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Do these $890 Prada heels glamourise smoking?  

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Smoking at Tamaqua's playgrounds may soon be outlawed  

• Public Citizen Condemns WTO Attack on U.S. Efforts to Reduce Teen Smoking  

The World Trade Organization's (WTO) final ruling today against U.S. efforts to reduce teen smoking shows that our current trade regime is simply incompatible with basic public health regulation, Public Citizen said. With today's ruling, the WTO Appellate Body has now ordered the U.S. to water down or get rid of a key plank of its landmark Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 (FSPTCA), one of the few policy achievements of the Obama administration's first term. The act banned sale of candy and other sweet-flavored cigarettes used to attract children to smoking.

"The Obama administration and Congress must not bow to yet another ruling from a so-called trade agreement tribunal demanding that the U.S. get rid of yet another important health or environmental policy," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "The Obama administration must stand with the thousands of Americans who have signed a Consumer Rights Pledge calling on the U.S. to not comply with these illegitimate trade pact rulings and to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations that would greatly intensify this problem.

"Countries should not be weakening their public health laws to comply with the anti-health, anti-environmental WTO rules. This case underscores why countries must insist that WTO rules be altered and that no new agreements use the same corporate backdoor deregulation model," said Wallach. "If there is any silver lining to today's ruling, it is that it will confirm the views of growing numbers of consumers, citizens and governments that the WTO must be shrunk or sunk.

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Smoldering cigarette — not an arsonist — may have caused fatal fire 

WENATCHEE — A cigarette smoldering in a chair — not an arsonist — may have started a fire in a Wenatchee duplex that killed two young boys and seriously injured their father last summer.

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• Mobile technology helps explore nicotine addiction 

Some people quit smoking on the first try while others have to try to quit repeatedly. Using such mobile technology as hand-held computers and smartphones, a team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh is trying to find out why.

"One thing that really stood out among the relapsers is how their urge to smoke just never dropped, in contrast to those who were successful in quitting for a month -- their urge dropped quickly and systematically -- almost immediately upon quitting," said Stephanie Lanza, scientific director of The Methodology Center at Penn State. "That was surprising to see."

With a new statistical model to interpret data and the ability to collect data via mobile devices, the researchers looked at how baseline nicotine dependence and negative emotional states influenced people's urge to smoke while they were trying to quit.

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Some smokers quit smoking on first try while others have to quit repeatedly 

Some people quit smoking on the first try while others have to quit repeatedly. Using such mobile technology as hand-held computers and smartphones, a team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh is trying to find out why.

"One thing that really stood out among the relapsers is how their urge to smoke just never dropped, in contrast to those who were successful in quitting for a month -- their urge dropped quickly and systematically -- almost immediately upon quitting," said Stephanie Lanza, scientific director of The Methodology Center at Penn State. "That was surprising to see."

With a new statistical model to interpret data and the ability to collect data via mobile devices, the researchers looked at how baseline nicotine dependence and negative emotional states influenced people's urge to smoke while they were trying to quit.

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Edmonton bans smoking in parks, playgrounds 

Roanoke County apartment fire blamed on smoker  

Health minister's son caught puffing hookah 

THOMPSON: Question still: Some free or free to smoke?  

No butts about it: Target Field's last smoking locale snuffed out  

Local machine rolls 200 cigarettes in 8 minutes 

Independence Mall bans tobacco use on all its property