This year's first reported fungus attack on U.S. tobacco plants is coming out of Kentucky.

Reportedly, tests revealed blue mold spores on nine acres of a farm near Cecilia, Kentucky, 45 miles southwest of Louisville

Writing in the June issue of the journal Addiction, Carrie Murray Carpenter of the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues said their study of tobacco company documents show a clear effort to find out what might make women want to smoke.

"Light" cigarette brands, promise of smaller amounts of harmful tar and nicotine, to pursuade women torn between the desire to smoke and health worries

Congress is considering a bill to prohibit the sale of flavored cigarettes, along with New York, Minnesota, West Virginia, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina and Texas.

The new trend of flavored cigarettes have appealing names - Winter Warm Toffee, Twista Chill and Kauai Kolada - and are advertised on the pages of glossy magazines such as Rolling Stone, Glamour and Elle

Obesity is no longer a leading killer among American's, according to a new calculation by the CDC. Being overweight dropped to the number 7 spot on the deadly chart; previously the #2 killer. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that obesity accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the U.S. Back in January the CDC reported a number 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths. A recent analysis discovered that being extremely overweight, or obese, is indisputably lethal. Though several recent smaller studies found that people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight. Mary Grace Kovar, a consultant for the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center in Washington, said ''normal'' may be set too low for today's American's. She also added that those classified as overweight are eating better, exercising more and managing their blood pressure better than before. In a study by CDC last year it ranked causes of preventable death in order: 1. tobacco; 2. poor diet and eating (leading to excess weight); 3. alcohol; 4. germs; 5. toxins and pollutants; 6. car crashes; 7. guns; 8. risky sexual behavior; 9. illicit drugs. According to the new study, obesity would fall behind car crashes, landing the #7 rank, making alcohol the #2 killer. The CDC is unwilling to make the official rank, underscoring controversy inside the agency on how to properly calculate health risks of obesity. Last year the CDC issued a study at attributed 400,000 deaths to mostly weight-related problems and said obesity would soon outrank tobacco as the #1 killer. They reverted that after admitting to a calculation error and lowered the estimate to 365,000. The new study attributes 111,909 deaths to obesity, minus the number of people who were "modestly overweight," concluding at 25,814 deaths. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight, the CDC won't use the new figure, 25,814, in its public awareness campaigns The study -- an analysis of mortality rates and body-mass index, or BMI -- was to be published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association