtyard at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, building on fledging steps begun last year.

Music week features folk, hip-hop, jazz, metal, pop, rock, R&B and more
Entertainment will be in the spotlight during the first ever Richmond Music Week.

Joe Morrissey exploring run against Sen. Dance
Joseph D. “Joe” Morrissey is preparing to make a political comeback.

Baliles out at City Hall
Jonathan T. “Jon” Baliles has been dumped as the senior policy adviser to Mayor Levar M. Stoney. While he is still listed in that position on the city’s website, he is gone from City Hall.

RPS halts tough absence policy
A new policy requiring Richmond students to be marked absent for the day if they arrive more than 80 minutes after the start of classes without a written excuse is being abandoned.

‘Virtual school’ in Va.?
Advocates say it would boost educational choices; critics say it would strip students and money from public schools
Thousands of public school students in Virginia could have the option of taking all of their classes on a home computer in what is known as a “virtual school” — instead of making the daily trek to a building with bells and defined class times. Gov. Terry McAuliffe is mulling whether to sign House Bill 8, a largely Republican-backed piece of legislation that would allow Virginia to join Florida, Ohio and 28 other states in providing 12 years of public education in what enthusiasts describe as a “classroom without walls.”

Bethlehem Baptist Church leaving East End for the suburbs
Bethlehem Baptist Church, which bills itself as “The church in the heart of the city with the city in our hearts,” is moving from Fairmount Avenue in the East End to the suburbs, according to Carolyn Demery, chair of the church’s Deacon Board.

Dems win Va. House, Senate
Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin went all in on winning Republican majorities in the state House and Senate — and lost. Unofficial results from Tuesday’s elections show Virginia Democrats again will be in charge of both houses of the General Assembly.

Hilbert to mayor: Don’t veto City Council budget
Money allocated to fix potholes or plow streets cannot be used for picking up trash unless Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney secures approval to shift the funds from Richmond City Council.

Pay them, but not her
RPS spends extra to win bill dispute
The Richmond School Board paid a white law firm $31,000 in legal fees to avoid paying a Black professional’s $27,000 bill for doing consulting work in the case of a disabled student, half of which was to be paid by the state.

Alston out
Surprise move blocks African-American judge from Va. Supreme Court
Surprise move blocks African-American judge from Va. Supreme Court

William U. Booker Sr., entrepreneur, civic and spiritual leader, dies at age 95
Hard-working, honest, wise, industrious, caring’ were his trademarks
William Ulysses Booker Sr. sought to seize the opportunities that came his way.

VCU enrolls record freshman class
A record 4,050 freshmen started classes this week at Virginia Commonwealth University, with a remarkable 51 percent being African-American, Asian, Latino and other minority students, the school has reported.

Bank branch to close in Highland Park
The last Bank of America branch located in a majority African-American neighborhood of Richmond is scheduled to close in two months, according to the bank’s website.

Virginia General Assembly
Republicans still in charge
The General Assembly opened a new session Wednesday with Republican M. Kirkland “Kirk” Cox of Colonial Heights in the speaker’s chair in the 100-member House of Delegates.

Fight to preserve historic New Market Heights Battlefield from development wins white flag
Around 7 a.m., Sept. 29, 1864, five regiments of U.S. Colored Troops charged Confederate defenses under withering fire and dislodged troops dug in at New Market Heights in Eastern Henrico — about a mile east of what is now Interstate 295. Fourteen Black soldiers and two of their white officers ultimately were awarded the Medal of Honor for their valor in the savage fight that cost 161 Union lives and left another 666 soldiers wounded.

More time?
Civil rights group files lawsuit seeking extension of Va. voter registration deadline due to statewide computer crash
Virginia could become the latest state under federal court order to extend voter registration because of a disaster. The disaster in Virginia, however, is no hurricane, but a computer system.

Overcharged? 4 Richmond School Board members question surging costs to build new schools in city
The projected cost of the three new schools that Richmond is preparing to build has jumped an average of $107 per square foot in just five months, adding tens of millions of dollars to the cost, according to four members of the Richmond School Board.

Private contractors costing city big $ for snow removal
When snow falls in Richmond, City Hall is forced to pay big bucks to private contractors to clear the streets. The reason: Up to half of the aging fleet of city dump trucks that double as snowplows are usually parked, awaiting repairs, according to a new report from the Department of Public Works.

Pushback: Individuals, coalitions raising questions, opposition to mayor’s $1.4B Coliseum development plan
As Mayor Levar M. Stoney and representatives of the Navy Hill District Corp. stump throughout the city to marshal support for the $1.4 billion plan to replace the Richmond Coliseum, resistance is beginning to appear.