"Companies with a financial interest in a weed-killer sometimes found in drinking water paid for thousands of studies federal regulators are using to assess the herbicide’s health risks, records  of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show. Many of these industry-funded studies, which largely support atrazine’s safety, have never been published or subjected to an independent scientific peer review."

"TXI will permanently shut down its four oldest, highest-polluting cement kilns in Midlothian and will stop burning hazardous waste as fuel, the Dallas-based company said Tuesday."

"The use of roxarsone and other arsenic-based additives in poultry and swine feed is at the center of a national controversy."

"The Minnesota Department of Health on Thursday released a list of hundreds of chemicals that pose a potential health risk. The state's list includes 1,755 substances, among them lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium. But it also includes many other organic chemicals that include pesticides, flame retardants, dyes and other chemicals used in industry or found in consumer products."

"An international group of researchers is renewing its call for a global ban on the mining and use of asbestos, a known cause of cancer they say is unsafe in any form."

"The first round of government tests of the chemical dispersants that are being used to break up the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico found they aren't overly damaging to shrimp and small fish, but more tests are needed to determine what happens when they're mixed with oil."