Articles by Grist staff

Manipulation Nation

U.S. risk-assessment draft completely eviscerated by real live scientists The Bush administration’s quest to make federal-agency evaluations of public-health risks from chemicals and other products even more meaningless has been stymied. A draft risk-assessment policy issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget has been called “fundamentally flawed” by the National Research Council, […]

Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is Fined

Insurer slapped with $2.5 million penalty in post-Katrina jury decision If a house falls in the Gulf Coast region and no insurer is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Heck yes — in this case, a $2.7 million boom that’s ricocheting around the country. Yesterday, a federal jury ordered insurance company State […]

Year of the Draggin’

China had a cruddy eco-year, still sees big picture more clearly than the U.S. In China, officials are assessing their 2006 eco-successes. The short version: there were none. The somewhat longer version: the country saw a pollution-related accident roughly every two days. Officials got 600,000 environmental complaints, 30 percent more than in 2005. Goals to […]

Haul Out the Halter Tops

It’s official: 2006 was warmest year ever for the contiguous U.S. In 2006, the contiguous U.S. experienced its warmest year since records began in 1895 (also the year of the first volleyball game — who knew?). Every state in the Lower 48 had average temperatures above, well, average; New Jersey hit its highest temperature ever. […]