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KY Court of Appeals hearing arguments about Louisville smoking ban  

Kentucky Court of Appeals justices are hearing arguments regarding Louisville's smoking ban. A three judge panel will review the ban.

It was ruled "unconstitutional" by a Jefferson County Court judge in November 2007 because it did not include Churchill Downs, allowing smoking indoors at the track.

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Poker pro urges casino smoking ban  

A career poker player who pushed for smoking bans in poker rooms and tournaments is now leading a fight to prohibit smoking on casino floors across Nevada.

Tom McEvoy is the public face for a new grass-roots group, Gamblers Against Secondhand Smoke, which is pushing for a ban in the last bastion for smokers.

A Las Vegas man who has spent 30 years playing poker for a living, McEvoy isn’t exactly a mainstream celebrity. But if smoking is banned in Nevada casinos, as some advocates say is inevitable, he may become the gaming equivalent of the Marlboro man who campaigned against cigarettes.

He isn’t a paid advocate but a Stetson-wearing gambler who has hosted poker tournaments and written poker books. He’s on a first-name basis with casino executives. And he is prepared, he says, to fight a culture war with an inherently conservative industry so afraid of change it is willing to risk the health of its patrons and employees.

“I love Las Vegas. I love gaming. I’m not anti-casino. I’m anti-smoking in the casino,” he said. “This is actually going to help the industry in the long run.”

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Mark Daniels: Jenson Button's Smoking Ban Woes 

Almost every team has, at one point or another, been made wealthy through the provision of finances by giant tobacco companies and British American Tobacco used the sport's vast television audience to promote its Lucky Strike and 555 brands, powered around the circuit by Honda engines and figure-headed by the 1997 World Champion, Jacques Villeneuve. Button joined the team in 2004 and his performances immediately upset his Canadian team-mate, who felt the young upstart should defer to him - an attitude which ultimately saw Jacques' career come to an end and sprung remarkable comparisons to the problems faced by Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in 2007.

But with the demise of tobacco sponsorship, banned today in many Western countries, Honda took complete control of the team from BAR, made Button the team-leader and set about taking on Ferrari and McLaren for the title of Constructor's Champion.

Sadly, despite a solitary win and some podiums in 2006, the team's performances have been woeful and in today's collapsing global economy they announced this morning that the team was up for sale and out of the sport for good, unless a buyer can be found. . . .

In fact, if many of the teams were allowed to run with cigarette sponsorship then Formula One - the world's self-proclaimed richest sport - would not be in the financial mess it currently is, and Jenson Button wouldn't be running the risk of having to join the list of Britons about to be unemployed.

And there's the solution to the world's global financial meltdown: the tobacco companies have millions to spend on advertising, their financial power could simply help give the economy a boost, it would get all forms of sporting industries out of trouble, and repealing the smoking ban would get Britain's hospitality industry moving once again.

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Sudden Death Hits Stadiums Across Florida 

Football fans may see an unconventional anti-tobacco display at the FSU vs. UF game today. Tobacco Free Florida will be tailgating under a tent, rooting for their teams, grilling, tossing a football around and other traditional pre-game activities. The unexpected twist is that the tailgaters are skeletons. The message to fans is "We lose too many fans each year to tobacco."

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Coordination makes smoke-free Barabati match possible 

The India-England cricket match held at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack recently is claimed to be a completely smoke free event.

The Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI)-Aparajita along with the commissioner of police and the Orissa Cricket Association (OCA) coordinated among themselves to ensure the same. An anti-tobacco campaign was also organised at the sporting event.

Volunteers of VHAI-Aparajita were present at all the five entrance gates to distribute hand-outs and leaflets highlighting the harmful effects of tobacco. The volunteers also spent time with the the mass explaining them the importance of no-smoking, especially in public places.

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Star athlete, student uses 'positive peer pressure' to keep peers tobacco-free  

Sitting in Central High School's athletic department office, Jauwan Scaife is unassuming and humble; amazingly so.

Scaife's quietness belies the power he has. Power the Central senior wants to use for good, or "positive peer pressure" as Judy Mays, program coordinator for the Minority Tobacco-Free Coalition of Delaware County, calls it.

Chosen as an Indiana High School Athletic Association Role Model for the winter sports season, Scaife is using his influence among his peers to keep them from smoking cigarettes and using tobacco products. The Tobacco Free Coalition of Delaware County and the Minority Tobacco Free Coalition has partnered with the IHSAA campaign to promote tobacco-free living.

Life-size posters of Scaife will be unveiled at 3:15 p.m. Wednesday in room 220 at Central. Southside High School football player Jamill Smith was chosen as the fall role model.

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Plans for a smoke-free World Cup 

South Africa's tough anti-smoking legislation will not be relaxed for the 2010 soccer World Cup. Instead, the health department is working to ensure that the world's biggest sporting event is smoke-free.

Health Director-General Thami Mseleku confirmed on Monday that the department was negotiating with Fifa's local organising committee to get its approval to ensure that soccer venues would be non-smoking areas.

"They did it in Japan...stadiums should be treated as closed areas," said Mseleku.

He was speaking at the start of the week-long conference of the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

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Alan Ford, 84; broke many freestyle swimming records  

Before Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz, there was Johnny Weissmuller, also known as Hollywood's Tarzan, who in the 1920s set dozens of world marks, including 51 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle, a record that stood for 16 years.

The man who broke it was Alan Ford, a 19-year-old Yale student. He bettered his record three more times in the next 13 months, until he became the first swimmer to break 50 seconds for 100 yards, a barrier that some likened to the four-minute mile. No one else accomplished the feat for another eight years.

Mr. Ford became known as the human fish, an unofficial title he took over from Weissmuller. Mr. Ford was, simply, the fastest swimmer in the world.

He died Nov. 3 at age 84 in Sarasota, Fla., where he lived. The cause was emphysema, his son Robert said, a result of a smoking habit that began in the Navy after Mr. Ford graduated from Yale.

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Pete Newell, Basketball Coach and Innovator, Dies at 93 

Pete Newell, one of the most influential coaches in the history of basketball, who won a national championship at the University of California in 1959, an Olympic championship in 1960, and whose camp for basketball's "big men" became a required seminar in low-post play for generations of professional stars, died Monday in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., near San Diego. He was 93.

Earl Schultz, a friend and caretaker who had been one of Newell's former players at Cal, confirmed the death to The Associated Press, saying Newell had had smoking-related lung problems. . . .

Always an intense man who relied on coffee and cigarettes, Newell retired from coaching after his Olympic victory in 1960, when doctors warned that further stress would kill him.

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Alan Ford, 84, Top Freestyle Swimmer in 1940s, Dies 

decades before Spitz, there was Johnny Weissmuller, a k a Tarzan, who in the 1920s set dozens of world marks, including 51 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle, a record that stood for 16 years.

The man who broke it was Alan Ford, a 19-year-old Yale student. He bettered his record three more times in the next 13 months, until he became the first swimmer to break 50 seconds for 100 yards, a barrier that some likened to the four-minute mile. No one else accomplished the feat for another eight years.

Ford became known as the human fish, an unofficial title he took over from Weissmuller. He was, simply put, the fastest swimmer in the world.

He died Nov. 3 at age 84 in Sarasota, Fla., where he lived. The cause was emphysema, his son Robert said, a result of a smoking habit that began in the Navy after Ford graduated from Yale. . . .

But after six months of training, he made the United States Olympic team and won a silver medal in the 100-meter freestyle. (His wife prevailed upon him to quit smoking for the duration of his training. "But he told me he couldn't wait to get back to it," she said.)

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Smoking loophole closed 

The closing of a loophole to prevent tobacco companies sponsoring high-profile sporting events has been welcomed by the Heart Foundation.

An oversight in a clause in a NSW tobacco bill has now been closed by the state government, Heart Foundation chief executive Tony Thirlwell said.

"Had this clause remained in the bill it would have represented a retrograde step in the battle to reduce smoking rates in NSW," Mr Thirlwell said in a statement.

He said 18 per cent of NSW adults continued to smoke despite research showing tobacco smoking is the biggest single preventable cause of both heart disease and cancer.

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Push for smoke-free Tour Down Under  

A private members bill to ban smoking at the Tour Down Under cycling race will be considered by the South Australian Parliament's House of Assembly.

The bill was introduced by Liberal MP David Ridgway and passed the Legislative Council last night.

It would give councils the opportunity to decide which outdoor areas should be smoke-free.

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Charlottetown passes tobacco ban 

Tobacco is being banned from all indoor and outdoor recreation and sports facilities in Charlottetown.

City council approved the changes Monday night. The new policy will go into effect Jan. 1, 2009.

The changes mean it will be illegal to smoke or use spit tobacco, including snuff, chew or plug, at any of the capital city’s community centres, sports fields and courts, parks and playgrounds, arenas and swimming pools.

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State Opposition wants Tour Down Under smoking ban 

The State Opposition will move to amend local government laws to make next year's Tour Down Under cycling race smoke free.

The opposition said the change would give local councils hosting the international cycling race in January the power to ban smoking in outdoor public areas.

Opposition upper house leader David Ridgway said the move would show support for cycling legend Lance Armstrong's campaign to fight cancer around the world.

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With smoking ban, only rubber will burn at Kansas Speedway 

Auto racing fans at Kansas Speedway will have to abstain from smoking starting in 2010, when a ban takes effect at the track.

Kansas Speedway will ban smoking in the grandstands and all enclosed areas of the complex beginning in 2010.

The policy, however, will not be enforced at the planned Hard Rock Casino & Hotel expected to open on the Speedway grounds sometime next year, with a hotel and other nongambling amenities expected to start opening by late 2010.

"This has no effect on the casino," said Joe Weinberg, a Cordish Co. principal and the president of the Kansas Entertainment Investors LLC partnership that will own the casino.

"We will allow smoking in the casino" and throughout most of the proposed hotel's 300 rooms, Weinberg said. . . .

In a statement Monday, speedway President Jeff Boerger said he "wanted to make sure fans would be able to make renewal decisions based on this new policy, which is why it won't be effective until 2010."

Boerger said the speedway will allow smoking in the 2009 season and urged fans "to be considerate of those around them."

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