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“This is not a new fight now we're in. It's a fight right now between craziness and common sense and real civility and communism, socialism, and the direction that the Democratic party has gone in to the left.”– U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, who is seeking another term representing Virginia in Congress.
U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, speaks at a campaign event in Virginia Beach featuring U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, on Aug. 17, 2026. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
Alongside Kiggans, US House Speaker says Va.’s 2nd District ‘will determine the fate of the country’
By Charlotte Rene Woods
As part of an 18-state tour through more than 30 congressional districts, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said Monday that “Virginia's 2nd District will determine the fate of the country because this will be a close election.”
As Johnson stumped for U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, at the Cavalier Hotel on Monday, he and the incumbent congresswoman framed partisan control of the nation’s legislature during this year’s congressional midterm elections as a battle between “common sense” and “chaos.”
A railroad crossing in Waverly, Virginia. (Photo by Sarah Vogelsong/Virginia Mercury)
By Nathaniel Cline
Virginia has received $17 million in federal funding to improve transportation in Staunton and Chesterfield County, and to invest in new Amtrak trains serving routes across the commonwealth.
U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner said the funding comes from the Department of Transportation’s Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program, created by the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act. The law has supported several transportation and environmental projects in Virginia, including the Long Bridge Project’s expansion, since 2021.
A hemp plant at Redfern Hemp Co. in Caroline County. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
By Samantha Willis
A federal judge in Roanoke on Friday declined seven Virginia business owners’ request to eliminate a new regulation that removes an exception to the state’s limit of 2 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) per product package. The new standard took effect Aug. 15.
The entrepreneurs had asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Roanoke for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to block the rule stemming from the state budget lawmakers passed and Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed in late June.
By Amanda Watford
For more than three decades, researchers have been tracking ticks, mice, oak trees and other wildlife in a New York forest to better understand what makes Lyme disease more likely to spread.
Their latest findings challenge some long-held assumptions — including the idea that deer are a major driver of Lyme disease risk.
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"'Project Flash' data center proposal fizzles out in Franklin County." | The Roanoke Times
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