U.S. education chief urges Va. universities to reform practices, restore public trust

Good morning from the Mercury.

By Nathaniel Cline

As students prepare to return to class, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is asking Virginia’s college and university presidents and governing boards to review how they operate and make changes, with a specific focus on whether universities are delivering affordable, high-quality education while maintaining free speech, academic standards, and accountability to the public.

McMahon wrote in a letter to leaders concerned that public trust in American higher education has “reached record lows” and asked them to publicly commit to reforms involving free speech, admissions, affordability, academic rigor, research security, and other issues.

By Eric Bonds

The timing of the release of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s report on groundwater availability last month was suspicious, given that it was completed in January but not made available to lawmakers or the public until several months after the General Assembly’s legislative session. The science presented in the report is impressive, while its findings are alarming.

Most of the attention it has received relates to data centers, but they weren’t the report’s main focus. It’s really about the importance of living within environmental limits. This lesson applies both to water and energy use.

By Anna Claire Vollers

After authorities rescued 16 children last month who had been confined to a single room in a home in rural Ohio, attention turned to their mother, who had been 15 and pregnant when she married their father.

The child endangerment case has recharged a national conversation around child marriage, which is defined by the United Nations as any marriage involving someone under age 18.

Virginia raised the state's minimum marriage age to 18 in 2024.

By Sam Gauntt

Todd Blanche took the oath of office as U.S. attorney general at a brief ceremony in the Oval Office Monday, following the Senate’s narrow vote to approve his nomination as the nation’s top law enforcement official over the weekend.

Blanche, who served as acting attorney general and was President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer before joining the government, succeeds Pam Bondi — whom Trump ousted in April — as head of the Department of Justice. Trump announced Blanche as his pick to permanently lead the department in June.

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