California man, 57, is awarded $332 MILLION after claiming Monsanto Roundup weedkiller gave him rare cancer

latest blow to chemical giant hit by thousands of lawsuits

• Mike Dennis, a 57-year-old from Carlsbad, California, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that starts in the white blood cells, in 2020
• He alleged Roundup weedkiller was responsible for causing the cancer  
• Dennis was awarded $7million in compensatory damages and $325million in punitive damages on Tuesday

A California man was awarded $332million on Tuesday after filing a lawsuit against the giant corporation Monsanto Co., alleging that its Roundup weedkiller was responsible for causing his rare form of cancer.

Mike Dennis, a 57-year-old resident of Carlsbad, California, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2020, which he attributed to his decades-long use of Roundup weedkiller. The lawsuit alleged that his illness was related to glyphosate, an active chemical in the product.

A San Diego Superior Court jury found that Monsanto, now a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant Bayer, had failed to provide adequate warnings about the risks associated with Roundup.

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Biden declines meeting with Dem mayors demanding action on border crisis

On Thursday, a number of Democrat mayors arrived at the White House to speak with federal leaders about the impact the crisis at the southern border is having on their cities, and request funding to help deal with the problem.

While members of the Biden administration did meet with the mayors, the president himself was notably absent, providing no answer as to why he decided not to show up.

According to the New York Post, the meeting was called for by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

While Adams abandoned the trip to Washington, DC after one of his campaign fundraisers had her home raided by the FBI over alleged illegal contributions from Turkey, Johnson and Johnston were able to speak with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and senior adviser Tom Perez.

In an October 28 letter to Biden, the quintet called on his administration to do more at the federal level to assist their cities.

“To address this crisis without further delay, we are requesting an urgent meeting with you to directly discuss ways we can work with your administration to avoid large numbers of additional asylum seekers being brought to our cities with little to no coordination, support, or resources,” they wrote.

“We request an appropriation of $5 billion to cover the expenditures our cities have already incurred and to continue serving the growing number of people arriving in our communities.”

As the Post reports, Biden received a 10 am intelligence briefing at the White House, but had no other events on his schedule for the morning, calling into question why he failed to meet with the mayors.

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Five Nordic Nations Agree to Collaborate on Shared Deportation Flights

A group of northern European nations has agreed to work together to make expelling migrants with no legal right to stay, saying they will share deportation flights and expertise.

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden announced a new agreement on Tuesday that they were to combine their efforts on removing migrants, saying they would launch joint deportation flights and other initiatives. The agreement came out of a two-day Nordic nations summit in Copenhagen where the group said they had come to a “strong commitment” to strengthen their cooperation on migrant returns.

As well as working together to get illegal migrants out of their nations and back to their countries of origin, the group also said they would launch a join initiative to help migrants who had left their homes and made it as far as North Africa — the embarkation point for dangerous smuggler boats across the Mediterranean to Europe — to go back to their places of origin too. This, the pact says, is a programme of “voluntary repatriation”.

The Danish Immigration and Integration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek said at the announcement that Nordic nations must stop migrants from “traveling across our countries and going under the radar of the authorities”. He continued: “It is a decisive principle that foreigners without legal residence travel home… we should constantly strive to do better. Both in Denmark, in the other Nordic countries and in the EU. Today’s agreement is a step in the right direction.”

His opposite number from Finland, Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said: “This cooperation will be supporting our governmental program because it’s very concentrated on immigration rules and the returns especially, which have been the weak link in our system”.

In the group’s communiqué on the agreement, it was said on flights that they would work towards “joint Nordic return operations in collaboration with Frontex.”

What this appears to mean in practice, according to media reports from the nations involved, is that if one country in the group has a particularly good relationship with a foreign nation then all the migrants due to be deported there from the five will be sent to that one nation for the flight. An example given is Sweden’s relationship with Afghanistan, meaning it will take the lead on deporting all illegal Afghans from the five-nation group.

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Thousands of pro-Palestinian marchers descend upon WH chanting ‘Allahu akbar,’ ‘F–k Joe Biden’ as they demand ceasefire

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters massed in Washington, DC, Saturday afternoon before descending upon the White House to chant, “Allahu akbar” and “F–k Joe Biden” as they accused the president of genocide and demanded a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” the crowd dotted with Palestinian flags and signs cried at the start of the event, which drew attendees from across the country.

The chant – which is growing increasingly popular in the wake of Hamas’ deadly incursion into southern Israel last month and Israel’s subsequent retaliatory attacks on Gaza – is widely considered antisemitic because it implies the elimination of the State of Israel and its people.

Others chanted, “Long live the Intifada,” an Arabic word used to refer to Palestinian uprising, specifically to conflicts that ran from 1987 and 1993 and from 2000 to about 2005 that left thousands dead.

Unofficial reports estimate more than 100,000 showed up to the protest, but DC Police could not confirm, telling The Post it does not estimate crowd size. 

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