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VSU grad crowned Miss USA
Deshauna Barber has brains and beauty, and she’s a commander in the Army Reserve to boot. The 2011 Virginia State University graduate now adds another title: Miss USA 2016. Miss Barber, 26, who represented the District of Columbia in Sunday’s pageant at the T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas strip, beat contestants from 50 states to win the crown.
Harry and Meghan have a royal baby
And his name is Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex whose fairytale wedding last year garnered international headlines, gave birth to a 7 pound 3 ounce boy at 5:26 a.m. Monday.
Obamas choose 2 African-American artists for official presidential portraits
Artist Kehinde Wiley, known for his large, edgy paintings of top music and hip-hop performers such as Michael Jackson, LL Cool J, Notorious B.I.G., Ice T and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, has been commissioned to paint the official presidential portrait of former President Obama for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
VMI superintendent resigns after probe ordered of ‘ongoing structural racism’
The superintendent of Virginia Military Institute resigned Mon- day, a week after Gov. Ralph S. Northam and other state officials ordered an investigation into what they characterized as a culture of “ongoing structural racism” at the college.
Morehouse College grad named new interim president
Harold Martin Jr., a 2002 Morehouse College graduate and secretary of its Board of Trustees, has been named interim president of the all-male institution that is celebrating its 150th anniversary. The board announced the selection of Mr. Martin on June 26. He replaces William J. “Bill” Taggart, who died in June from an aneurysm.
Menaced by Florence
Changing forecast for hurricane keeps Virginians on alert
More than 1 million people along the Virginia and Carolina coast fled toward higher ground this week in a mass evacuation ordered just days before the expected arrival of Hurricane Florence, a Category 3 storm and the most powerful to menace the region in nearly three decades.
U.S. Supreme Court decisions change church-state separation, allow partial Muslim ban
The First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom has barred the government from meddling with or taxing churches and other faith-based institutions. In exchange, religious institutions generally have not been entitled to receive taxpayer funding. No more.
One down
Trump’s first year in office marked by controversy and protests
Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump took office, his presidency started generating controversy. Photographs showing that the crowd at President Trump’s swearing-in was smaller than at Barack Obama’s first presidential inauguration in 2009 caused the first ruckus in his administration — but not the last.
Suicide takes Miss USA 2019
Cheslie Kryst, who won the 2019 Miss USA pageant and worked as a correspondent for the entertainment news television show “Extra,” reportedly committed suicide Jan. 30.
Sessions seeks to revive federal anti-crime program that targeted African-Americans
New U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed to revive 1990s law-and-order strategies that pumped up the nation’s prison population to the highest level in the world to fight the recent surge in urban violence.
No fear of KKK
Charlottesville leaders, including clergy and NAACP, plan positive activities for Saturday in response to Klan protest
Charlottesville residents refuse to buckle under fear in the face of a Ku Klux Klan rally planned for Saturday in a public park.
Charlottesville votes to remove Lee statue
A divided Charlottesville City Council voted this week to move a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the city’s Downtown and to rename Lee Square where it stands.
Scathing DOJ report finds discriminatory, unconstitutional police practices in Baltimore
African-American residents in Baltimore are routinely subjected to unconstitutional stops, arrests and excessive force by the Baltimore Police Department, a scathing federal report released on Wednesday states. The 163-page U.S. Justice Department report details an investigation launched after the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray last year that found the Baltimore Police Department engages in a pattern of conduct that violates the Constitution and federal law.
Tragedy in Vegas
Sunday’s bloody mass shooting outside casino is the worst massacre in recent U.S. history
The mystery and motive behind mass killer Stephen Paddock — gambler, accountant, auditor and real estate investor — continues to baffle federal authorities and law enforcement officials in Las Vegas who were working on Wednesday to discover what drove the 64-year-old to commit the worst mass murder in modern U.S. history.
Mo’ne Davis wins ESPY Award
Mo’ne Davis continues to add to her already crowded trophy shelf. The teen sensation’s latest accolade?
Ferguson police created ‘toxic environment’
Federal probe reveals racial bias, injustices aimed at African-Americans; cop cleared in death of Michael Brown
WASHINGTON A U.S. Justice Department investigation found sweeping patterns of racial bias within the Ferguson, Mo., police department that targeted African-Americans and created a “toxic environment,” with officers routinely using excessive force, issuing petty citations and making baseless traffic stops against them. But even in the face of a plethora of problems, the federal probe cleared a former white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager there, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday.
Faculty votes to drop Lee name from Washington & Lee University
Faculty at Washington and Lee University voted on Monday to remove Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s name from the school.
Trump refuses to hold official White House portrait unveiling for President Obama
President Trump is showing his true colors again.
Independent review slated of Charlottesville events
More than 200 clergy, activists and citizens began a 10-day march this week from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville to Washington in a public show of resistance to the white supremacists who brought violence and death to the city earlier this month.
Magic moment
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California, daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is first Black woman chosen as running mate by a major party’s presidential candidate
For the first time, a Black woman will be on a major party’s presidential ticket.
