The first week of the nation’s biggest environmental crime case is over. Jurors headed home to a well-deserved drink or a fistful of headache pills. Some lawyers flew back east while most are, and will be, cloistered way until Monday in their hotel war rooms trying to sort out the ramifications of Judge Donald Molloy’s [...]

The 9th U.S. Court of Appeal has overturned Judge Donald Molloy’s order keeping victims of asbestos exposure who will testify in the W.R. Grace criminal trial from observing the proceedings.
A three-judge panel ruled today that: “After review of the parties’ briefs and the record, the petitions for writ of mandamus are granted.
“The district court erred [...]

It’s bizarre and a bit prickly to sit in a federal courtroom and watch a story that you broke a decade ago, then chased with about 240 follow-ups and a book, being played out in front of you.
It becomes surreal when the judge talks about the book from the bench and defense lawyers introduce excerpts [...]

UPDATE: at bottom
It took just minutes for W.R. Grace’s top lawyer to begin denouncing the scientific qualifications of the government’s chief witness and the man who led the government’s efforts to protect the people of Libby from the asbestos that poisoned their small Montana town.
The assault on Paul Peronard by David Bernick was not unexpected.
Paul [...]

If W.R. Grace lawyer Barbara Harding got a buck each time she leaped out of her chair to object to a question the prosecution had asked their witness, she probably would have made more today than the $40 each juror got paid to serve at the largest environmental crime trial in history.
Depending on which side [...]

It has been years in the making, and many people, especially those in Libby, Mont., never thought it would happen, but the W.R. Grace & Co. criminal trial has finally started. It began in the federal courthouse in Missoula with six hours of arguments on why the five men and seven women in the jury [...]

If there were a poster child for the overused saying that “no good deeds go unpunished,” it would be Patty Martin.
Chuck Allen, a reporter for the Quincy Valley Post Register, wrote a story today about the Quincy City Council unanimously tdefeating the appointment of former mayor Martin as the city recreation director.
You’ve got to [...]

Here’s something else to worry about.
It seems the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has become a bit concerned about the security or, at least the location of, hundreds of thousands of glow-in-the-dark exit signs that are being used throughout the country.
This week, the NRC sent a notice to 61 corporations and organizations possessing 500 or [...]

About 840 people have made the effort to comment on my story Monday on U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy’s ruling that victims of alleged criminal actions by W.R. Grace cannot testify at and observe the nation’s largest environmental criminal trial ever.
His Honor says that people from Libby, Mont., who are sick, lost a loved one [...]

Pet lovers got a shock a couple of years ago when an investigation by Consumer Affairs discovered that many of the pet toys made in China contained toxic heavy metals or other dangerous substances.

I should know better, but for some reason I believed that the Food and Drug Administration cracked down on these poisonous playthings. [...]