A kidney health warning should be added to the front of all cigarette packets, Kidney Health Australia says. Kidney Health Australia chief executive officer Anne Wilson said yesterday all cigarette packaging should be changed after research showed a link between smoking and kidney damage. ...

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a British tobacco company to immediately turn over a memo that the Justice Department wants to use as possible evidence in its $280 billion lawsuit against the cigarette industry. ...

Total bans on indoor tobacco smoking in New York, Lexington, Toledo and other cities have prompted some Cincinnati officials to reopen the city's once-trailblazing regulations. Now almost 20 years old, they ban smoking from most workplaces, except bars and bowling alleys, and let restaurants create separate smoking sections. ...

Secret documents reveal Britain's largest tobacco company has gone to great lengths to produce scientific evidence clouding the link between smoking and lung cancer. ...

Majority-party sponsorship of a bill in the state Legislature providing new exemptions to New York's 2003 ban on workplace smoking has anti-tobacco advocates worried that the law will be gutted. ...

On May 20 we made history: For the first time, we reached true bipartisan agreement on legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate the marketing and manufacture of tobacco products. That's great news for parents like me who pray their children don't become part of the unfortunate group of young Americans each year who fall prey to crafty marketing tactics, get hooked on tobacco and begin down the road of disease and suffering. ...

Cigarette manufacturing companies could face a flood of lawsuits over their products. This was after Parliament passed a motion seeking compensation for persons whose health had been affected by tobacco. It is now up to the Government to table a Bill that will provide for litigation aimed at extracting compensation by tobacco "victims." ...

The Richmond-based law firm, McGuireWoods LLP, has put a stop to all smoke breaks. "I am thrilled," a McGuireWoods employee said while on lunch break in the front courtyard. She wouldn't give her name or her position."I don't like having to walk past it and breathe it. I know I'm being very selfish. I never complained about the smoking, but I'm glad it went away." ...

The Republican House leadership attached a controversial $9.6 billion tobacco farmers' relief bill to essential tax legislation yesterday, a step designed to quickly pass a long-stalled measure that is a high political priority in tobacco-growing states. ...

Attorney General Patrick Lynch announced Friday that prosecutors have issued a cease-and-desist notice to the makers of Kool brand cigarettes, alleging that the company violated the 1998 tobacco settlement. ...