Air

"Heart attacks dropped by one-third in one county in Minnesota after two smoke-free workplace ordinances went into place, a new study shows."

"The ozone hole above the Antarctic has hit its maximum extent for the year. Due to warm temperatures, the opening in the protective atmospheric layer was the second smallest it has been for 20 years, scientists said Wednesday."

"The day after the November 2010 elections made clear President Obama’s greenhouse-gas legislation was doomed, he vowed to keep trying to curb emissions linked to global warming. There’s more than one way of 'skinning the cat,' he told reporters."

"Federal appeals court judges appeared skeptical today about U.S. EPA's argument that it is required under the Clean Air Act to use a less stringent implementation regime for fine particulates than it is for more coarse -- and less dangerous -- particles."

"Carbon dioxide has been vilified for decades as a driver of global warming. A new study finds signs that CO2, exhaled in every breath, can exert an equally worrisome threat -- impaired cognition -- in nearly every energy-efficient classroom, meeting hall or office space."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked for a full-court review of a decision by a three- judge panel that threw out a rule designed to cut pollution from coal-fired power plants."

"In the aftermath of Memphis' smoggiest summer in years, local efforts to control air pollution have been thrown into disarray by the city's decision to withdraw funds for vehicle emissions testing and a Shelby County Commission squabble over plans for a new monitoring station."

"Efforts to clean up one of the largest industrial polluters in Illinois will be delayed until the end of the decade after a state panel voted Thursday to give the owner of a massive downstate power plant more time to slash its lung-damaging emissions."

"As one of the hottest summers ever recorded drew to a close, Jay Portnoy watched patients stream into Children’s Mercy Hospital and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo., coughing and wheezing with asthma, 20 admissions per day for the week that started with Labor Day, he said."

"AUSTIN -- Exxon Mobil Corp. has reported inadvertent emissions of large amounts of pollutants at its flagship refinery near Houston."