Area resident receives alumni award

BLACKSBURG, Va., January Haile, of Danville, has been awarded the Outstanding Recent Alumni Award for the Department of Biochemistry in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Haile is an assistant professor of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology at Centre College. Haile earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 2009.

Every year, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences honors one alumnus from each department who has graduated more than 10 years ago for his or her achievements since graduation.

Book discussion to focus on race in the criminal justice system

Kentucky Public Advocate Ed Monahan will be among the guests at a discussion of the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness at 3 p.m. Sunday.

Danville Police Chief Tony Gray, Commonwealth Attorney Richard Bottoms, Assistant Public Defender Stacy Coontz and Judge Bruce Petrie also will be part of the discussion at the Boyle County Public Library.

In the book, Michelle Alexander, an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, argues the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a system of racial control. The book raises the following questions: Is the War on Drugs racially biased? Is the U.S. prison system a contemporary form of slavery that creates profit at the expense of the poor and people of color? Are we living in a color-blind society or is racism alive in the U.S.?

Copies of the book were made available to interested community members to read before the discussion, but everyone is invited to join this community conversation sponsored by Citizens Concerned for Human Relations of Danville.

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News briefs for April 11