"Four children died after someone at their home sprayed water on a previously applied pesticide, causing a reaction that produced toxic phosphine gas, officials in Amarillo, Texas, said."

"Competing against millions of acres of cotton, winegrowers fear federal approval of new herbicides to be used on genetically modified cotton seeds will wipe out the wine industry in the Texas High Plains."

"More than three years after an official prompt from the President, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a long-awaited rule aimed at preventing disasters like the 2010 refinery explosion that killed seven workers in Anacortes, Washington."

"President-elect Donald Trump’s landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency includes some of the Obama administration’s biggest foes on climate and energy policy. But what appears to be absent from the nine members of the EPA transition team is any background in chemicals, pesticides, water pollution, and other policy areas where the agency enforces environmental laws to control contamination and protect public health."

"The city of Clovis won its more than three-month-long civil trial against chemical manufacturing giant Shell Oil Co. over the cleanup of a toxic chemical found in drinking-water wells around the city of 108,000 people."

"A federal jury in Columbus, Ohio, has ordered DuPont to pay $2 million to Kenneth Vigneron, concluding exposure to a toxic chemical from the company's Parkersburg, West Virginia, plant caused his testicular cancer."

"The Food and Drug Administration released draft guidelines Wednesday aimed at regulating lead levels in lipstick and other cosmetic products."

Exxon Mobil, the corporate home of Rex Tillerson, is also a chemical company that manufactures phthalates, a class of chemicals that makes pacifiers and bottle nipples soft. Government agencies have banned them as a health threat, but Exxon insists they pose no danger.

"Paraquat, one of many pesticides that can’t be used in Europe but is sold in the United States and elsewhere, has been linked to Parkinson’s disease in a growing body of research."

"A Reuters examination of lead testing results across the country found almost 3,000 areas with poisoning rates far higher than in the tainted Michigan city. Yet many of these lead hotspots are receiving little attention or funding."