The head of the Environmental Protection Agency Michael Regan made a stop in East Palestine, Ohio, to speak with residents who continue to raise concerns about the health and safety of their town after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials derailed there two weeks ago.
"Since the fire EPA air monitoring has not detected any levels of health concerns in the community that are attributed to the train derailment," Regan said at a press conference.
The latest reassurance from an official comes following reports of sudden animal deaths, complaints about headaches, and images of ominous skies reported on social media over the last two weeks.
Residents of the village with a population of about 5,000 people have said local, state, and federal agencies have not been forthcoming about the fallout of the derailment and controlled burn of the leaked toxic chemicals in the soil, water and air.
While stating that the Biden administration would support Gov. Mike DeWine with "anything the state needs" in order to recover from the derailment, Regan also emphasized how the rail company itself would be held accountable by the government.
"I am asking that [residents] trust the government, And that's hard. We know that there is a lack of trust, which is why the state and the federal government have pledged to be very transparent," he said.
A 7.2 magnitude earthquake was reported in Alaska over the weekend, leading to a brief tsunami warning.
Over 11 million Americans are under a heat advisory, with the extreme weather hitting the southern U.S.
Temperatures in central and southern California could hit 120 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend.
The World Health Organization moved to classify aspartame, the artificial sweetener in diet soda, as a possible carcinogen.
The World Health Organization's cancer agency has deemed the sweetener aspartame — found in diet soda and countless other foods — as a “possible” cause of cancer, while a separate expert group looking at the same evidence said it still considers the sugar substitute safe in limited quantities.
More than a third of Americans were under extreme heat advisories, watches and warnings Thursday as a blistering heat wave that's been baking the nation spread further into California, forcing residents to seek out air conditioning or find other ways to stay cool in triple-digit temperatures.
Tourists in central Athens huddled under mist machines, and zoo animals in Madrid were fed fruit popsicles and chunks of frozen food, as southern Europeans braced for a heat wave Thursday, with a warning of severe conditions coming from the European Union’s space agency.
A new study published in Nature has found that more than 56 percent of the world's oceans have changed color in the past 20 years, and climate change is to blame.
Recently discovered teeth of a two-million-year-old human relative in Africa could give researchers new insight into genetics.
