Before she dies, Dorothy Kuykendall wants her day in court. The 76-year-old from Terre Haute was exposed to asbestos, a toxin that can lead to a deadly cancer called mesothelioma, more than three decades ago when she handled the material regularly as a worker at the city’s Glas-Col Apparatus Co.

The family of a man who died of asbestos exposure from his work on a Navy ship won reinstatement of their claims against the makers of the vessel’s steam valves and pumps, in a California appeals court.

A sizeable crowd gathered outside the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard’s main entrance Tuesday to protest Bayview Hunters Point residents and environmental advocates ongoing concerns with Lennar’s plans to develop 770 acres at the shipyard and Candlestick Point–and to blockade the entrance with a giant stop work order.

As part of a multi-site settlement, G-I Holdings Inc. has agreed to address asbestos contamination caused by its past operation of the largest chrysotile asbestos mine and mill in the country, the United States and the state of Vermont.

The number of new asbestos cases filed in Madison County in the first half of 2009 is on pace to surpass last year’s total.

The Yokosuka branch of the Yokohama District Court on Monday ordered the government to pay 76.84 million yen in compensation over the death of a worker at the U.S. Navy’s Yokosuka base due to Mesothelioma.

The Environmental Protection Agency took the unprecedented step last week of declaring Libby a federal public health emergency, vowing to finally finish a cleanup that has languished for nearly a decade.

Four former railroad workers are seeking more than $1 million from five railroad corporations, alleging they developed asbestosis after they were exposed to asbestos and second-hand cigarette smoke during their employment.

Two weeks after a federal jury acquitted W.R. Grace & Co. and three executives on criminal charges that they knowingly exposed residents in Libby to deadly asbestos, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., announced what he calls a “breath of fresh air” for the northwest Montana town: a $6 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to provide health care for residents stricken with asbestos-related diseases.

MISSOULA, Mont. - W.R. Grace & Co. and three former executives were acquitted Friday of federal charges that they knowingly allowed residents of northwestern Montana town to be exposed to asbestos from its vermiculite mine.