CAMPUS
$8 million gift from the Shaughnessy family encourages work at university nursing academy
After ten years since its inception, the Marian K. Shaughnessy Nurse Leadership Academy (MKSNLA) will be receiving an $8 million gift from the Shaughnessy family. The single largest donation to the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing since its establishment, the gift will fuel the work of the nurse leadership academy and scholarships for students. The concept of the academy, started by Marian K. Shaughnessy, came from a “future of nursing” letter Dr. Shaughnessy wrote in 2013. In the letter, she mused that “Now, more than ever, nurses must seize the opportunity to be not just facilitators of healthcare, but rather leaders in their own right.” Since then, the leadership academy has become a center for education, research and policy implementation, drawing together nurse executives and other senior leaders, helping to mark Case Western Reserve University as a leader in nursing education. Ron Hickman, PhD, dean of Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, said, “This historic gift enhances the Marian K. Shaughnessy Leadership Academy and elevates the school’s role in placing nurse leadership at the center of healthcare.”
COMMUNITY
New bipartisan bill to protect pregnant women who are incarcerated
Ohio lawmakers have proposed a new bipartisan bill, potentially to save lives and protect the needs of pregnant women who are in prison, by mandating all county jails and prisons to report pregnancy outcomes. The proposal, House Bill 542, is intended to fill the gap in data about pregnancy in jails and prisons. State Reps Terrence Upchurch (Dem.) and Josh Willians (Rep.) introduced the bill on Oct. 22. They sponsored the bill in the interest of addressing problems beyond the state’s current mandate of county jails to primarily report in-custody deaths. The state does not require, for instance, counties to report miscarriages or stillbirths of pregnant women who are incarcerated. Upchurch said, “Incarcerated women deserve proper healthcare to have a safe and healthy childbirth.” The proposal comes after an investigation by the Marshall Project Cleveland and News 5 Cleveland. The issue became prominent after 29-year-old Linda Acoff miscarried in the Cuyahoga County Jail. After seventeen hours and calling for help, she was finally seen by a nurse but only offered extra sanitary napkins and Tylenol. Last Spring, Acoff said, “It was a traumatic experience when you don’t receive the help that you need when I felt like they could have saved my baby.”
NATIONAL
In released files, Epstein alleges to Trump’s knowledge of his operations
On Wednesday, House Democrats released emails revealing President Donald Trump’s interactions with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his involvement with Epstein’s operations. In an email sent in 2019 while Trump was still in office, Epstein wrote, “of course he knew about the girls.” Another email showed that the president “spent hours at [his] house” with one of Epstein’s victims. Epstein also calls Trump a “dirty” businessman in the released emails. Trump has denied knowing or being involved in the sex-offender’s operations, and the White House has dismissed the claims. Shortly after the House Democrats released three revealing emails, House Republicans made the remaining Congress material related to the Epstein estate accessible to the public, counting about 20,000 emails total spanning over a several-year time period. “Democrats continue to carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate click bait that is not grounded in the facts,” a spokesman for the Republican Oversight Committee said. Trump has claimed that the Democrats were attempting to use the files, which he called a “hoax,” in order to draw attention away from the government shutdown.
INTERNATIONAL
The second typhoon in a week hits the Philippines, causing destruction
Super Typhon Fung-wong hit Aurora province in the Philippines on Sunday night with wind gusts of around 230 kilometers per hour. One of the most-impacted cities, Cabanatuan, saw residents salvaging personal items from their homes as water levels climbed. The storm killed at least six people and left 4,1000 homes destroyed or damaged, leaving large parts of the country still-underwater as of Wednesday night. This typhoon comes as the latest in a sequence of storms, less than a week after Typhoon Kalmaegi tore apart the central Philippines while claiming more than 220 victims. On Monday, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that “state of national calamity,” will remain in effect for another year.