Kenneth Clarke, currently embroiled in an increasingly acrimonious bid for the Tory leadership, today faces a major embarrassment through his boardroom connection with the cigarette manufacturer British American Tobacco. ...

SAN FRANCISCO –– The ideal product to sell online would be easy to pack and ship, be much cheaper than what's charged at the retail counter, and be craved by tens of millions of people every day. Cigarettes, the Internet was made for you. ...

The latest in a series of legal disputes over the 1998 national tobacco settlement has come to a cease-fire, at least for now. A cigarette company that sued Virginia this summer for not being tough enough on the so-called "renegades" of the tobacco industry has entered into negotiations in an attempt to resolve the dispute. ...

The legal challenge that tobacco companies helped launch against a proposed tobacco tax increase was shot down by a District Court judge here Tuesday, allowing Montanans to vote on a $1 per pack cigarette tax increase in November. ...

The judge hearing the government's $280 billion racketeering case against the tobacco industry stressed Monday her determination to move forward with a Sept. 21 trial. "We are three weeks away from trial," U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler wrote in an order granting an emergency motion by the government to have Australian witnesses testify by teleconference or video conference. "Both counsel and the court need to maximize the efficient use of their time and resources." ...

The claim is breathtaking. On Sept. 21 the U.S. Justice Dept. is scheduled to make opening arguments in a civil Racketeer-Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit asserting that the nation's biggest cigarette companies have engaged in an illegal conspiracy since 1953. The government is seeking disgorgement of a brow-raising $280 billion -- almost the six defendant companies' entire profits during the five-decade period. ...

After getting their cigarettes in the mail, another 1,660 Michigan smokers two weeks ago received something else -- nasty tax bills from the Michigan Department of Treasury. Since the 2005 tobacco tax crackdown began last winter, the state has assessed nearly $5 million in back tobacco and sales taxes from nearly 6,000 cigarette purchasers. About $3.6 million has been collected; the rest is owed. ...

A judge in Lake County has barred the estranged parents of an 8-year-old girl from smoking in her presence or allowing anyone else to puff around her. Legal experts say the custody case ruling is a first because the issue was brought up by the judge. Typically, a tobacco-free parent raises concerns about smoking, either looking for a bargaining chip or because of a child's health problem. ...

As major tobacco companies prepare for their biggest-ever legal showdown -- a $280 billion claim from the U.S. government -- a critical pretrial drama remains unresolved: Can lawyers for the U.S. get their hands on a confidential tobacco-company memo that could help them make their case? The document, known as the "Foyle Memorandum," was written in 1990 by Andrew Foyle, a partner at the London law firm Lovells, who was advising British American Tobacco PLC, the world's second-largest publicly traded tobacco company. In his note, Mr. Foyle expressed concerns about the burdens of complying with discovery requests in smoker lawsuits and made it clear that document destruction had been taking place, according to lawyers for U.S. ...

When George W. Bush became president, anti-smoking groups worried that his administration would snuff out the federal government's massive lawsuit against the tobacco industry. The companies had long been major donors to the Republican Party. Bush's top political advisor, Karl Rove, had served as a political consultant to Philip Morris. And Bush offered some encouragement during his presidential campaign against Al Gore. "I think we've had enough suits," he told a reporter on a swing through Michigan. "The lawyers I talk to don't feel they have a case" over at the Justice Department. ...