By Lisa Respers France, Jennifer Hudson has Aretha Franklin to thank, in part, for her career. Hudson first came to fame in 2004 as a finalist on “American Idol.” She auditioned for the reality singing competition with Franklin’s song, “Share Your Love With Me.” Fast forward to 2021 and Hudson is now a Grammy winning
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By STEPHANIE BAUMER The only surviving log African American school in St. Louis County is being moved to Faust Historic Village. African School House #4 was built on Wild Horse Creek Road in Chesterfield around 1894. While it was being constructed, Chesterfield school directors sent students to the neighboring Hilltown district and paid for nine
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By Chauncey Alcorn Shanta Matthews and her family were three months behind on rent last week and were preparing to be booted from their two-bedroom condo in Charleston, South Carolina, when they got a last-minute reprieve from the federal government. US health officials issued a new eviction moratorium on August 3, temporarily barring landlords from
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By Rebekah Riess Heated arguments spilled out into the parking lot Tuesday night after a school board in a suburban Tennessee county approved a temporary requirement for masks in elementary schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As debates over masks in US schools have reemerged as the academic year begins, the Board of Education in
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By Rebekah Riess and Gregory Lemos A mother in Atlanta has filed a civil rights complaint with the US Department of Education alleging her children’s elementary school placed Black students in separate classrooms from their peers based on their race. Kila Posey, the mother two Black children enrolled in Mary Lin Elementary School in Atlanta,
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By Madeline Holcombe and Hannah Sarisohn More than 4,400 students in Mississippi are quarantining after being exposed to Covid-19 in the first weeks of the school year, according to data from the state’s department of health. The department tracked student and staff Covid-19 exposure and positive cases by individual schools and counties from August 2
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By Tierney Sneed A key piece of congressional Democrats’ voting rights push faces not only a near-impossible odds of becoming law, but also a daunting court battle in front of a conservative judiciary if it does. The legislation, known as the “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” is now a focus of the House and
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By Kaitlan Collins and John Bonifield The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce within the next 48 hours that it is authorizing Covid-19 vaccine booster shots for some people who are immunocompromised, according to a source familiar with the discussions. This would be a third shot of the current two-dose Pfizer and
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