Briefly Noted

• Saying that he is "back and ready to do battle" with the "radical homosexuals, abortionists, feminists, humanists, New Agers, etc. -- who oppose traditional values," Jerry Falwell is raising funds to reactivate the Moral Majority. Falwell wrote in a fund-raising letter, "God has called me to use television to call America to national repentance."
• The National Coalition on Television Violence reported in February that the rate of violence on TV increased again last year. The Fox network led the pack with an average of 11 violent acts per hour. The study found that murder occurs once every 78 minutes in prime time.
• The Sun Oil Co. (Sunoco) announced in February its signing of the Valdez principles, now known as the CERES principles (for the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies). Sun Oil, the first Fortune 500 firm to agree to follow the voluntary environmental guidelines, negotiated the signing with leaders of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility.
• The third U.S. Women-Church conference, scheduled in Albuquerque April 16-18, will address topics including clergy abuse of women, sexuality and homophobia, racism in religion and the women's movement, women and AIDS, domestic violence, and the exclusion of women from religious ministry. More than 2,200 women (and a few men) are expected to attend.
• Sane/Freeze announced in January that it is changing its name to PeaceAction.
• About 7,500 gallons of radioactive waste leaked from a storage tank at the Hanford reservation in Washington state, according to a report in The New York Times. The state Department of Ecology said the leak showed safety violations that "present extremely serious threats to human health and the environment." Harry Harmon, a vice president at Westinghouse, the plant's operator, said the leak was an "undesirable event."
• The Prince George's County (Maryland) Board of Education voted in early March to rename a middle school previously named after Roger B. Taney, the 19th-century Supreme Court justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision, which held that slaves were property and therefore could not be U.S. citizens. Henceforth, the school will be known as Thurgood Marshall Middle School.

Jim Rice is editor of Sojourners.