The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would crack down on Internet sales of tobacco products, which many public-health advocates believe is a common way that minors get cigarettes. The legislation, supported by Henrico County-based tobacco giant Altria Group Inc., would make it illegal to mail cigarettes to buyers.

A South Florida jury yesterday ordered Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million to a former smoker, agreeing that the tobacco company’s negligence was the cause of her emphysema. The award in Broward County for Cindy Naugle, 61, is the largest to date among thousands of lawsuits filed in Florida against tobacco companies. “Cindy admitted her fault to the jury,“ her attorney, Robert W. Kelley, said. “But Philip Morris refused to accept any responsibility for her emphysema, even though she was an addicted customer for 25 years.“

Some of the newer smokeless products that tobacco companies are betting on may not be as good at helping smokers quit as the industry hopes, a new federally funded study by Virginia Commonwealth University shows. And that means they may not be the kind of reduced-harm product that is the industry’s latest hope, now that tobacco is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Winning FDA designation as a “potential reduced-exposure product” could be worth billions of dollars, and a key element of that could be whether an item keeps smokers from lighting up.

Philip Morris International Inc., maker of Marlboro and other cigarettes for sale overseas, has agreed to buy a Swedish company’s South African snuff and pipe-tobacco operations for roughly $222 million. Philip Morris International estimated that Swedish Match South Africa Ltd.‘s products account for about 31 percent of total tobacco consumption in South Africa. The brands involved in the deal, announced yesterday, include Boxer, Best Blend and Taxi.

Philip Morris USA and other U.S. cigarette makers lost an appeal yesterday to a 2006 landmark ruling that found the nation’s top tobacco companies guilty of racketeering and fraud for deceiving the public about the dangers of smoking.

The nation’s top cigarette maker is moving quickly to strengthen its business in tobacco products such as snuff and cigars as cigarette volumes erode, the top executive for Altria Group Inc. told shareholders yesterday. “Since the shareholder meeting in May of last year, Altria has continued to transform itself as adult tobacco consumer preferences have evolved,“ said Michael E. Szymanczyk, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Efficient operations in challenging markets were credited with higher fourth-quarter earnings, net and operating, for Richmond-based Dominion Resources Inc. Net income for the three months that ended Dec. 31 was $348 million, or 60 cents a share, compared with $299 million net and operating income, or 52 cents a share, for the same period in 2007. Operating profit was $422 million, or 72 cents per share, in the 2008 quarter, attributable in part to lower outage costs.