Cigarette maker snuffs out smoking in offices, buildings

RICHMOND, Va. – Camel cigarette maker Reynolds American Inc. is snuffing out smoking in its offices and buildings.

The nation’s second-biggest tobacco company informed employees Wednesday that beginning next year, the use of traditional cigarettes, cigars or pipes will no longer be permitted at employee desks or offices, conference rooms, hallways and elevators. Lighting up already is prohibited on factory floors and in cafeterias and fitness centers.

The no-smoking policy will go into effect once Reynolds builds indoor smoking areas for those still wanting to light up indoors, spokesman David Howard said.

“We believe it’s the right thing to do and the right time to do it because updating our tobacco-use policies will better accommodate both non-smokers and smokers who work in and visit our facilities,” Howard said. “We’re just better aligning our tobacco-use policies with the realities of what you’re seeing in society today.”

While Reynolds will no longer allow smoking, it will allow the use of smokeless tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes.

The percentage of Reynolds’ 5,200 employees that smoke is in line with the smoking rate in the U.S. That is about 18 percent of adults, according to the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Dish drops Turner channels

The pay-TV wars are heating up again.

Satellite television giant Dish Network has removed seven Turner Broadcasting cable channels – including CNN, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies – after the companies failed to agree on a new contract. The blackout affects 14 million Dish subscribers nationwide.

The Dish-Turner stalemate, reached late Monday after months of negotiations, is the latest in a series of disputes that has left viewers without their favorite TV channels.

Turner said in a statement that the company was “hopeful our counterparts will return to the negotiating table, and (that) we’ll get a deal completed.”

Consumer prices up a tad

WASHINGTON – U.S. consumer prices edged up slightly in September, with the overall increase held back by a third straight monthly decline in gasoline prices. The tiny gain was the latest evidence that inflation remains benign.

Consumer prices rose 0.1 percent after having fallen 0.2 percent in August, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. Core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy, also climbed 0.1 percent after no gain in August.

During the past 12 months, both overall and core prices are up 1.7 percent.

Mini Cooper mileage overstated

DETROIT – The U.S. government has told BMW to reduce the gas mileage estimates on the window stickers on four of its Mini Cooper models after an audit found the figures were overstated.

The discrepancy, which varies from 1 to 4 miles per gallon depending on model, was discovered in testing at the Environmental Protection Agency’s lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the agency said in a statement Wednesday.

The reductions affect the 2014 Mini Cooper three-door and Mini Cooper three-door S models with manual and automatic transmissions. The biggest discrepancy was in highway mileage, but city and combined mileages also must be reduced.

It’s the fourth time in the past two years that the EPA has found that an automaker overstated gas mileage test results.