USDA detects H5N1 in rats for the first time. The agency is also supposedly restoring jobs to its avian flu specialists who were fired by Trump.

CIDRAP

Canada announces avian flu vaccine buy as USDA confirms first H5N1 detections in rats

#H5N1 #avianflu #influenza #usda #pandemic #birdflu #publichealth

Today in Labor History February 20, 1931: An anarchist uprising in Encarnación, Paraguay briefly transformed the city into the revolutionary Encarnación Commune. Students and workers created popular assemblies to run the city. They tried to create communes in other towns, too, but the authorities thwarted their attempts. When the authorities began to retake Encarnacion, many of the insurrectionists stole steamboats and fled to Brazil. Along the way, they attacked yerba mate companies and burned records related to indentured servants. Gabriel Casaccia alluded to the uprising in his novel “Los Herederos.” #workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #uprising #brazil #YerbaMate #Revolutionary #commune #paraguay #slavery #novel #books #author #fiction #writer @npub1wceq...lzu8

Today in honor of Black History Month, we remember Frederick Douglass, who died on this date, February 20, 1895. In an 1857 address Douglass said, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." After escaping slavery, Douglass became a national leader of the abolition movement. He also supported the women’s suffrage movement and ran for vice president as running mate to Victoria Woodhull on the Equal Rights Party ticket. In addition to being a brilliant orator, writer and social justice activist, Douglass was also the single most photographed man of the 19th century. He sat for over 160 portraits, always taking a dignified pose. He considered photography a tool for creating a positive image of black men. (Check out the graphic novel about Frederick Douglass by comic book artist extraordinaire, David Walker). #workingclass #LaborHistory #slavery #abolition #freedom #FrederickDouglass #blackhistorymonth #photography #books #graphicnovel #author #write #BlackMastadon

Here are the studies on trans athletes:

PubMed

Sex differences and athletic performance. Where do trans individuals fit into sports and athletics based on current research? - PubMed

There are well known sex differences in parameters of physical fitness/performance due to changes occurring during sexual development. Thus, many s...

Frontiers | Sex differences and athletic performance. Where do trans individuals fit into sports and athletics based on current research?

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/58/11/586

Today in Labor History February 18, 1955: The U.S. launched Operation Teapot at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Teapot included 14 nuclear bomb tests. Wasp was the first, detonated on February 18. It had a yield of 1.2 kilotons. During shot Wasp, ground forces participated in Exercise Desert Rock VI. This included an armored task force moving to within 3,000 ft of ground zero, while the mushroom cloud was still growing. From 1945 through 1962, the U.S. conducted 230 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, with approximately 235,000 military personnel participating. Most were enlisted men, from the navy. However, millions of people were exposed to the fallout from U.S. nuclear weapons tests in the southwest of the U.S. and the Marshall Islands. University of Arizona economist Keith Meyers estimates that radioactive fallout was responsible for 340,000 to 690,000 American deaths from 1951 to 1973. #workingclass #LaborHistory #nucleartest #nuclearbomb #coldwar #nuclear #radioactive #publichealth #radiation #indigenous #marshallislands #atomic

Today in Labor History February 18, 1943: The Nazis arrested the members of the White Rose movement. The activist group called for opposition to the Nazi regime through an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign. The Nazis put on a show trial in which none of the defendants were allowed to speak. They executed Hans and Sophie Schol, and Christoph Probst on February 22, 1943. White Rose leaflets openly denounced the persecution and mass murder of the Jews. They might have taken their name from the poem "Cultivo una rosa blanca," by Cuban revolutionary and poet, Jose Marti. Alternatively, they may have gotten it from the B. Traven novel, “Die Weiße Rose” (The White Rose).” Traven served on the Central Council of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. He escaped the terror that followed the crushing of the Republic and fled to Mexico, where he wrote numerous novels, including “Death Ship” and “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” #LaborHistory #workingclass #WhiteRose #nazis #execution #holocaust #antisemitism #fascism #antifa #antifascism #JoseMarti #cuba #btraven #books #poetry #fiction #novel #writer #author @npub1wceq...lzu8

Today, for Black History Month, we honor the memory of Mary Fields (c. 1832–12/5/1914), also known as Stagecoach Mary, an American mail carrier who was the first Black woman to be employed as a star route postwoman in the United States. She was born into slavery. After emancipation, she worked as a chambermaid on a steamship, and as a household servant. In 1895, at the age of sixty, she got a job as a Star Route Carrier, which used a stagecoach to deliver mail in the harsh weather and rocky terrain of Montana. She carried multiple firearms, most notably a .38 Smith & Wesson under her apron to protect herself and the mail from wolves, thieves and bandits. She never missed a day, and her reliability earned her the nickname "Stagecoach Mary." When the snow was too deep for horses, she delivered the mail on snowshoes, carrying the sacks on her shoulders. #workingclass #LaborHistory #stagecoachmary #maryfields #slavery #blackhistorymonth #BlackMastadon

Because their profits are our unpaid labor... and, of course, because of their repressive laws, their police, their pollution...