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NATION/WORLD Tuesday, October 23, 2018 East Oregonian Page 7A Judge upholds Monsanto jury verdict, cuts award to $78M By PAUL ELIAS Associated Press AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File President Donald Trump walks over to talk to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Monday. In this March 7, 2018 file photo, Sau- di Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrives to meet Prime Min- ister Theresa May. In this Feb. 1, 2015 file photo, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks during a news conference in Mana- ma, Bahrain. Trump: ‘I am not satisfied’ with explanations of Khashoggi death By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday he’s not sat- isfied with the explana- tions he’s heard about the death of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi and is awaiting reports from U.S. personnel returning from the region. Khashoggi, who lived in the United States and wrote critically about the Saudi royal family, died ear- lier this month at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia said he was killed in a fistfight, but Turkish offi- cials said the 59-year-old Washington Post columnist was attacked and killed by a 15-man Saudi team. Asked if he believed Saudi Arabia’s explanation, Trump said, “I am not satis- fied with what I’ve heard.” “We’re going to get to the bottom of it. We have people over in Saudi Arabia now. We have top intelligence people in Turkey. They’re coming back either tonight or tomorrow,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for a political rally in Texas. “We’re going to know a lot over the next two days about the Saudi situation,” said Trump. “It’s a very sad thing.” Trump spoke Sunday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is the son of Saudi King Salman. “He says he is not involved nor is the king,” Trump told USA Today in an interview aboard Air Force One Monday en route to a political rally in Texas. The newspaper said Trump declined to say whether he believed the crown prince’s denials. If their involvement was proven, Trump said: “I would be very upset about it. We’ll have to see.” Trump characterized Khashoggi’s incident as a “plot gone awry” and told the newspaper he didn’t think the writer was deliber- ately lured into the consulate to be killed. When he was asked late last week whether he thought Saudi Arabia’s claim that Khashoggi died in a fistfight was credible, the president answered: “I do. I do.” That statement rankled members of Congress and former government officials who have accused Riyadh of trying to cover up the truth behind Khashoggi’s death or hide any evidence that the kingdom, particularly the crown prince, authorized it. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, who has been trying to coax Trump into ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia, said Monday that it’s “laugh- able” to believe the crown prince was not involved in Khashoggi’s death. Trump said any U.S. response should not involve scrapping billions of dollars in arms sales, which would hurt U.S. defense industries and eliminate U.S. jobs. “I don’t want to lose all of that investment that’s being made in our country,” he said. White House press secre- tary Sarah Huckabee Sand- ers said Trump will con- tinue to demand answers. “He’ll make a determination on what he wants to do once he feels like he has all of the information that he needs,” she said. Whatever the U.S. response, U.S. ties with its Gulf ally have hit rough waters. The Khashoggi affair also has threatened to upend the relationship of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner with the crown prince. The two men — both in their 30s, both trusted aides of older, familial leaders — struck a bond last spring and consulted with one another frequently in private calls in the months that followed. The crown prince, who is known in diplomatic cir- cles as “MBS,” has drawn some praise in the West for his moves to modernize the kingdom and criticism for his government’s arrests of rivals and critics. Trump now plays down the relationship, saying the crown prince and Kushner are “just two young guys.” But their back-channel rela- tionship unnerved many in the Trump administration and Washington foreign policy establishment who feared that the White House was betting too big on the crown prince. Kushner on Monday fended off criticism that the Trump administration was giving Saudi Arabia cover. He said administration offi- cials have their “eyes wide open.” “We’re getting facts in from multiple places and once those facts come in, the secretary of state will work with our national security team to help us determine what we want to believe, what we think is credi- ble and what we think is not credible,” Kushner told CNN. Even Trump, however, admits that Kushner’s work on trying to craft peace between Israel and the Pal- estinians has been set back by Khashoggi’s death. “There are a lot of setbacks. This is a setback for that,” Trump told the Washington Post in a weekend phone interview. Bruce Riedel, a former Middle East specialist for the CIA and National Secu- rity Council, said the Trump administration “desperately wants the Istanbul affair to go away and the MBS-Jared bromance obscured.” An administration offi- cial, who regularly deals with Kushner, pushed back against claims that Kush- ner and the crown prince are joined at the hip. The offi- cial was not authorized to discuss the relationship and spoke only on condition of anonymity. The official said the two had spoken since the crisis erupted and said Kushner’s comment that he had told the crown prince to be “trans- parent” is an accurate reflec- tion of the conversation, which took place before the Saudis’ most recent explana- tion for Khashoggi’s death. The official said Kushner — like other members of the administration, including Trump — believes Saudi Arabia should suffer some sort of consequence, but said Kushner also believes the U.S.-Saudi relationship “shouldn’t be blown up” because of the Khashoggi matter. Gerald Feierstein, a for- mer ambassador to Yemen and a top-ranking U.S. dip- lomat for Middle East pol- icy for three years, said keeping the back channel between Kushner and the crown prince now might “prove to be unsustainable.” Feierstein, now with the Middle East Institute, said he thinks that U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia should be in the hands of professional diplomats, not the presi- dent’s adviser. Over 7,000 strong, migrant caravan pushes on; still far from United States SAN FRANCISCO — A Northern California judge on Monday upheld a jury’s verdict that found Monsan- to’s weed killer caused a groundskeeper’s cancer, but she slashed the amount of money to be paid from $289 mil- lion to $78 million. In denying Monsanto’s request for a new trial, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos cut the jury’s punitive damage award from $250 million to $39 million. The judge had earlier said she had strong doubts about the jury’s entire punitive damage award. Bolanos gave DeWayne Johnson until Dec. 7 to accept the reduced amount or demand a new trial. Johnson’s spokeswoman Diana McKinley said he and his lawyers are reviewing the decision and haven’t decided the next step. “Although we believe a reduction in punitive damages was unwarranted and we are weigh- ing the options, we are pleased the court did not disturb the verdict,” she said. Monsanto spokeswoman Christi Dixon didn’t return phone and email inquiries placed late Monday. The jury awarded punitive damages after it found that the St. Louis-based agribusiness had purposely ignored warnings and evidence that its popular Roundup product causes cancer, including Johnson’s lymphoma. Punitive damages are designed to punish companies that juries determine have purposely misbehaved and to deter others from operating similarly. In a tentative ruling on Oct. 11, Bolanos said it appeared the jurors overreached with their punitive dam- ages award. She said then that she was considering wiping out the $250 million judgment after finding no compel- ling evidence presented at trial that Monsanto employ- ees ignored evidence that the weed killer caused cancer. The judge reversed course Monday and said she was compelled to honor the jurors’ conclusions after they lis- tened to expert witnesses for both sides debate the merits of Johnson’s claim. The judge said jurors are entitled to accept the con- clusion of Johnson’s expert witness who said Roundup caused his cancer and reject the conclusions of Monsan- to’s expert witnesses, who concluded there’s no proof the weed killer causes cancer. “Thus, the jury could conclude that Monsanto acted with malice by consciously disregarding a probable safety risk,” Bolanos wrote in her ruling. Some jurors were so upset by the prospect of having their verdict thrown out that they wrote to Bolanos, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “I urge you to respect and honor our verdict and the six weeks of our lives that we dedicated to this trial,” juror Gary Kitahata wrote. Juror Robert Howard said the jury paid “studious attention” to the evidence and any decision to overturn its verdict would shake his confidence in the judicial system. The judge did slash the $250 million punitive damage to $39 million, the same amount the jury awarded John- son for other damages. Johnson’s lawsuit is among hundreds alleging Roundup caused cancer, but it was the first one to go to trial. Johnson sprayed Roundup and a similar product, Ranger Pro, at his job as a pest control manager at a San Francisco Bay Area school district, according to his attor- neys. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014 at age 42. Many government regulators have rejected a link between the weed killer’s active chemical — glyphosate — and cancer. Monsanto has vehemently denied such a connection, saying hundreds of studies have established that glyphosate is safe. “I urge you to respect and honor our verdict and the six weeks of our lives that we dedi- cated to this trial” — Gary Kitahata, juror By MARK STEVENSON Associated Press TAPACHULA, Mex- ico — Thousands of Central American migrants resumed an arduous trek toward the U.S. border Monday, with many bristling at sugges- tions there could be terror- ists among them and saying the caravan is being used for political ends by U.S. Presi- dent Donald Trump. The caravan’s numbers have continued to grow as they walk and hitch rides through hot and humid weather, and the United Nations estimated that it cur- rently comprises some 7,200 people, “many of whom intend to continue the march north.” However, they were still at least 1,140 miles from the nearest border crossing — McAllen, Texas — and the length of their journey could more than double if they go to Tijuana-San Diego, the destination of another car- avan earlier this year. That one shrank significantly as it moved through Mexico, and only a tiny fraction — about 200 of the 1,200 in the group — reached the California border. The same could well hap- Thank you to the following businesses for supporting Newspapers in Education Their generous support of the East Oregonian NIE program helps provide copies of the newspaper and unlimited access to EastOregonian.com and the e-Edition to schools throughout Umatilla, Morrow and Gilliam counties. Dean's Pendleton Athletic AP Photo/Moises Castillo Residents hand out water bottles to Central American migrants making their way to the U.S. in a large cara- van, at the main plaza in Tapachula, Mexico, on Monday. pen this time around as some turn back, splinter off on their own or decide to take their chances on asylum in Mex- ico — as 1,128 have done so far, according to the coun- try’s Interior Department. While such caravans have occurred semi-reg- ularly over the years, this one has become a particu- larly hot topic ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections in the U.S., and an immigrant rights activist traveling with the group accused Trump of using it to stir up his Repub- lican base. “It is a shame that a pres- ident so powerful uses this caravan for political ends,” said Irineo Mujica of the group Pueblo Sin Fronteras — People Without Borders — which works to provide humanitarian aid to migrants. Some have questioned the timing so close to the vote and whether some political force was behind it, though by all appearances it began as a group of about 160 who decided to band together in Honduras for protection and snowballed as they moved north. “No one is capable of organizing this many peo- ple,” Mujica said, adding that there are only two forces driving them: “hunger and death.” CHI St. Anthony Hospital 1415 Southgate Pendleton, OR 541-276-0880 | RAClub.us 249 S. Main St. Pendleton, OR 97801 541-276-6988 Facebook.com/ DeansPendletonAthletic 541-276-5121 SAHPendleton.org 2081 St. Anthony Way Pendleton, OR 97801 541-276-1260 BLUECC.EDU 301 S. Main St., Pendleton, OR 541-278-6800 • OldWestFCU.org 2411 NW Carden Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 505 SW 16th St. Pendleton, OR 541-612-8575 KirbyNagelhout.com Robert Alan Property Management For more information on the NIE Program, visit EastOregonian.com/eo/nie. To make a donation, call 800-522-0255.
