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Review: A different kind of underdog story in ‘Air’
The new movie “Air” is technically about a shoe. There is nothing especially extraordinary about this shoe. As the Q-like Nike designer Peter Moore (Matthew Maher) explains, the last significant change to footwear was made some 600 years ago when the decision was made to differentiate the right and left feet. The Air Jordan is, at the end of the day, just another shoe.
United Daughters of the Confederacy would lose Virginia tax breaks, if Youngkin signs off
Legislation that would end tax benefits for the United Daughters of the Confederacy — the Richmond-based women’s group that helped erect many of the country’s Confederate monuments — is on its way to Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who hasn’t said whether he supports it.
Virginia lawmakers agree to extend timeline of budget negotiations
Leaders of the Democratic-controlled Virginia General Assembly said Wednesday that they reached an 11th-hour compromise with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin to extend negotiations over the state budget in an attempt to avert gridlock.
Students return to campus amid water crisis in Mississippi
While its water crisis continued, students in Mississippi’s capital returned to class for the first time in a week Tuesday with assurances that the toilets and sinks in their buildings would finally work.
Washington or Virginia Commanders? Va. aims to lure NFL team
Virginia lawmakers are advancing a measure intended to lure the Washington Commanders to the state by allowing the NFL team to forgo what could be $1 billion or more in future tax payments to help finance a potential new football stadium.
Many voters weary about a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024
Third parties hope they can fill the gap
The 2024 presidential election is drawing an unusually robust field of independent, third party and long shot candidates hoping to capitalize on Americans’ ambivalence and frustration over a likely rematch between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump.
Biden didn’t make Israeli-Palestinian talks a priority; Arab leaders say region now paying the price
From its first months in office, the Biden administration made a distinctive decision on its Middle East policy: It would de-prioritize a half-century of high-profile efforts by past U.S. presidents, particularly Democratic ones, to broker a broad and lasting peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
Year after the slap, Chris Rock punches back in Netflix special
A year after Will Smith smacked him on the Academy Awards stage, Chris Rock finally gave his rebuttal in a forceful stand-up special, streamed live on Netflix, in which the comedian bragged that he “took that hit like Pacquiao.”
Appeals court ruling keeps Biden student debt plan on hold
President Biden’s plan to forgive student loan debt for millions of borrowers was handed another legal loss Monday when a federal ap- peals court panel agreed to a preliminary injunction halting the program while an appeal plays out.
Franco Harris, Steeler who caught ‘Immaculate Reception,’ dies
The ball fluttered in the air and all but one of the 22 players on the Three Rivers Stadium turf on that cold December day 50 years ago essentially stopped. Franco Harris never did.
USDA updates rules for school meals that limit sugars
The nation’s school meals will get a makeover under new nutrition standards that limit added sugars for the first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture an- nounced Wednesday. The final rule also trims sodium in students’ meals, although not by the 30% first proposed in 2023. And it con- tinues to allow flavored milks — such as chocolate milk — with less sugar, rather than adopting an option that would have offered only unflavored milk to the youngest kids. The aim is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that provides breakfasts to more than 15 million students and lunches to nearly 30 million students every day at a cost of about $22.6 billion per year. “All of this is designed to ensure that students have quality meals and that we meet parents’ expectations,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters. The limits on added sugars would be required in the 2025-2026 school year, starting with high-sugar foods such as cereal, yogurt and flavored milk. By the fall of 2027, added sugars in school meals would be limited to no more than 10% of the total calories per week for breakfasts and lunches, in addition to limits on sugar in specific products. New WIC rules include more money for fruits and veggies. They also expand food choices Officials had proposed to reduce sodium in school meals by as much as 30% over the next several years. But after receiving mixed public comments and a directive from Congress included in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill approved in March, the agency will reduce sodium levels allowed in breakfasts by 10% and in lunches by 15% by the 2027-2028 school year.
Remove or keep a statue? South Africa also debates painful legacy
A hulking statue of a late 19th century white leader, with a cane and top hat, has been a flashpoint for cultural conflict in South Africa for years. Black protesters threw paint on it. White supporters rallied around it. Authorities surrounded the statue with barbed wire and then ringed it with a more permanent fence.
DOJ: Buffett company discriminated against Black homebuyers
A Pennsylvania mortgage company owned by billionaire businessman Warren Buffett’s company discriminated against potential Black and Latino homebuyers in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware, the Department of Justice said Wednesday, in what is being called the second-largest redlining settlement in history. Trident Mortgage Co., a division of Berkshire Hathaway’s HomeServices of America, deliberately avoided writing mortgages in minority-majority neighborhoods in West Philadelphia such as Malcolm X Park; Camden, N.J.; and in Wilmington, Del., the Justice Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in their settlement with Trident.
What if Donald Trump is convicted? Republican convention rules don’t address issue
The Republican National Committee’s rules for next year’s nominating contest and convention were released this week without addressing a question the GOP could well face next summer: Can the party’s delegates vote for a different candidate if the presumptive nominee is convicted of a felony?
‘The Marvels’ melts down at the box office, marking a new low for the Universe
Since 2008’s “Iron Man,” the Marvel machine has been one of the most unstoppable forces
The Obamas’ official portraits unveiled at the White House
Former President Obama and his wife, Michelle, returned to the White House on Sept. 7, for the unveiling of their official portraits with a modern vibe in an event that set humor and nostalgia over his presidency against the current harsh political talk about the survival of democracy.
House votes to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib over her Israel-Hamas rhetoric in a stunning rebuke
The House voted late Tuesday to censure Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — the only Palestinian American in Congress — an extraordinary rebuke of her rhetoric about the Israel-Hamas war.
Virginia Senate Democrats postpone work on constitutional amendments and kill GOP voting bills
A Democrat-led Virginia Senate panel on Tuesday defeated a handful of Republican-sponsored voting bills and moved to put on hold consideration of several proposed constitutional amendments until after this year’s session.
In ‘Equalizer 3,’ Denzel Washington’s assassin goes to Italy
Filmmaker Antoine Fuqua has been dreaming about taking the Equalizer abroad for years. The action franchise (very loosely based on a 1980s television series) starring Denzel Washington as the reluctant assassin Robert McCall had rooted itself in humble domestic beginnings, in Boston. But after two films and $382.7 million in box office receipts in the past decade, the time seemed ripe to travel.
Franklin from ‘Peanuts’ gets to shine in the spotlight of a new animated Apple TV+ special
The mild-mannered Franklin — the first Black character in the “Peanuts” comic strip — gets to shine in his own animated Apple TV+ special this month in a story about friendship.
