"HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. — After his factory worker father died a painful death from kidney cancer at age 68 in 2013, Michael Hickey made it his mission to find out why so many people in his hometown along the Hoosic River were getting sick."

"A federal appeals court upheld the government’s new coal dust exposure rule for coal miners Monday, rejecting industry challenges to it."

"The World Health Organization says it expects the Zika virus to spread to every country in the Western Hemisphere except Canada."

"Ticks that can spread Lyme disease now live in almost half of U.S. counties, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

"Attorney General Bill Schuette on Monday appointed former Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Todd Flood to lead an investigation into the Flint water crisis, but some are questioning his impartiality due to past political donations, including to Gov. Rick Snyder."

"A new generation of chemicals added to furniture, building insulation and baby products like car seats to slow the spread of flames are escaping into air at higher levels than previously thought, according to a new study out of Washington state."

"Monsanto Co stepped up its defense of a widely used weed killer on Thursday by filing a lawsuit in California seeking to prevent glyphosate, the main ingredient in its Roundup herbicide, from being added to the state's list of known carcinogens."

"Regional air quality regulators in California voted on Saturday to require the utility responsible for a ruptured underground pipeline in the Los Angeles area to underwrite an independent study on the health effects of a huge methane leak from the site."

"FLINT, Mich. — Standing at a microphone in September holding up a baby bottle, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a local pediatrician, said she was deeply worried about the water. The number of Flint children with elevated levels of lead in their blood had risen alarmingly since the city changed its water supply the previous year, her analysis showed."

"The head of the Midwest region of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offered her resignation over the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, the agency said on Thursday, as it issued an emergency order to resolve the growing problem."