Monsanto ordered to pay $857 million to Washington school students and parent volunteers over toxic PCBs
CBSN
Monsanto on Monday was ordered to pay $857 million to a group of seven former students and parent volunteers at a Washington state school who claimed the company's chemicals sickened them.
The judgment, which was reported by Bloomberg, AFP, Reuters and other news outlets, comes as Monsanto is facing thousands of lawsuits over its weed-killing chemical Roundup. Last month, the company was ordered to pay $332 million to a man who said Roundup caused his cancer.
In the most recent case, the former students and parent volunteers claimed that exposure to Monsanto's polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from fluorescent light fixtures caused a host of health problems, including brain damage and autoimmune disorders. PCBs, which were banned from production in 1979 due to their toxicity, were commonly used in caulking, light fixtures and other parts of buildings from the 1950s to 1970s, according to Massachusetts' Bureau of Climate and Environmental Health.
Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday said it will consider the constitutionality of the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund, agreeing to review a lower court decision that upended the mechanism for funding programs that provide communications services to rural areas, low-income communities and schools, libraries and hospitals.
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched six space tourists on a high-speed dash to the edge of space and back Friday, giving the passengers — including a husband and wife making their second flight — about three minutes of weightlessness and an out-of-this world view before the capsule made a parachute descent to touchdown at the company's west Texas flight facility.