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Supreme Court heard case on how to label risks of popular weed killer
A French farmer sprays Roundup 720 glyphosate herbicide produced by U.S. agrochemical giant Monsanto in 2018 on a field of no-till corn in northwestern France. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday heard a dispute over labels on the popular Roundup pesticide, which thousands of plaintiffs blame for their cancers.
Jean-Francois Monier/AFP via Getty Images
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Jean-Francois Monier/AFP via Getty Images
A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday heard a dispute over labels on the popular Roundup weed killer, which thousands of people blame for their cancers.
How the Supreme Court rules could have implications for tens of thousands of lawsuits against Roundup maker Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer. The case centers on who decides about warning labels on chemicals: the federal government — or states or juries.
The main plaintiff in Monday’s case is John Durnell. Durnell in 2019 sued Monsanto in a state court in Missouri, alleging he contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma because of his 20-year exposure to glyphosate, a chemical included in the weed killer. Durnell regularly sprayed the weed killer throughout his neighborhood.
A jury sided with Durnell on his claim that Monsanto had failed to properly warn users about risks, awarding him more than $1 million in damages.
Missouri law bans the sale of dangerous pesticides that lack an “adequate warning,” Durnell’s lawyer Ashley Keller wrote. Keller says the key questions are for juries to decide.
Durnell is one of tens of thousands of people to sue because they say they faced harm because of Roundup. Those plaintiffs have experienced mixed success in the lower courts.
Monsanto argues those claims should have been preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, which requires manufacturers to register pesticides with the EPA before selling them, which Monsanto did. The EPA also signs off on labels for those pesticides.
Paul Clement, a former solicitor general and a lawyer for Monsanto, argued that it’s important to have a uniform standard nationwide.
“It’s probably the most like studied herbicide in the history of man and they’ve all reached the conclusion, based on more data and the kind of expert analysis they can do, that there isn’t a risk here,” he told the justices. “You shouldn’t let a single Missouri jury second guess that judgment.”
The justices will not be evaluating whether glyphosate causes cancer. Rather, they’ll consider who should decide what appears on warning labels and whether states have a role to play after the EPA weighs in.
The current U.S. solicitor general backed Monsanto. Sarah Harris, his principal deputy, said the Environmental Protection Agency is in the driver’s seat, not anyone in Missouri.
“Missouri thus requires adding cancer warnings but federal law requires EPA to approve new warnings and tasks EPA with deciding what label changes would mitigate any health risks,” Harris argued. “State law must give way.”
Several justices, including Brett Kavanaugh, appeared to agree with Monsanto’s argument about the need for a single, uniform standard across the country.
But others, like Chief Justice John Roberts, wondered what would happen if the federal government moved more slowly than states did, who wanted to act quickly on information about new dangers.
“Well, it does undermine the uniformity,” Roberts said. “On the other hand, if it turns out they were right, it might have been good if they had an opportunity to do something, to call this danger to the attention of people while the federal government was going through its process,” he said about states.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked about the emergence of new science, and the EPA’s reviews.
“There’s a 15-year window between when that product has to be re-registered again and lots of things can happen in science, in terms of development about the product,” she said.
Bayer, which now owns Monsanto, only sells Roundup that contains glyphosate to farmers and businesses these days. Bayer has been pushing to resolve scores of the residential cases through a sweeping settlement, trying to put the costly claims behind it.
U.S. President Donald Trump pumps his fist after touring the inside of the newest aircraft in the presidential fleet at Andrews Air Force Base on June 19, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.
Alex Wong
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Alex Wong
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The newest Air Force One jet, gifted to President Trump from the Qatari government, arrived ahead of schedule on Friday to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
On Friday afternoon, Trump toured the luxury Boeing 747 plane that initially stirred controversy. The plane was one of the biggest foreign gifts ever received by the U.S. government and raised legal and ethical questions after Qatar offered to replace the presidential jet last year. Trump said last May he’d be “stupid” not to accept the offer. Industry groups originally said the plane could be worth approximately $400 million.
Trump also spoke standing in front of the plane, thanking the Emir of Qatar.
The president praised the workmanship of the plane, describing it as the “world’s most luxurious plane.” He also called it the “largest Air Force One ever built,” adding “it flies further and faster than any Air Force One.”
“This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody’s ever seen before, probably even almost outside of an airplane,” Trump said. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like this, and in only 10 months, a timeframe no one thought possible.”
The exterior of the jet is no longer light blue, silver, and white – a fixture since the Kennedy administration. Trump unveiled the new red, white and blue color scheme.
“It was time for a change. … Everything was designed good. It was my taste,” Trump said saying that he approved the new color scheme, which reflects the American flag.
The VC-25B Bridge aircraft will now undertake its commissioning flights, what the Air Force calls a “final exam” for the plane. The plane was modified after serving the Qatari Head of State.
“Once these flights are successfully completed, the aircraft is officially ‘commissioned’ into the active executive airlift fleet and becomes available for presidential missions,” an Air Force press release said.
The aircraft from Qatar will “serve as a bridge until the [long-term] VC-25B is delivered,” according to earlier communications from the Air Force. The plane was delivered well before expectations. The Air Force originally estimated the plane would be delivered in 2028 but said by modifying requirements it could deliver the first aircraft in 2027. The modifications “were carefully crafted to prioritize mission over aesthetics, leaving much of the previous head of state interior layout minimally changed,” the Air Force said.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach praised the delivery.
“Many thought it could not be done, but the United States Air Force was able to execute and provide a secure, reliable airborne command post on an accelerated timeline,” he said.
Algae turns the newly repainted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool green on the National Mall on Tuesday in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is once again making headlines, this week for turning green.
The Washington, D.C. landmark was refilled with water earlier this month after President Trump had its neutral grey bottom repainted “American flag blue.” The multi-million dollar project produced subtle results in the eyes of many observers, even as Trump and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum — whose agency managed the renovation — touted its success.
In recent days, however, the pool has taken on a verdant hue — the result of algae blooms that experts say are to be expected in these conditions.
“It’s called ‘New Pond Syndrome,’” says Steve Goodale, a Canadian swimming pool specialist known online as “Swimming Pool Steve.” “It’s a known thing that happens when you take a natural, clear body of water like this that sits in an open air environment and you try to start it up, very often you end up with green water almost immediately.”
Goodale says the process took longer — a matter of days — to unfold in this case likely due to the sheer size of the pool, which measures 2,030 feet long and has a surface area of approximately 338,000 square feet.
“Excellent conditions” for algae growth
Rosalina Stancheva Christova, a professor of aquatic ecology at George Mason University in Virginia, took water samples from the pool on Tuesday. She confirmed the algae belongs to the genus Desmodesmus, which she said is “growing in excessive amounts” but is not toxic or harmful.
Christova says this kind of common green algae is found all over the region, especially this time of year. The reflecting pool in particular provides “excellent conditions” for algae growth, she said: shallow, stagnant water, strong sunlight and no shade.
“It could happen every single summer,” she added. “But it seems that the disturbance of the pond during the renovations [is] accelerating this process.”
Christova said last month’s renovations may have affected the balance of nutrients in the pool, potentially accelerating the algae blooms. Goodale similarly views the resurfacing as one of several contributing factors.
“The new, darker interior surface is going to absorb more sunlight,” Goodale says. “It is going to result in water that’s warmer, and that ultimately is going to lead to more prolific algae growth.”
A microscopic slide shows the Desmodesmus algae that quickly turned the Reflecting Pool’s water green. The new dark blue paint of the pool’s lining makes the water warmer and friendlier to the algae growth.
Rosalina Stancheva Christova, PhD.
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Rosalina Stancheva Christova, PhD.
The Trump administration has said the algae came from residual material in supply lines that had lain dormant for weeks. Their growth was likely exacerbated by the extreme temperatures that hit D.C. last week, bringing heat index values to 95 degrees and above.
Algae has resurfaced in the reflecting pool periodically over the years — including immediately after it reopened from its last major renovation in 2012, forcing the National Park Service to drain it, refill it and recalibrate its ozone level. And in 2019, crews had to drain four million gallons from the pool to fix a broken water line that had algae growing in it.
An Interior Department spokesperson told NPR over email that algae and other contaminants have “long plagued the Reflecting Pool since 1922,” pointing to the Obama-era renovation as an example.
“Unlike under Obama and Biden, the National Park Service is actually maintaining the beautifully completed Reflecting Pool,” they added.
Responding with tiny bubbles and big vacuums
Workers battle the fast-growing common algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Thursday.
Rachel Treisman/NPR
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Rachel Treisman/NPR
The Trump administration is using a mix of mitigation strategies, including pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to kill the algae.
The Interior Department says hydrogen peroxide is a “milder treatment than chlorine and is used in spas and specialty pools like natural swimming pools,” adding “there are no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment.”
Workers are also deploying what the department calls “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to neutralize algae and other pathogens in the pool. The department says that approach is validated by several universities and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.
Those ozone bubbles are so tiny the human eye can’t even see them, Goodale says.
“The best way to describe it is that the bubbles are neutrally buoyant, so they won’t just rise to the surface and disappear readily,” he explains. “They can last for weeks, if not months in the water, doing their oxidizing thing and keeping the algae at bay.”
‘A monumental effort’
Goodale says it’s more complicated than treating the average backyard swimming pool, since the reflecting pool — despite its name — is actually more akin to a “manmade shallow lake.” He says it’s hard to predict just how long it will take to completely solve the algae problem, calling it “a monumental effort, literally.”
The Interior Department posted on X Wednesday that the nanobubble technology had “very effectively killed the algae,” and National Park Service crews would spend several days vacuuming up the dead algae from the bottom of the pool.
But as of Thursday morning, much of the pool — especially in the center — was still bright green.
Work continued on both ends of the pool. Nanobubble machines deposited their tubes into the water, as mobile vacuuming systems known as “trash pumps” hummed loudly from the shore. Handfuls of workers stood either in the pool or on the edge maneuvering long-handled vacuums back and forth. Their contents, including pistachio-colored water, poured out of hoses laying in the nearby grass.
The work zones were marked off by orange cones, but passersby walking the length of the pool appeared relatively unfazed. Some stopped to peer down and snap pictures of the water itself — including sections of paint that had visibly peeled off — while others were more focused on getting a photo of the Washington Monument in the background.
Loay Hidmi was walking deliberately along the edge of the pool closest to the Lincoln Memorial, hands clasped behind his back, looking over the ledge. The relatively new D.C. resident is a civil engineer who specializes in water treatment, and has been coming by the pool all week to see the progress for himself. He estimates it’s about 80% of the way there.
“I’m taking pictures of it … for the last week and I can see the gradual change,” he said. “So I’m hopeful. But we’ll have to see if it gets sustained.”
What happens next?
Hidmi worries that the algae could come back, given the favorable conditions posed by the sunny, shallow pool.
He acknowledges that’s mostly an aesthetic concern, given how much the administration has just spent on repainting the pool, but says it also raises questions about their process.
“In water systems, when you fix something, you need to look at the step before it and the step after,” he said.
Goodale agrees. He says that when a water system is taken offline, the pipes still remain full of water — “they don’t just gravity-drain away” — and need to be flushed out before any refilling. And he says eliminating algae is no substitute for dealing with underlying filtration issues.
“That’s like the equivalent of mowing the lawn when perhaps it needs to be something else that addresses the source nitrates and phosphorus, so that it’s more like pulling the weeds out by the root,” he says.
The algae doesn’t bother the ducklings swimming in the Reflecting Pool. Experts say the hydrogen peroxide used to get rid of the algae is safe for them, too.
Rachel Treisman/NPR
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Rachel Treisman/NPR
In the meantime, Christova, the algae expert, would like to see the water monitored weekly.
“If we don’t have any control over algal growth, we don’t know what is growing,” she said, adding that not all types of algae are as harmless as the one currently blooming in the pool.
When asked about plans for maintenance and algae prevention, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told NPR: “Thanks to President Trump, new lining and industrial grade materials will permanently seal the Reflecting Pool, which previously leaked 16 million gallons per year and wasted countless taxpayer dollars.”
Even after the Obama-era renovation, the reflecting pool suffered from broken pipes and water leaks requiring costly refills, according to a Department of the Interior report from fiscal year 2023. It called for new expansion joints, supply and return lines with thicker walls, saying “an improved distribution system will ensure the water can be circulated through the treatment plant, filtered, and treated with ozone.”
This latest renovation does not appear to have addressed the pipe problems, even though it did involve replacing failing expansion joints, resealing the pool, removing truckloads of garbage and “fixing the water system, drainage and so much more,” as Trump wrote on Truth Social in May.
Along the way, the cost of the project grew from Trump’s initial $2 million price tag to at least $14 million. Federal contract records show the government is paying $1.7 million to an Ohio-based company for the nanobubble technology alone.
“The scope of the Project has been greatly enlarged as we became involved because we realized how important it would be to Washington, D.C., and the record number of visitors coming to our now very safe Capital for all of the upcoming events in celebration of our 250th Anniversary,” Trump wrote.
The National Mall is hosting a number of semiquincentennial events on and around July 4, including a weekslong state fair that kicks off Wednesday evening.
Three San Francisco couples set out Monday for their annual road trip to Ashland, Ore., for the town’s famous Shakespeare festival. They drove separately and planned to meet at 6:30 p.m. on the terrace of their favorite Japanese restaurant there.
They had booked a table for six, but only four showed up for dinner.
Judith and Wylie Sheldon were found dead in their running car on the side of the road to Oregon, shocking their friends and family and leaving a hole in San Francisco’s arts and film world.
Ms. Sheldon, 84, was the daughter of William Wyler — who won three Oscars for best director — and chaired the board of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Mr. Sheldon, 86, was a prominent lawyer.
David Smith, who had befriended the couple more than 40 years ago, said in an interview that he and the others at the dinner table had grown nervous as time ticked on and their friends did not answer repeated calls to their cellphones. They learned they had not checked into their hotel either.
The friends eventually learned from one of the couple’s sons that the California Highway Patrol had found the couple at 5:46 p.m., both dead inside their running Jeep Compass. It was parked on the side of Interstate 5, north of Redding, Calif., more than 100 miles from their destination, the authorities said. Ms. Sheldon was driving, while Mr. Sheldon was in the passenger seat, according to the authorities.
The Redding area on Monday was under an extreme heat warning issued by the National Weather Service. Temperatures reached 109 degrees, according to the Weather Service.
Mr. Smith said he learned from the son that the couple had been found without any water or other liquids in the car. The fan was on high, but the air conditioning was not working, meaning they might have been blasted with hot air, Mr. Smith said. The windows were rolled down. The car had plenty of gas, and there were no signs of mechanical failure or foul play, Mr. Smith said the son told him.
“They didn’t crash. They stopped. They both just died there,” Mr. Smith said. “The entire thing is so bizarre. We’re still in a state of shock.”
The circumstances and cause of the couple’s death is under investigation but “appears to be medically related,” the Highway Patrol said in a statement.
Whether the heat contributed to the couple’s death “may be determined” by an autopsy, a spokesman for the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office said, adding that one had not been scheduled yet and could take several weeks to complete.
“We’ll just have to see,” the spokesman, Tim Mapes, said.
The Sheldons met at Stanford University and had two sons. They lived in a large home in San Francisco’s upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood that had views of the bay from the front and a garden out back.
They hosted many parties there on behalf of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and sometimes let revelers pose for photos with Mr. Wyler’s Oscar statuettes. Ms. Sheldon fell in love with silent movies after first seeing those created by her father — before his better known blockbusters like “Ben-Hur” and “Roman Holiday” — only about 30 years ago, said Anita Monga, artistic director of the festival.
Stacey Wisnia, the festival’s executive director, said the couple was generous, delightful and unassuming.
Back in Ashland, Ore., Mr. Smith said the four remaining friends had distracted themselves from their grief by attending plays, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Come From Away.” They were able to give away their friends’ tickets.
Ms. Monga had last seen Ms. Sheldon just last month at the film festival, which was held at the newly remade Castro Theater.
“This is such a shock,” Ms. Monga said of the deaths. “Also because it’s still a mystery.”
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