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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Urgent Call for Blood Donors in Indiana

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Wednesday, March 18, 2020   

INDIANAPOLIS -- Blood centers in Indiana and other states are issuing an urgent call for donors.

Dozens of blood drives, as many as 2,700 nationally, have been canceled recently as high schools, colleges and businesses shut their doors to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. If current trends continue, said Gail McGovern, president and chief executive of the American Red Cross, the available blood supply will reach dangerously low levels.

"We don't want to create another crisis, where doctors are rationing the blood and trying to figure out who gets the next blood transfusion," she said. "We're taking every safety precaution we can, but at the end of the day, we have to have blood drives because we have to save lives."

Donating blood is a safe process, McGovern said, and additional hygiene and sanitary precautions are in place. Blood-drive cancellations in the United States have resulted in roughly 86,000 fewer donations.

Healthy people are encouraged to donate blood, and organizations and businesses are being urged to consider hosting a blood drive. McGovern said both are ways to give back in these difficult times.

"The country needs to come together; doing something positive will actually elevate somebody's mood," she said. "Every time that there is a need, the American public steps up -- and I'm confident that they'll step up this time as well."

McGovern said there have been no reported cases of transfusion transmission for any respiratory virus, including this coronavirus, worldwide.

Blood donation information for Indiana is online at redcross.org and versiti.org.


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