"New research suggests the chemicals are playing a significant and previously unknown role in the global decline of amphibians."

"A state board votes to bar the chemical from baby products' containers. The Legislature has the final say."

ExxonMobil is the last defendant in a landmark lawsuit in New Hampshire over contamination of drinking water withthe gasoline additive MTBE. Citgo is in talks to settle out of court.

"Serving hot food on melamine tableware could increase your exposure to melamine, a study released Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine suggests."

"An antibiotic widely used in soaps and cosmetics that mostly goes down the drain is slowly converting to toxins at the bottom of many of Minnesota's lakes and rivers."

"A new federal report finds toxic contamination remains widespread in the Chesapeake Bay, with severe impacts in some places, which health and environmental advocates say lends support to their push in Annapolis for legislative action on pesticides and other hazardous chemicals."

"GENEVA -- A new and legally binding international treaty to reduce harmful emissions of mercury was adopted Saturday by more than 140 nations, capping four years of difficult negotiations but stopping short of some of the tougher measures that proponents had envisioned."

"Diet and exercise are seen as the key factors that cause obesity, but new research suggests that certain chemicals called obesogens contribute to the global weight problem. Bruce Blumberg, professor of developmental and cell biology at the University of California at Irvine tells host Steve Curwood that the effects of an obesogenic chemical he studied seem to persist for several generations."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that total toxic air releases in 2011 declined 8 percent from 2010. In the mid-Atlantic region, which includes Pennsylvania and Delaware, the agency recorded a decline of 13.8 percent or 32.5 million pounds. Among the hazardous air pollutants showing declines were hydrochloric acid and mercury, which EPA attributed to improved pollution control technologies at coal-fired power plants and a shift to other fuel sources."

"Crisis-weary developed countries' reluctance to help finance a ground-breaking international treaty to rein in the use of health-hazardous mercury is threatening the accord, UN officials warned Thursday."

"The world's most widely used insecticide has for the first time been officially labelled an 'unacceptable' danger to bees feeding on flowering crops. Environmental campaigners say the conclusion, by Europe's leading food safety authority, sounds the 'death knell' for the insect nerve agent."

"Just like the controversial compound it's designed to replace, a chemical used in cash register receipts and other consumer products messes with hormones, according to research published today."

"Citgo Petroleum Corp. reached an agreement with New Hampshire to be dismissed from an $816 million trial over groundwater contamination while a settlement is completed, as a witness testified that 2 percent of the state’s private wells are polluted with hazardous levels of the chemical MTBE."

"DAVIS, Calif. -- What causes autism? The question has spurred about a billion dollars' worth of genetics research that has found no clear answer. But University of California, Davis, epidemiologist Irva Hertz-Picciotto has been pursuing another angle: Does the environment around a pregnant woman play a role in determining whether her child develops autism?"

"GENEVA -- Mercury pollution in the top layer of the world's oceans has doubled in the past century, part of a man-made problem that will require international cooperation to fix, the U.N.'s environment agency said Thursday."