Utah’s tax increase on cigarettes and tobacco takes effect this Thursday, July 1. The new $1.70 tax has some store owners concerned about business. It’s not just higher prices store owners are worried about. Some are scrambling to reduce inventory to avoid paying hefty taxes. Most of all, it’s the customer that’s going to feel the pinch. “When I was in college in the ’70s, all the guys in the dorms smoked, and we said when it gets to a dollar a pack we’ll quit. Well, that was $2.50 cents ago,” says Tobacco Store customer Thomas Sowell. Longtim ... Jump to full article >>

South Dakota’s tobacco tax brings in millions of dollars every year, and some of that money has been earmarked for tobacco prevention in schools. But much of the funding has been cut from the state budget, and administrators are wondering how they’ll keep such education alive in their schools. In the Sioux Falls School District, around 24 percent of junior high and high school students say they smoke. But administrator Bill Smith says that number used to be 28 percent before tobacco tax money began rolling in back in 2007. “So in two years time, we had almost 400 fewer middl ... Jump to full article >>

If owners of most of the 61 bars and restaurants exempt from Springfield’s 2003 restaurant smoking ban aren’t concerned about the proposed citywide ban on public smoking, at least one retailer is – and he plans to fight. The co-owner of Just For Him LLC has taken up the sword. The shop, a men’s gift, cigar and tobacco store in Fremont Center, has a smoking room customers can use to sample their purchases. The ban would force Just For Him to close the room and possibly the store, said co-owner Christian Hutson, who bought the store last year. “If we are unable to smoke in my cigar sho ... Jump to full article >>

With the South Carolina 50-cent cigarette tax increase going into effect Thursday, many smokers are preparing to stock up on pre-tax hike cigarettes. At Southside Tobacco in Socastee, they have been keeping a close eye on the cigarette tax increase from the beginning. “I have been following this pretty closely,” Matt Sellers admitted. “It’s pretty much my way of life. I have to be able to support my family and this really hurts us.” He says the store stocked up a little bit to meet the demand for pre-tax hike cigarettes, but they are also hoping the shelves get sl ... Jump to full article >>

Statin drugs are a valuable treatment for people with heart disease, but three-quarters of the people taking them are healthy, and have been prescribed these medicines in the hope of preventing problems in the future. A new study suggests that statins may offer little benefit to healthy people. What do we know already? Millions of people in the UK take statins to lower their cholesterol levels and cut their risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke. There’s no doubt that statins save lives when taken by people who already have cardiovascular disease, but about three-quarters of people ... Jump to full article >>

A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order Monday allowing a Seneca Nation mail-order cigarette retailer to supply tobacco products across the country without having to meet the requirements of a new federal law that took effect at midnight. District Judge Richard J. Arcara granted the motion as part of the retailer’s lawsuit against the U.S. government. The retailer, Red Earth, which does business as Seneca Smokeshop, has asked the court to declare the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act unconstitutional. Seneca Smokeshop, a 10-year-old business, employs 17 people and sells ... Jump to full article >>

Half of would-be mothers are damaging their chances of having a family by allowing themselves to get out of shape, doctors have warned. The scale of the problem was highlighted by a study which found that women having IVF are more than twice as likely to miscarry if they are overweight or obese. With women who conceive naturally facing a similar problem, the study clearly shows that overweight women cannot rely on fertility treatment to help them achieve their dream of motherhood. The finding is also sobering, because half of all British women of reproductive age are too heavy for their height ... Jump to full article >>

The cost to protect against losses on bonds of Altria Group Inc. and Reynolds American Inc. fell the most in at least a year after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Justice Department bid for as much as $280 billion in tobacco company profits. Credit-default swaps on Altria Group and Reynolds American, the largest cigarette makers, dropped after the high court’s refusal to hear an Obama administration appeal made it likely the racketeering suit first pressed during Bill Clinton’s administration won’t produce financial penalties against Altria’s Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobac ... Jump to full article >>

Armed police surrounded a bank in Surrey and arrested a suspected gunman who had taken customers and staff hostage. The standoff began at around 4pm, when police were told that a man brandishing a sawn-off shotgun entered a branch of Barclays bank in Ashford, on the western edge of London. A Surrey police force helicopter hovered over the building, which is not far from Heathrow airport, while armed officers and hostage negotiators were called in. As many as 16 people were trapped inside. Shortly after 7pm, a line of people emerged from the bank with their hands up. Officers ordered them to kn ... Jump to full article >>

People ask what it’s like, and all I can say is, “It’s worse than you can imagine.” And I don’t really want to talk about it, because there is nothing I can really tell them, except perhaps to relate small personal recollections or impressions, and those disappear so quickly, or become cliche. And no matter what you say, you know that they won’t understand, because to understand means to question every piece of the normal existence we take for granted. Suddenly, I have a glimpse of the mindset of veterans who come back to society, unable to remix with their ... Jump to full article >>

When the world’s first test-tube baby was born in 1978, a few lone voices warned that this far-reaching development would almost certainly lead us into uncharted but deep moral waters. Few at that time, however, could have foreseen quite how profoundly in vitro fertilisation would help undermine personal responsibility and our acceptance of the distinction between right and wrong. Quite apart from ethical concerns around the destruction of ‘spare’ embryos or their use for experimentation, concerns have been growing about IVF being offered by private fertility clinics around t ... Jump to full article >>