Chemicals

"Amid lawsuits filed by thousands of farmers linking the herbicide to Parkinson’s disease, the EPA is reconsidering its analysis of paraquat’s risks."

"First it was the eerie images of barrels leaking on the seafloor not far from Catalina Island. Then the shocking realization that the nation's largest manufacturer of DDT had once used the ocean as a huge dumping ground—and that as many as half a million barrels of its acid waste had been poured straight into the water."

"A small South Carolina law firm angling to be the lead litigator in the Camp Lejeune toxic water cases spent $1.9 million lobbying US lawmakers in the last two years, as Congress approved a multibillion-dollar payout to sickened veterans that dropped a provision to limit the fees their lawyers could charge."

"Norfolk Southern Railway CEO Alan Shaw said Wednesday that he supports certain aspects of a bipartisan railroad safety bill introduced after a train operated by the company crashed in East Palestine, Ohio, but declined to endorse the bill as a whole."

"Trump administration appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) meddled in agency science to weaken the toxicity assessment of a dangerous chemical, a new report by the US body’s internal watchdog has found."

"Brazil has ousted almost all illegal gold miners from the Yanomami territory, its largest indigenous reservation, and will remove miners from six more reserves this year, the head of the federal police's new environmental crimes division said Tuesday."

"A deadly fungus spreading at an alarming rate in U.S. health facilities has exposed the broader problem of how patient safety is jeopardized by underfunded and understaffed infection-prevention efforts, experts say."

"Lithium, the common ingredient in almost all electric-car batteries, has become so precious that it is often called white gold. But something surprising has happened recently: The metal’s price has fallen, helping to make electric vehicles more affordable."

"St. James Parish community groups are calling for a ban on new petrochemical plants to halt what they say is a history of racist land use decisions that have concentrated polluting industries in Black neighborhoods, according to a federal lawsuit."

"As the details of the humanitarian crisis in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory unfold amid action to remove illegal miners, mercury left by the rampant gold mining in the area will remain a lingering toxic legacy."