Back of the Bus

◆ Last month the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission banished smokers to the back 20 percent of the bus on interstate trips, saying that “smoking on buses creates serious health hazards to those passengers who are nonsmokers.”

More Smoking Hazards

◆ The recent discovery that babies “breathe” in the womb led a team of English doctors at Oxford to find that smoking can also harm the fetus. When mother smokes, the baby can “be seen to gasp in the womb, . . . almost certainly suffering a temporary oxygen shortage. Over a long period the oxygen shortage . . . can stunt growth of the baby and may also cause brain damage,” reports London’s Sunday Times.