
School Board to start work on Kamras’ proposed $341M budget
Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras presented to the School Board Tuesday night a $341 million proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

State Police to probe handling of city contract to remove rebel statues
Did Mayor Levar M. Stoney violate the state’s procurement law when his administration provided a sole-source emergency contract worth $1.8 million to remove city-owned Confederate statues?

Another double standard? Police seize firearms from Black men, but not whites, at Lobby Day
Police stopped a car of Black men and confiscated two of their guns at Virginia’s annual “Lobby Day” on Monday, while white gun rights activists defied local laws unimpeded in the state capital of Richmond.

Area AKAs celebrate VP Harris’ inauguration
Members of six area Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority chapters put on their pearls and Chuck Taylor sneakers Wednesday evening and celebrated the inauguration of their sorority sister, Vice President Kamala Harris, with a Zoom event on Wednesday, Jan. 20, from 6:08 to 7:08 p.m., homage to the sorority’s founding in 1908 at Howard University. The newly inaugurated vice president is a Howard University alumna.

Keep moving forward: VSU panel reflects on Dr. King’s words
U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner said the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 directly op- poses all that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for. “Unfortunately a little over a week ago, we saw incredible hordes of thugs invade the United States Capitol (and) try to take the law into their own hands in a way that was the antithesis of everything Dr. King stood for,” Sen. Warner said Monday in video remarks kicking off a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at Virginia State University that was broadcast online.

Monacan’s Kendrick Warren Jr. may be the next ‘Special K’
The “Kendrick Warren Show, Part 2” is coming soon to a basketball court near you.

Fourth Baptist Church tumult raises concern among congregation
Started in 1859 before the Civil War, Fourth Baptist Church is now a venerable beacon of Christian faith in Church Hill and the fountainhead from which nine other area churches have sprung. But a major dispute between the current pastor and a large portion of the membership over the church’s organizational structure is threatening to tear apart the 300-member congregation as Fourth Baptist prepares to mark its 162nd anniversary.

Thomas H. Francis, whose political skills aided candidates in Chesterfield and elsewhere, dies at 77
For decades, Thomas Henry Francis pushed to make inroads for Democrats in Republican-controlled Chesterfield County where he lived most of his life.

Personality: Jeffrey M. Gallagher
Spotlight on board chairman of Virginia Repertory Theatre
The largest producing theater in Central Virginia. The first theater to perform a live theater production before an integrated audience in post-Reconstruction Virginia in defiance of Jim Crow laws. Those are major milestones in the history of Virginia Repertory Theatre, which traces its early roots back to 1953 through the Barksdale Memorial Theatre at Hanover Tavern.

’We need this to get back to normal’
It has been months since Annette Johnson has seen her grandmother in person.

America’s new day
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Vice President Kamala Harris are sworn into office in an uplifting ceremony
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a ringing call to the nation and began throwing out the damaging, corrosive policies of his predecessor after being sworn into office Wednesday along with his history-making vice president, former U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California.

Interested in a COVID-19 vaccine?
Area health officials plan to expand vaccinations beginning Monday, Jan. 18, to front line essential workers, including police, firefighters and hazmat workers, pre-kindergarten through high school teachers and staff, child care workers and those who work in correctional facilities and homeless shelters.

Dr. King and accountability
On Jan. 18, the nation will once again commemorate the birthday of Dr. King. The life, faith and great ideas of the freedom warrior should represent a model and guide for our national life working together in “cooperative action.” To what end? To advance justice and social uplift, while at the same time defending and standing up to protect democratic principles – the foundation and bedrock of our democracy.

A New Low
I am at ground zero. My law degree cannot protect me. My fancy address cannot protect me. My radio appearances and Zoom book tour cannot protect me. I check with, and for, my daughter against this madness as we all should the way the Black Power Movement taught me.

Insurrection underestimated
The nation and the world witnessed a har- rowing experience unlike any seen for more than 200 years. The underestimated insurrection that has been incited for more than four years finally became a reality.

Only In America
Only in America could you in one day be egged on by the president of this country to disrupt the judicial process of this land and breech the U.S. Capitol — an icon of our democracy — to destroy property, to upset and scare our lawmakers and to take down the very symbol upon which we all have pledged and adopted — the American flag.

For our own healing, by Daryl V. Fraser
On my mind that day were my New Year’s resolutions, the brilliance of Stacy Abrams, Georgia’s election results, Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor. Oh, yeah, and the insurrection.

Was insurrection an inside job? by Julianne Malveaux
If you watched the disgraceful invasion of the U.S. Capitol and the horrific destruction that took place on Jan. 6, you observed a legion of limited-intelligence, low-life louts.