WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday it has finalized a ban on consumer uses of methylene chloride, a chemical that is widely used as a paint stripper but is known to cause liver cancer and other health problems. The EPA said its action will protect Americans from health risks while allowing certain commercial … Read more
WASHINGTON — Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency. New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s … Read more
PARIS — Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said she was confident water quality in the River Seine will be up to Olympic standards this summer — and that she’ll be able to prove it by swimming there, possibly alongside President Emmanuel Macron. The Seine is the venue for marathon swimming at the Games and the swimming … Read more
When I was a kid, I used to help my mother clear leaves the old-fashioned way — with a rake. These days, I don’t see many rakes in my neighborhood. It seems everyone has a leaf blower or a landscaper who uses one, often at ungodly hours, which disrupts humans as well as wildlife. The … Read more
WASHINGTON — Forget about red hot. A new color-coded heat warning system relies on magenta to alert Americans to the most dangerous conditions they may see this summer. The National Weather Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday — Earth Day — presented a new online heat risk system that combines … Read more
HELENA, Mont. — A federal jury on Monday said Warren Buffett’s BNSF Railway contributed to the deaths of two people who were exposed to asbestos decades ago when tainted mining material was shipped through a Montana town where thousands have been sickened. The jury awarded $4 million each in compensatory damages to the estates of … Read more
GENEVA — The U.N. labor organization warned Monday that over 70% of the world’s workforce is likely to be exposed to excessive heat during their careers, citing increased concern about exposure to sunlight. It also warned of air pollution, pesticides and other hazards that could lead to health problems including cancer. In a new report, … Read more
HELENA, Mont. — BNSF Railway attorneys told a Montana jury Friday that the railroad should not be held liable for the lung cancer deaths of two former residents of an asbestos-contaminated Montana town, one of the deadliest sites in the federal Superfund pollution program. Attorneys for the company say the corporate predecessors of the railroad, … Read more
PARIS — In Paris’ outskirts, a bright-eyed young girl is eager for the Olympic and Paralympic Games to end. That’s because the swimming club where 10-year-old Lyla Kebbi trains will inherit an Olympic pool. It will be dismantled after the Games and trucked from the Olympic race venue in Paris’ high-rise business district to Sevran, … Read more
LIBBY, Mont. — Paul Resch remembers playing baseball as a kid on a field constructed from asbestos-tainted vermiculite, mere yards from railroad tracks where trains kicked up clouds of dust as they hauled the contaminated material from a mountaintop mine through the northwestern Montana town of Libby. He liked to sneak into vermiculite-filled storage bins … Read more
