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Richmond Schools Wrestle with Low Graduation Rates

As graduation season approaches, over 720 high school seniors enrolled in the city’s public schools this year hope to change the declining trend that is Richmond’s on-time graduation rate. Richmond Public Schools have been under the spotlight after coming in last in...

White Supremacy Movements Spark Rise In Religion-based Hate

Vandals spray-painted 19 swastikas on the walls of the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia last October. A young woman leaving a mosque with her friends in Sterling, Virginia, after nightly prayers in the summer of 2017 was raped and killed. Someone scrawled...

Virginia Takes Steps to Keep Prescription Prices Down

Virginia has become the first state to ensure that patients will be the ones to see benefit from prescription drug coupons -- not their insurance companies. Last month, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed two bills that will require health insurers to count drug...

Mortality Rates for Breast Cancer Reflect Health Disparities

About 7,000 women in Virginia are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. Certain women — including African Americans and rural residents — are more likely than others to die from the disease. “Oh my God, I’m going to die.” On March 19, 2018, Margrietta...

Op-Ed: True Equity For Richmond Must Include Law Enforcement

One year after the death of Marcus-David Peters, Chelsea Higgs Wise says that if Richmond wants to talk about equity in matters involving the budget, the city must also talk about equity in matters of law enforcement. It's been one year since Marcus-David Peters...

Black Women Far More Likely Than Whites to Die Giving Birth

For black women, childbirth can be a death sentence. African American women are three to four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related causes. Last fall, Tanaca McCargo, a Chesterfield native, found out she was expecting her second child....

On Eve of Midterms, a Push for the Equal Rights Amendment

It’s been six months since the Virginia General Assembly struck down two bills that would make the state the 38th in the country to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, and local advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers haven’t slowed down in their efforts to have women’s rights formally recognized, pinning their hopes on a state still grappling...

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RVA Global: East and West Intersect in Istanbul

Stepping off the plane onto Turkish soil felt like being transported to another world. Like hundreds of millions of travellers before me, I had come to see Istanbul, the gateway between Europe and the East. Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire for almost 500 years, is still a major cultural site for Muslims and Christians, although tourism has...

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Spanberger Campaign Responds to Leak of Security Clearance Forms

A Republican PAC released former CIA case-officer and Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger’s entire federal security clearance application yesterday, including private information such as her Social Security number. The document, a national security questionnaire known as Standard Form 86 or SF86, is the highest level document for security...

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RVA Global: Far Right Wing Protests and Clashes Gripping German City

*This is a developing story.  Germany, ever struggling with their historical demons, has just seen two days of clashes between far-right wing protesters, neo-Nazis, counter-protesters, anti-fascists, and the police. The clashes have taken place in the town of Chemnitz, a town in Saxony in Eastern Germany. Having started after an alleged lethal...

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RVA Global: Taking on Trump’s Tweet about “White” South Africa

Last summer, my VCU study-abroad students and I stood in the dim but pretty interior of a little house made of corrugated tin in the Soweto township of Johannesburg, South Africa. With us was Thulani Madondo, a 2012 CNN hero, a vibrant, fast-talking South African who was recognized for founding the Kliptown Youth Program and supporting hundreds...

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RVA Global: No Need to Punch Nazis: Lessons From Berlin

Just a couple years ago, most Americans assumed that Nazis had been firmly relegated to the past, never to reappear outside the confines of history books. When Nazis did preoccupy the American mind they kindly restricted themselves to playing the role of evil villains in video games or on the silver screen. Unlike the fictitious Nazis of our...

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RVA Global: Street Photography in Taiwan

I had the opportunity in May 2017 to visit and stay with some international friends working abroad in Taipei, Taiwan. This would be my first trip to Asia, and I was beyond excited to practice street photography outside of the United States. As a Republic of China, Taiwan is a democratic country, which helped with mentally preparing for the...

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