By Jack Dura BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota judge has ordered Greenpeace to pay damages of $345 million, reducing an earlier jury award after it found the environmental group and related entities liable for defamation and other claims in connection with protests of an oil pipeline nearly a decade ago. The new amount is roughly half the $667 million that a jury had awarded to the pipeline company that brought the claims, Dallas-based Energy Transfer and subsidiary Dakota Access. The case stems from protests in 2016 and 2017 against the Dakota Access oil pipeline and its crossing of the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. Greenpeace had asked state District Judge James Gion to rule in its favor on the claims against it, with mixed…
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