"The first signs of bipartisan support for overhauling the nation's chemical safety law emerged Monday, as three Republicans joined 23 other senators calling for tough restrictions on toxic flame retardants."
"PRESTONSBURG, Ky. — Ray Marcum bears the marks of a bygone era of coal mining. At 83, his voice is raspy, his eastern Kentucky accent thick and his forearms leathery. A black pouch of Stoker's 24C chewing tobacco pokes out of the back pocket of his jeans. "I started chewing in the mines to keep the coal dust out of my mouth," he says.
Plenty of that dust still found its way to his lungs. For the past 30 years, he's gotten a monthly check to compensate him for the disease that steals his breath — the old bane of miners known as black lung.
"AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has published a list of 49 chemicals whose everyday use it deems dangerous to the health of Maine children, but an environmental policy group is urging stronger action."
"MOAPA, Nev. -- Beyond the ancestral hunting fields and the rows of small, sparse homes, the cemetery at the Moapa River Indian Reservation sprawls across a barren hill with the tombstones of tribal members who died young."
"LONDON -- A global study mapping human diseases that come from animals like tuberculosis, AIDS, bird flu or Rift Valley fever has found that just 13 such diseases are responsible for 2.4 billion cases of human illness and 2.2 million deaths a year."
"Reports of infants and children dying in this summer's early heat wave have been documented in locales ranging from Kansas to Tennessee. And experts fear that increasingly frequent spikes in extreme high temperatures might bring such unwelcome news more often in the years ahead."
"ALBANY -- Before going home for the summer last week, state lawmakers quietly added nine more months of life to a pollution cleanup program that has turned into a billion-dollar cookie jar for affluent developers."
"Bets Thorkelson's opposition to 3M Co.'s hazardous waste incinerator began in the mid-1990s, when she learned that four moms of boys on her sons' hockey team had breast cancer."
One starting point to covering agriculture — and the health implications of land and water use — is to follow the money using Environmental Working Group's major database tool. Any reporter covering the ag-environment link should know about it.
"Beaches across the nation continue to be fouled by sewage and storm water pollution that puts swimmers at risk of getting sick, according to a report by an environmental group."
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