On Wednesday, the nation's major tobacco companies lost the first class-action lawsuit to reach a verdict when a Florida jury decided that the companies had conspired to hide the dangers of smoking. The decision, which allows for both compensatory and punitive damages, could give hundreds of thousands of smokers or their families in Florida the opportunity to make billions of dollars of claims on...

This week's In the News examines the November 16, 1998 $206 billion settlement reached between tobacco industry leaders and eight US states. The twelve resources discussed provide press releases, opinion, and background information on the economics of tobacco production and consumption in the US. Following increasing pressure from anti-tobacco activists at the state level, Philip Morris...