The Organ Transplant Service teams at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center started using robotic surgery for kidney transplants in 2018. Nationwide, more than 109,000 people are on waiting lists for organ procurement. (Photo courtesy of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center) Federal regulators are cracking down on the nonprofits responsible for coordinating organ donations, aiming to begin shutting down substandard groups by early next year. New criteria will score the organizations on donation and transplantation rates and will decertify the bottom tier, meaning their contracts with the federal government will be revoked. Many professional medical groups welcome more stringent evaluations. But the nonprofits strongly oppose aspects of the criteria and have filed lawsuits, warning of potential disruptions in some states or regions. More than 109,000 people are on waiting lists nationwide for organ procurement, according to federal data as of July. The majority of patie...
Vicki Wanamaker, left, and Cathy Mager, right, talked in Wanamaker's Springdale, Pennsylvania, home on Oct. 19, 2026, about their opposition to a proposed hyperscale data center roughly a quarter mile away. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom) SPRINGDALE, Pa. — Residents in a small southwestern Pennsylvania town are facing the prospect of a 47-acre data center facility on their doorstep. “Right here behind this fence is where they want to put up the data center, and as you can see, there’s houses right across the street, roughly 100 feet,” said lifelong Springdale borough resident Cathy Mager, stretching her arms to show the distance from the development site’s perimeter to a line of houses across Porter Street. “We don’t want it,” she told States Newsroom on Oct. 19 A portion of the proposed 47-acre data center site in Springdale, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 19, 2026, as photographed from nearby St. Mark’s Cemetery. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom ...