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Gov. Tate Reeves on Wednesday announced he’s creating an office to oversee distribution of hundreds of millions of federal dollars aimed at improving rural healthcare. The new office will be overseen by the governor and led by certified public accountant Richard Grimes. Reeves also unveiled a website he said will provide the public with a transparent and accessible view of the state’s initiatives, funding opportunities and progress. “This is a massive step forward for healthcare in Mississippi,” Reeves said in a press release. “By establishing a dedicated office and launching this website, we are putting the structure and transparency in place to deliver real, lasting improvements for our rural communities.” In December, Mississippi was awarded nearly $206 million as part of the federal Rural Health Transformation Program. States will receive payments over five years as a part of the $50-billion program. The effort was designed to support rural healthcare and offset the disproportionate impact already-struggling rural hospitals are expected to face as a result of federal spending cuts Congress passed last summer. Reeves’ office led the state’s application for the federal funds last fall and is overseeing distribution of the money. Mississippi’s plan includes a statewide rural health assessment and other initiatives that focus on coordinating care, strengthening the workforce, creating a statewide health information exchange, expanding telehealth opportunities and improving infrastructure. Some state legislators have expressed frustration at the limited role they have played in the application and appropriation of the funds and criticized what they see as Reeves’ lack of transparency in administering the program. “If you haven’t received a personal invitation from the governor, you have no input at all,” Senate Public Health Chairman Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, previously said to Mississippi Today. Lawmakers passed an oversight bill in March to ensure the program’s funding is directed toward rural communities and require the spending be reported to the Legislature. Reeves vetoed the bill, arguing it could jeopardize the state’s access to the money by slowing down its distribution and potentially result in a loss of up to $1 billion over five years. Lawmakers failed to override his veto. In a Wednesday press release, Reeves said the funding will be subject to oversight from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and federal procurement regulations. “Governor Reeves and his staff worked to address and push back on proposed state legislation that could have introduced unnecessary complexity or slowed implementation, ensuring the State remains well-positioned to execute its vision effectively,” the press release said. States’ program budgets are currently being reviewed by CMS. Mississippi’s budget has not yet been approved, according to the state’s program website. According to the website, information about how to apply for funding will be posted once details are finalized. The $206 million awarded to Mississippi last year by the federal government must be spent by September 2027 or it will be redistributed to other states, according to CMS. ___ This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday calling for a new government website where people in the United States can find and compare private-sector retirement savings accounts, aiming to help millions of workers whose employers do not offer such plans. The order is intended to help more people gain access to retirement plans before next year, when the federal government will start matching retirement contributions made by low- and middle-income workers, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the order before it is formally announced. That new matching contribution, known as the Saver’s Match, comes from 2022 legislation passed under Democratic President Joe Biden. Starting in January, it will offer a match of up to $1,000 for workers who make less than $35,000 a year. Trump’s order is meant to help make the match available to roughly 50 million people who do not have retirement plans offered by their employers. The Republican president is directing the Treasury Department to launch TrumpIRA.gov, where workers can compare private-sector retirement plans. He is not offering a new government retirement plan but helping match workers with existing plans from private companies. Details of the order were first reported by the news outlet Semafor. Trump discussed the idea during his State of the Union address in February, when he noted that about half of the people in the country do not have access to employer-provided retirement plans with matching contributions. “To remedy this gross disparity, I’m announcing that next year my administration will give these often-forgotten American workers — great people, the people that built our country — access to the same type of retirement plan offered to every federal worker,” Trump said. The Saver’s Match program will offer a maximum match of $1,000 for single filers and $2,000 for married couples who file jointly. It will offer smaller matches for single filers making less than $46,000 a year. It applies to contributions made toward 401(k) plans, IRAs and Roth IRAs. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — When water trucks motor into their neighborhood, the Abu Daqqa family scrambles to hose what they can into dented plastic jerry cans marked with their name. Yehia Abu Daqqa rations it — one can per each of her children — pouring a little into a sippy cup for one of her daughters outside their tent in Muwasi, the sprawling tent camp where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians now live. “The water truck arrives, and some 500 to 1,000 people throw themselves at it,” Abu Daqqa said. “They start fighting. It’s real suffering.” Palestinians say water shortages have persisted more than six months after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas stopped most of the fighting in Gaza. Nearly 90% of the enclave’s water infrastructure was destroyed, according to the United Nations, including desalination plants and sewage treatment facilities. Before the war, government providers and private companies distributed water via trucks and underground pipes. Wastewater was circulated to treatment facilities via underground pipes as well. The infrastructure is a top priority in Gaza’s reconstruction plan. Progress has stalled as Israel demands Hamas completely disarms first. WASH Cluster, a United Nations-led network of nongovernmental organizations focused on water and sanitation, estimates that 80% of people in Gaza rely on water delivered by trucks to central distribution points. For Azmy Abu Lehya, that means on some days he makes the walk to his neighborhood’s distribution point more than 500 meters (yards) away, sometimes he gets water to lug back home through Muwasi and other days he doesn’t. “On two days, the water trucks come, and on the other two days, they don’t,” he said. Israel has said it no longer limits the import of water. COGAT, the military body that oversees humanitarian issues in Gaza, said it helped ensure pipelines can bring in enough for sanitation, sewage, drinking and washing and has not limited bottled water either. But Palestinians say the bottled water — much of which is delivered by private sector groups and sold in markets — is prohibitively expensive, with most of Gaza destroyed and its population unable to access jobs or steady incomes. Sharif Abu Helal, another Muwasi resident, doesn’t even ask when he sees water bottles at his market because he knows he can’t afford it. “I am not ready to buy each person a bottle of water,” he said. “I have eight people. Is a gallon of water enough for them?” Many items used to clean and transport water — such as pipes, fuel, cement and chemicals like chlorine — are among those Israel considers “dual use” and restricts out of concern they could be repurposed and used for weapons or missiles. Water restrictions and shortages have been a recurring issue throughout the war in Gaza, with pipelines destroyed, water trucks hit by strikes and spent munitions seeping into the groundwater aquifer many use for wells. In a report on water and sanitation this week, Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, a nongovernmental group, accused Israel of using water as a weapon of war, “systemically depriving” people in what it calls a “campaign of collective punishment.” Other groups, including Human Rights Watch, have lodged similar accusations. “While Gazans are deprived of water and sanitation, Israeli authorities are using aid as a tap, closing or opening slightly to allow only drops of aid to enter the Strip,” the report said. MSF is Gaza’s second largest provider of water. Based on interviews conducted in late 2025 after the October ceasefire, it said Israel often blocked needed infrastructure like water pumps from entering Gaza, forcing them to salvage old or damaged parts to make desalination or water treatment equipment. Water shortages, MSF said, have far-reaching consequences for Gaza’s 2.1 million people, fueling sewage overflows, sanitation failures and the spread of waterborne and hygiene-related infections. “Israeli authorities know that without water life ends, yet they have deliberately and systematically obliterated water infrastructure in Gaza, while consistently blocking water-related supplies from entering,” said Claire San Filippo, MSF emergency manager. Though the report did not cover conditions today, the group called on Israel to allow in materials used for water and sanitation and noted that restrictions remain in place: “There are also not enough pipes available to create distribution networks,” the report said. COGAT strenuously denied the allegations in the MSF report and called them “a desperate attempt to regain legitimacy.” It said that Israel allows more 70,000 cubic meters of water — roughly 33.3 liters (8.8 gallons) per person — in daily. Humanitarian agencies estimate people need at least 15 liters (4 gallons) for cleaning, washing, drinking and bathing daily. __ Ezzidin reported from Cairo and Metz from Ramallah, West Bank. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian government confirmed Thursday that a German journalist who went missing months ago is detained in Syria. Eva Maria Michelmann, 36, was last seen on Jan. 18, when she and a Kurdish-Turkish colleague were supposedly detained by Syrian government forces during the takeover of Raqqa during military operations against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, said earlier this week. The group called for her release. Syria’s Information Ministry said in a statement that Michelmann and a Turkish man — identified by CPJ as Kurdish-Turkish journalist Ahmed Polad — were found during a sweep of Raqqa by Interior Ministry forces, in a building that had been used by the SDF as a “security headquarters.” It said the two foreign nationals had “refused to disclose their true identities and possessed no official documentation verifying who they were.” During initial questioning, it said, they “claimed to be engaged in humanitarian work and made no mention of any journalistic role” and said they were working for the United Nations, which was later determined to be false. The Information Ministry said they had then attempted to escape and were detained again on “suspicions that they may be foreign fighters present in Syria illegally.” The statement said that the two were “formally detained, and legal proceedings have been initiated in preparation for referral to the competent judicial authorities.” It did not specify the charges against them. CPJ said the two journalists worked for Istanbul-based Etkin News Agency ETHA and Özgür TV, which operates across several cities in Europe. Frank Jasenski, an attorney representing Michelmann and her family in Germany, said earlier this week, “We assume that her health is very, very poor and we demand her immediate release.” The German Foreign Office said last week that it had been in touch with the detained journalist but did not give further details, citing privacy rules. Syrian government forces seized Raqqa, which had previously been controlled by the SDF, during an offensive in January. The SDF and Damascus later reached a ceasefire and announced an agreement under which the SDF would be integrated into the national army. The ceasefire has held and the integration deal has been gradually moving forward. Syria’s new leaders have struggled since toppling former President Bashar Assad in December 2024 to assert their full authority over the country torn by nearly 14 years of civil war. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Mourners carried the body of a teenager killed by Israel’s military through the hills of the West Bank ’s largest city on Thursday, the latest victim in a surge of violence this month. Ibrahim Al-Khayyat died after being shot and wounded in his chest and abdomen in Hebron, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Relatives told The Associated Press he was heading to a minimarket when he was shot on Wednesday. Israel’s military said soldiers had fired on Palestinians during an operation in Hebron after Palestinians hurled rocks toward them. Mumtaz Shabaneh, al-Khayyat’s schoolteacher, said the killing reflected a wider pattern of violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, describing it as an attempt “to break our will and undermine our perseverance to remain steadfast on this land.” Al-Khayyat was the second Palestinian to be killed on Wednesday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Abdulhalim Hamad died during an Israeli raid in Silwad, northeast of Ramallah. WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, reported Hammad, 37, was killed at home by Israeli soldiers. The two deaths add to the more than 40 Palestinians to have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank so far this year, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Teenagers have borne a large share of the violence, with three killed last week. A drone strike hit Gaza City, killing three people, according to health officials at Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the strike. While large-scale fighting across the enclave has eased since a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October, Israel has carried out near-daily strikes across Gaza, where more than 820 Palestinians have been killed, according to figures from Gaza Health Ministry. Part of the Hamas-led government, the ministry maintains casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. But it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants. ___ Associated Press writers Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo and Koral Saeed in Abu Snan, Israel, contributed to this report. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com