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Judge slashes $80M award in Monsanto cancer case
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A U.S. judge lowered a jury’s damage award from $80 million to $25 million for a California cancer victim who used Monsanto’s Roundup weed-killer.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports Monday that U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said he was required to reduce the punitive damage award because it went beyond constitutional limits set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In March, a jury found that glyphosate was a likely cause of 70-year-old Edwin Hardeman’s diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Jurors awarded him $200,000 for economic losses, $3 million for past pain and suffering, another $2 million for emotional distress in his future years, and $75 million in punitive damages. Hardeman’s cancer is in remission.

Chhabria refused Friday to overturn the jury’s verdict that Monsanto’s product was a likely cause of Hardeman’s cancer.

 Flight instructor dies in California helicopter crash

HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) — A city spokesman says a training helicopter has crashed in Northern California, killing a flight instructor and seriously injuring a student.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a student and instructor of Pacific Helicopters flight school were the only two people aboard the helicopter when it crashed at Hayward Executive Airport, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of San Francisco.

Chuck Finnie, a spokesman for the city of Hayward, says the flight instructor was pronounced dead at the scene Monday afternoon and the student was taken to a nearby hospital.


It is not known whether the instructor or student was flying the helicopter at the time of the crash but Finnie said they were practicing takeoffs and landings.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

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Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com