Hermitage High School’s athletic booster club has received $2,040 from Richmond Ford and Ford Motor Co. from a recent Drive One 4 UR School event. By test-driving a car, 102 people raised $20 apiece for the school. During the past two years, Ford has provided more than $1.3 million to high schools that have participated in the program.

A federal judge has turned down a request by the nation’s No. 2 cigarette-maker and others to immediately halt enforcement of new federal regulations on tobacco products. Their challenge to new U.S. Food and Drug Administration powers to regulate what tobacco firms say about their products has little likelihood of success, except on one point, Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Bowling Green, Ky., ruled yesterday.

The JCPenney Afterschool Fund has awarded six grants totaling $30,226 to support after-school care at the Chickahominy, Downtown, North Richmond, Patrick Henry, Shady Grove and Tuckahoe YMCAs. The money was donated by customers during Round Up Weeks at five area JCPenney stores. By rounding up a purchase to the next dollar and donating the difference to after-school programs, customers at Regency Square, Chesterfield Towne Center, South Park Mall, Virginia Center Commons and the Shops at White Oak Village combined for $5,448.14 during the October round-up and $16,122.13 year-to-date, said Kevin Kennedy, manager of the White Oaks store.

The nation’s two top cigarette-makers are boosting per-pack prices by 6 cents to 8 cents. Though the companies won’t say why, analysts believe it is to cover new user fees charged by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to pay for the costs of its new assignment to regulate tobacco. The increase on what manufacturers charge wholesalers seems unlikely to have a big effect on smoking, as this spring’s 61.66-cent-a-pack increase in federal excise taxes did.

No. 1 cigarette-maker Altria Group Inc. shook off the effect of a nearly 62-cents-a-pack federal tax increase in April to report higher third-quarter profits yesterday. Continuing cuts in the cost of making its cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco for the quarter helped the Henrico County-based company deal with its quarterly federal excise tax bill more than doubling.

Altria Group Inc.‘s profit edged higher in the third quarter despite a doubling in the federal excise taxes it paid on its tobacco products.

Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA might have to pay for chest scans so longtime smokers can get early warnings of lung cancer, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled yesterday. The Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously that under some circumstances, Massachusetts law recognizes a claim by individual smokers for medical monitoring even without the presence of an actual injury.

About half of the millions of dollars in fees that will pay for the Food and Drug Administration’s regulation of tobacco products will come from Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. The FDA this week started collecting fees from the nation’s tobacco companies to fund the agency’s newly created Center for Tobacco Products. The user fees, which will be collected quarterly, are based on each company’s share of the U.S. tobacco market.

In a tough environment for nonprofit fundraising, 90 local organizations recently were awarded grants totaling $2.4 million, thanks to employees of Altria Group Inc. Employees of Henrico County-based Altria, the nation’s largest tobacco company, donated the money through the Altria Companies Employee Community Fund. The workplace-giving program, managed by Altria employees, gave grants this year ranging from $5,474 to $50,000 to organizations working in six broad categories: hunger relief, domestic violence, senior services, emergency services, youth services and homelessness.

The federal ban on flavored cigarettes took effect yesterday, marking one of the first visible signs of the Food and Drug Administration’s new authority to regulate tobacco. The ban on manufacturing, importing, marketing and distribution includes candy-, fruitand clove-flavored cigarettes, which health and federal authorities say are more appealing to youth. It does not include a ban on menthol or other flavored tobacco products such as cigars—issues that the FDA is studying.

Sharing a ride with a smoker will give you a much heftier dose of nicotine than having a meal in a restaurant that allows smoking or hanging out at a smoky bar, according to new research.

Philip Morris USA plans to make a bigger push into the still-uncertain market for snus, a Swedish-style oral tobacco, expanding an experiment it is now running in three cities. The nation’s No. 1 cigarette-maker will market snus, using its flagship Marlboro brand name, more broadly this fall, said Michael E. Szymanczyk, chairman and chief executive of Philip Morris’ parent, Henrico County-based Altria Group.

The federal government’s new authority to regulate tobacco products is facing its first major legal challenge. Several tobacco companies filed a lawsuit yesterday claiming that a host of new advertising restrictions—including a requirement that tobacco products must have larger, graphic warning labels covering half of the packaging—violates constitutional rights of commercial free speech.

No. 1—biggest U.S. cigarette company and smokeless tobacco company
50.2% share of U.S. cigarette market
56.1% share of moist snuff market
29.8% share of U.S. cigar market
$9.9 billion in cigarette sales
$671 million in smokeless tobacco sales
$233 million in cigar sales
75 billion cigarettes sold, including 63.7 billion Marlboros

Every six weeks or so, the guy from Philip Morris, as his customers still think of him, swings by for a chat. But this summer, salespeople like Winfred Hayes are changing hats. He now works for Philip Morris USA’s parent, Altria Group.