"NEW ORLEANS -- A federal judge presiding over litigation spawned by the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill has dismissed all claims against the manufacturer of a chemical dispersant that was used to break up crude gushing from BP's blown-out well."

"In the midst of the domestic energy boom, livestock on farms near oil-and-gas drilling operations nationwide have been quietly falling sick and dying. While scientists have yet to isolate cause and effect, many suspect chemicals used in drilling and hydrofracking, or fracking, operations are poisoning animals through the air, water or soil."

"A subsidiary of Nabors Industries Ltd. pumped a mixture of chemicals identified only as “EXP- F0173-11” into a half-dozen oil wells in rural Karnes County, Texas, in July. Few people outside Nabors, the largest onshore drilling contractor by revenue, know exactly what’s in that blend. This much is clear: One ingredient, an unidentified solvent, can cause damage to the kidney and liver, according to safety information about the product that Michigan state regulators have on file."

Concerns about toxic flame retardants in furniture have led to changes, but they have yet to make most furniture much safer.

"Major tobacco companies that spent decades denying they lied to the U.S. public about the dangers of cigarettes must spend their own money on a public advertising campaign saying they did lie, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday."

"Years of delays in addressing contamination at an old lead factory property near a Chicago elementary school appear to be coming to an end in the wake of pressure this week from community groups and a city official."

"Flame retardants in U.S. furniture are on the rise, with a new study finding them in nearly all couches tested."

"Most people try to avoid ticks. But not Tom Mather. The University of Rhode Island researcher goes out of his way to find them."

"The Food and Drug Administration halted operations of the country's largest organic peanut butter processor Monday, cracking down on salmonella poisoning for the first time with new enforcement authority the agency gained in a 2011 food safety law."

"Japanese voters look likely to hand victory to a party that favors nuclear power in the first election since the March 2011 Fukushima radiation disaster -- a result a baffled Greenpeace activist likens to one of the 'wonders of the world.'"

"For drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, the 17-page article in the New England Journal of Medicine represented a coup. The 2006 report described a trial that compared three diabetes drugs and concluded that Avandia, the company’s new drug, performed best. ... What only careful readers of the article would have gleaned is the extent of the financial connections between the drugmaker and the research."

"ST. LOUIS -- A doctoral dissertation that renewed public interest in the military-sponsored chemical spraying of impoverished areas of St. Louis in the 1950s and ’60s has spawned a lawsuit."

"HINKLEY -- Underwater home mortgages plague the High Desert at an approximate rate of 60 percent, according to real estate website Zillow.com. But in Hinkley, residents say the entire town is dealing with mortgages above their current assessed values."

"WINDSOR, Ontario -- For more than three decades, workers, most of them women, have complained of dreadful conditions in many of this city’s plastic automotive parts factories: Pungent fumes and dust that caused nosebleeds, headaches, nausea and dizziness. Blobs of smelly, smoldering plastic dumped directly onto the floor. 'It was like hell,' says one woman who still works in the industry."

"The first time Bill Ferullo saw the white plumes drifting from a natural gas fracking site, he got out of his car to take pictures. 'I didn't know what it was,' he recalled. 'But two minutes later my chest was burning. It burned all night.'"