"Tennessee farmer Todd Littleton expects to pay $100,000 more for fertilizer this season, a 40% spike from his bill last year thanks to the war in Iran — and he is scrambling to cover that extra cost."
"Oklahoma took on an ambitious project to catalog all of the state’s injection wells, which shoot toxic waste generated by oil drilling back into the ground. Despite records showing risk of drinking water pollution, the state chose not to act."
"The Wisconsin Legislature sent a $133 million plan to combat contamination from so-called forever chemicals to Gov. Tony Evers for his approval Tuesday, promising an end to years of squabbling between the Democratic governor and Republican lawmakers over the issue."
"A new analysis links high use of the weed killer glyphosate to elevated rates of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), particularly in the Midwest, reinforcing years of research linking cancer to the weed killer made popular by Monsanto."
"The Quapaw Nation is the only US Native community to carry out a cleanup of one of the country’s worst sites of environmental contamination"
"Some top US lobbying firms are simultaneously working both sides of the Pfas “forever chemicals” issue, raising serious conflict of interest questions and concerns that their activity is slowing states’ efforts to rein in the public health threat."
Two Ghanian video journalists traveled their country to document how contamination from illegal gold mining was harming the health of workers and nearby communities. Their resulting reporting not only won acclaim from their peers but also ignited a debate that resulted in the closing of polluting mining operations. Read more about their award-winning project and its impact in Inside Story Q&A.
"As soon as the barrier broke, a flood of poison brought death to the river. Gushing through the fragile wall built to hold back mining waste in Zambia’s copper belt in February 2025, more than 50m cubic litres of acid and heavy metals poured into the Chambishi stream – a tributary of the Kafue River, the country’s longest waterway."
"The Environmental Protection Agency proposed Friday to weaken air pollution limits on a chemical used to sterilize medical equipment, a move that would reverse a Biden administration finding of high cancer risks at manufacturing facilities that use ethylene oxide to clean medical devices like catheters and syringes."
"The Iran conflict is driving up energy and fertilizer costs, raising alarms over a return of food inflation. Farmers are bracing for resource shortages that could drag down harvests."
