Much media attention has focused on genetic causes of breast cancer, and the best diet and exercise program to prevent breast cancer. Now Bella Abzug of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) is calling for more information on environmental causes of breast cancer.

"I'm sick and tired of reading about all these studies that don't get to the root causes of the problem," Abzug writes in the WEDO newsletter. WEDO's Action for Cancer Prevention Campaign sponsored a World Conference on Breast Cancer, July 13-17, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. One day of the conference was devoted to ecological links to breast cancer. For more information or to contribute to the campaign call WEDO at (212) 973-0325.

The National Labor Committee along with the People of Faith Network, the United Methodist Church Women's Division and UNITE, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, are calling for a Day of Conscience to end Sweatshop Abuses on Saturday, October 4.

This day of nationwide "mobilization and educational outreach" will come one month before the final report of President Clinton's Apparel Industry Task Force is scheduled to be released. Anti-Sweatshop organizers hope that the October 4 festivities will influence the debate and decision making of the Task Force and initiate a "Holiday Season of Conscience" where informed consumers can reward companies that have signed on to the Task Force's Accord to Address Sweatshop Abuses and punish companies that have not.

Most sweatshop workers are women and many are underpaid and work in unsafe conditions. Contact Maggie Poe or the National Labor Committee at (212) 242-3002 to receive a campaign packet including a petition and ideas for action. -O.G.

The statue of three women's suffrage leaders was finally moved to the Capitol Rotunda, more than 75 years after it was first carved and presented to Congress.

The statue of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony was presented to Congress in 1921. But after a dedication ceremony in the Rotunda - the large public area under the Capitol dome where all the statues were previously male -- the statue was moved into a basement storage room.

After years of pressure, and after raising private funds to move the statue, the Woman Suffrage Statue Campaign succeeded in having the statue moved on Mother's Day. However, Congress only agreed to the move for one year, during which time they are supposed to decide where else to move it.

In addition, after the legislation to move the statue had passed, an African-American women's group, the National Political Congress of Black Women, objected to the statue because it did not include Sojourner Truth, whose "Ain't I a Woman" speech is an eloquent plea for women's suffrage and equality. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) has introduced legislation to create a separate statue of Sojourner Truth.

Just days after the Feminist Majority and a dozen other women's groups protested a bill that would segregate military training on the basis of gender, the bill's sponsor, Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD), withdrew the bill.

Bartlett said he believed segregated training would address the problem of sexual harassment and assault in the military. But spokespeople for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines testified against mandatory segregated training.

The women's groups, let by NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Feminist Majority, said segregated training would result in inferior training for women, and limit job opportunities for women drill instructors. "When men have done wrong the answer is not to punish women," said Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority.

Strawberry workers at Gargiulo, a major California strawberry company, won the right to union elections, a few months after the largest farm worker march in the nation took place in California.

Strawberry workers are among the lowest-paid agricultural workers, according to the United Farm Workers, which has been trying for two years to unionize the workers. Strawberry workers have not had a raise for years, and often go without clean drinking water and bathrooms, and health benefits.

The United Farm Workers held a march in April of 30,000 people, at which Feminist Majority board member and UFW vice president, Dolores Huerta, spoke, along with Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal.