MSNBC has just updated its Adversity Index, which uses data on employment, business growth, and housing prices to label each state and metro area as expanding, at risk of recession, in recession, or recovering. The most recent data (through February 2009) in their economic downturn-ometer indicates that the recession reached 367 of the nation's 381 metro areas and 47 out of 50 states. But good news: Olympia--while still in a recession since January--hasn't been hit too hard due to being a state capital chockful of government employees. And then there's this: "the Kennewick-Pasco-Richland metro area has only now joined the recession, thanks to a resource that will pay glowing dividends for thousands of years: nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project and the Cold War." Um, three cheers for Hanford? more ›

Our fine state might sue the U.S. of A. after the feds missed important clean-up deadlines at Hanford last year, the Seattle Times reports. We're inclined to second that emotion. The consequences for missing a routine bathroom cleaning at Seattlest HQ are dire enough; we don't even want to try to imagine how someone thought it was okay to delay the clean-up at a nuclear waste dump. Maybe we should turn to litigation to solve the hair-clogged drain problem at HQ, as well. more ›