For reasons that have not been disclosed, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has sharply reduced fines levied recently against Disneyland Resorts for health and safety violations at Disneyland.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has established a Facebook page devoted to the April 17 West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion – and although a large photo of the memorial for the victims is prominent on the page, the ongoing FB conversation is mostly forward-looking.

OSHA has cited Phoenix Industrial Cleaning for 28 serious safety violations following the death of a worker who fell from ladder inside of a storage tank, apparently after being overcome by methylene chloride vapors at a chemical manufacturing facility in Wheeling, Ill. on Nov. 29, 2012.

The death toll in that collapsed Bangladesh factory building has reached 1, 127 people – making it the world’s worst industrial disaster since the 1984 Bhopal gas leak in India, which claimed an estimated 3,787 lives.

Union officials or community organizers will be allowed on “walkaround” OSHA inspections at non-union workplaces, under a new interpretation of regulations by the agency in a recent interpretation letter. The revision comes in response to a letter from Steve Sallman, Health and Safety Specialist for the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union.

The Texas Rangers and the McLennan County Sheriff's Department Officials are helping to conduct a criminal investigation into the April 17 explosion in West, Texas that killed 14 people and demolished hundreds of homes.

NIOSH research related to improved illumination in underground mines could be a key to reducing the second leading accident class of nonfatal lost-time injuries—slips, trips, and falls.

ChillOut products to be exhibited at Safety 2013. Portable and easy to use.Beat the heat and enjoy a ChillOut moment. ChillOut evaporative cooling towels are XL and waffled to hold more water for effective, instant cooling that lasts.

Overcoming resistance to near-miss reporting: Easily ignored incidents can be key to improving safety performance. Even though a near-miss incident on a job site may cause no injuries or property or equipment damage, it can give a company a heads’ up about a need for early intervention, thereby enabling it to improve its safety performance.

Despite a decades-long effort to raise awareness about the importance of roll over protective structures (ROPS) in preventing injury and death from tractor roll overs, tractor overturns continue to be the leading cause of occupational agricultural death in the United States.