On this day, 26 June 1952, Black feminist and squatting activist, Olive Morris was born in Harewood, Jamaica. Moving to London with her family, she became a founding member of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD), established the Brixton Black Women’s Group, was a member of the British Black Panther Movement, and helped found the Manchester Black Women’s Cooperative and Manchester Black Women’s Mutual Aid Group.
Morris was one of the first to squat at 121 Railton Road, Brixton London, an address which subsequently housed a range of community and political groups until the 1990s. She also wrote many articles, about topics like Black and Asian workers’ struggles, and critiques of strains of anti-fascism which ignored institutional, state and police racism.
In one speech, she declared that “the Black women’s movement is part of the world struggle for national liberation and the destruction of capitalism. Only when this is achieved can we ensure that our liberation as Black women is genuine, total and irreversible.”
Morris was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and died shortly after in 1979, aged just 27. Emma Allotey later recalled: “Her premature death was a shock to the community. A Lambeth council building, 18 Brixton Hill, was named after her in March 1986. There is a community garden and play area named after her in the Myatt’s Fields area. In 2009, Olive was chosen by popular vote as one of the historical figures to feature on a local currency, the Brixton Pound.”
Learn more about Black and Asian workers struggles in Britain at this time in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/the-making-of-the-black-working-class-in-britain-ron-ramdinhttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2020404084811398/?type=3
The Walt Disney Company will cover family planning travel expenses, a spokesperson for Disney said in a statement Friday.
Disney
said they are committed to providing quality health benefits to their
employees, cast members, and their families, regardless of where they
live.
Employees who do not have access to care in one location will still receive similar health coverage in a different location.
Many
U.S. companies have discussed the impact of the Roe V. Wade ruling with
their employees. Meta, JPMorgan Chase and Starbucks are among other
companies that said they would provide travel benefits.
DICK’s
Sporting Goods Executive Chairman Ed Stack and CEO Lauren Hobart
released a statement about instating a $4,000 travel expenses
reimbursement for abortions. …
Typhoid fever might be rare in developed countries, but this ancient threat, thought to have been around for millennia, is still very much a danger in our modern world.
According
to new research, the bacterium that causes typhoid fever is evolving
extensive drug resistance, and it’s rapidly replacing strains that
aren’t resistant.
Currently, antibiotics are the only way to effectively treat typhoid, which is caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica
serovar Typhi (S Typhi). Yet over the past three decades, the
bacterium’s resistance to oral antibiotics has been growing and
spreading.
Sequencing the genomes of 3,489 S Typhi strains
contracted from 2014 to 2019 in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India,
researchers found a recent rise in extensively drug-resistant (XDR)
Typhi.
XDR Typhi is not only impervious to frontline antibiotics,
like ampicillin, chloramphenicol, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole,
but it is also growing resistant to newer antibiotics, like fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins.
Even worse, these strains are spreading globally at a rapid rate. …
Scientists have finally rediscovered a
lost fossil site in Brazil, after the researchers who originally
discovered it 70 years ago were unable to retrace their steps to the
remote location. The unique geologic conditions at the long-lost site
preserve paleontological treasures that could help shed light on one of
the biggest extinction events in Earth’s history.
The
rediscovered site, which is known as Cerro Chato, is located near
Brazil’s border with Uruguay in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.
Around 260 million years ago, towards the end of the Permian period
(299 million to 251 million years ago) conditions at the site were ideal
for trapping and preserving dead organisms. As a result, multiple rocky
layers at Cerro Chato are chock-full of delicate fossils — especially
plants, which typically do not fossilize as well as animals do because
they lack hard parts.
Paleontologists
who first discovered Cerro Chato in 1951 were excited by its
exceptionally well-preserved Permian remains. Unfortunately, without
memorable landmarks or modern technologies, such as GPS, the researchers
were unable to accurately record the exact geographical coordinates of
the site, and when they attempted to return to the Permian treasure
trove they could not find it. After several attempts to retrace their
steps, the team gave up the search and declared the site lost. However, a
new group of researchers took up the mantle and successfully found the
lost location in 2019. …
