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Health Care

Administration Says Hospitals Will Save $5.7B from Unpaid Bills Due to Health Law

Hospitals are projected to save $5.7 billion this year as previously uninsured patients gain coverage through the 2010 health care law, the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday.

St. Dominic Hospital (left), University of Mississippi Medical Center (middle) and Baptist Medical Center (right)

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September 25, 2014

NPR: Eric Holder to Announce Resignation

By R.L. Nave

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is stepping down, National Public Radio is reporting.

Holder is the nation's first African American AG and one of the longest-tenured members of first-black-President Barack Obama's cabinet.

According to NPR: "Two sources familiar with the decision tell NPR that Holder, 63, intends to leave the Justice Department as soon as his successor is confirmed, a process that could run through 2014 and even into next year. A former U.S. government official says Holder has been increasingly "adamant" about his desire to leave soon for fear he otherwise could be locked in to stay for much of the rest of President Obama's second term."

Holder shepherded the USDOJ through rocky times and made civil-rights enforcement a hallmark of his tenure.

Under Holder, several issues and cases out of Mississippi garnered national prominence.

In March 2012, Deryl Dedmon and two co-conspirators from Rankin County became the first individuals charged under a 2009 federal hate-crime law for the murder of James Craig Anderson, a black man from Jackson.

The case of Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder challenged the federal Voting Rights Act, which required a number of states that had histories with racial discrimination in voting. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby cleared the way for several states, including Mississippi, to implement voter-ID laws.

Civil-rights groups had argued, and Holder agreed, that voter ID represented an unconstitutional barrier to exercising voting rights. Mississippi's voter ID law, designed to stop election fraud, was first used in the June 2014 U.S. Senate primary, which resulted in multiple allegations of vote fraud that have yet to be resolved.

World

Sierra Leone Cordons Off 3 Areas to Control Ebola

Sierra Leone restricted travel Thursday in three more "hotspots" of Ebola where more than 1 million people live, meaning about a third of the country's population is now under quarantine.

World

Ukraine's Poroshenko Sure that Peace is on the Way

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he believes the conflict with Russia-backed separatists in the east is on the wane and that peace efforts will work.

World

US-Led Strikes Hit IS-Held Oil Sites in Syria

U.S.-led airstrikes targeted Syrian oil installations held by the extremist Islamic State group overnight and early Thursday, killing at least 19 people as the militants released dozens of detainees in …

National

Navajo to Get $554 Million in Settlement with U.S.

The Navajo Nation will receive more than $550 million as part of a settlement with the federal government that officials say is the largest of its kind.