Good morning from the Mercury.
Eastern Shore Rural Health CEO Jeanette Edwards (far right) shows Virginia Health and Human Resources Secretary Marvin Figeuroa (left) a radiology room at the organization's Eastville clinic on Aug. 28, 2026. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
By Charlotte Rene Woods
Eastern Shore residents and healthcare providers on Friday told state leaders about the opportunities and challenges they face serving their communities, with Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Marvin Figueroa outlining how the state government can support them and other rural Virginians.
“We’re here to learn what the challenges are, what the assets are and ‘how (we can) scale the work,” Figueroa said at Eastern Shore Community College, one of several stops on the listening tour.
The same day, the state announced $122 million in Rural Health Transformation Fund awards were disbursed to healthcare organizations around the state. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin applied for the new federal grant last year.
A 2021 tour of the construction of the new Highland Springs High School in Henrico. This fall, voters in several localities will decide whether to impose a 1% sales tax to fund school construction and modernization costs. (Photo courtesy of Henrico County Public Schools)
By Nathaniel Cline
Voters in 47 Virginia jurisdictions will weigh a 1% sales tax to fund school construction and modernization costs. In Northern Virginia, the revenue could also support transportation projects.
This comes as leaders face funding challenges for aging school facilities and rising demand to support Metro and other local transit systems.
"This year," as lawmakers and regulators weigh the proposed $67 billion Dominion Energy-NextEra mega merger, "the need for reform is especially urgent," columnist Ivy Main writes. (Photo by Getty Images)
COMMENTARY
By Ivy Main
Virginia House Speaker Don Scott is adamant that the nearly $4 million in campaign funds he has accepted from Dominion Energy won’t affect how he views the Virginia utility’s attempt to merge with Florida-based NextEra.
Scott reportedly told a Virginia Public Radio reporter last week, “If you can’t take their money, eat their food and tell them no, then you need to go home.”
Scott is, by all accounts, a very smart man, but I just have to ask: is he kidding himself, or us? I can’t answer for the Speaker, but I think I have enough of a grasp of human nature to know that what he is saying is bunk.
By Ashley Murray and Virginia Mercury staff
Just over two months from midterm elections and four months removed from a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gutted Voting Rights Act protections for majority Black U.S. House districts, and 63 years after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech there, thousands gathered again at the Lincoln Memorial Friday.
Organizers focused the anniversary march around a “Defend the Vote” message.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger was one of a slate of leaders from around the country to speak at the commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington on Aug. 28.
NEWS TO KNOW
Our daily roundup of headlines from Virginia and elsewhere.
"This Appalachian memoir author is running as a Democratic contrast to JD Vance." | The Washington Post
"Virginia removes three Confederate memorials."| The Associated Press
"Meet the retirees turning their Virginia farms into wildlife corridors." |Smithsonian Magazine
Thanks for reading Virginia Mercury. Did you know our weekend digest is also free? Sign up here. And if you enjoyed today’s edition, please forward to a friend. Increasing our readership helps us cover more news.