diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/toc.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/toc.py
index dd577cc476..985b46a2c4 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/toc.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/toc.py
@@ -274,7 +274,10 @@ class TOC(list):
             desc = getattr(np, 'description', None)
             if desc:
                 desc = re.sub(r'\s+', ' ', desc)
-                elem.append(C.meta(desc, name='description'))
+                try:
+                    elem.append(C.meta(desc, name='description'))
+                except ValueError:
+                    elem.append(C.meta(clean_xml_chars(desc), name='description'))
             idx = getattr(np, 'toc_thumbnail', None)
             if idx:
                 elem.append(C.meta(idx, name='toc_thumbnail'))
diff --git a/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py b/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py
index 2573f85114..e69f973e99 100644
--- a/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py
+++ b/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py
@@ -1039,12 +1039,13 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
     def description_limiter(cls, src):
         if not src:
             return ''
+        src = force_unicode(src, 'utf-8')
         pos = cls.summary_length
         fuzz = 50
-        si = src.find(';', pos)
+        si = src.find(u';', pos)
         if si > 0 and si-pos > fuzz:
             si = -1
-        gi = src.find('>', pos)
+        gi = src.find(u'>', pos)
         if gi > 0 and gi-pos > fuzz:
             gi = -1
         npos = max(si, gi)
@@ -1052,8 +1053,9 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
             npos = pos
         ans = src[:npos+1]
         if len(ans) < len(src):
-            return (ans+u'\u2026') if isinstance(ans, unicode) else (ans +
-                    '...')
+            from calibre.utils.cleantext import clean_xml_chars
+            # Truncating the string could cause a dangling UTF-16 half-surrogate, which will cause lxml to barf, clean it
+            ans = clean_xml_chars(ans) + u'\u2026'
         return ans
 
     def feed2index(self, f, feeds):
diff --git a/src/calibre/web/feeds/templates.py b/src/calibre/web/feeds/templates.py
index ebe9ead97a..9d7479520d 100644
--- a/src/calibre/web/feeds/templates.py
+++ b/src/calibre/web/feeds/templates.py
@@ -135,6 +135,7 @@ class FeedTemplate(Template):
         return navbar
 
     def _generate(self, f, feeds, cutoff, extra_css=None, style=None):
+        from calibre.utils.cleantext import clean_xml_chars
         feed = feeds[f]
         head = HEAD(TITLE(feed.title))
         if style:
@@ -173,7 +174,7 @@ class FeedTemplate(Template):
                             style='padding-bottom:0.5em')
                     )
             if article.summary:
-                li.append(DIV(cutoff(article.text_summary),
+                li.append(DIV(clean_xml_chars(cutoff(article.text_summary)),
                     CLASS('article_description', 'calibre_rescale_70')))
             ul.append(li)
         div.append(ul)