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Here’s a recap of the top stories on the morning of May 9, 2025:
Southwest, Southside Virginians could bear the brunt of Medicaid cuts
Reported by VPM News’ Adrienne Hoar McGibbon
More than one-third of Virginia’s rural hospitals are operating in the red, and federal threats to Medicaid funding could put many hospitals that mainly serve residents in Southwest and Southside Virginia at risk.
Virginia has 28 health care facilities that fit the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ definition of “rural hospitals.” They serve populations that are older, with higher rates of chronic illness and poverty. Many of their patients have a greater reliance on government-funded health insurance programs like Medicaid and Medicare, according to a Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association report.
Sovah Health CEO Steve Heatherly, who oversees hospitals in Danville and Martinsville, told VPM News he’s “significantly concerned” that Medicaid cuts would affect the hospital’s ability to reinvest in care and attract skilled health care providers: “It impacts the way we can think about the future.”
Heatherly added that patients would feel the brunt of those cuts: “It would put individuals living in this community in a really difficult spot, where they may not receive the care that they should.”
Albemarle ICE detentions raise questions about due process for immigrants
Reported by VPM News’ Hannah Davis-Reid
It’s been two weeks since Teodoro Dominguez-Rodriguez and Pablo Aparicio-Marcelino were detained by plainclothes US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in separate interactions inside the Albemarle County Courthouse on April 22.
As of May 7, both men are being held at Farmville Detention Center, although it’s not immediately clear where they were detained between their arrests and their arrival in Farmville April 24. They await hearings and possible deportation from the United States.
Some lawyers have raised concerns about the constitutionality of Dominguez-Rodriguez and Aparicio-Marcelino’s detentions. They say that the men were not allowed due process, as constitutionally mandated, and that this case could set a dangerous national precedent, eroding trust in the integrity of the justice system.
“In a free society, law enforcement officers should be required to show ID and should not act like a police state does. If the law allows them to do that, that shows the law is deeply wrong,” said Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor and Constitutional scholar at the Cato Institute.
Somin also said the principle that immigration detainees should be allowed to communicate with counsel “isn't always properly followed, even under more normal administrations than this one.” But President Donald Trump’s administration, he added, “has been making things worse by doing things like deporting people with no due process whatsoever.”
News you might have missed from around the commonwealth:
- Spanberger says she would not sign a full repeal of right-to-work law (Richmond Times-Dispatch)*
- Leader of FEMA is dismissed as Trump administration takes aim at the agency (The New York Times)*
*This outlet utilizes a paywall.