Smokers today inhale more nicotine per cigarette than they did six years ago. That's the finding issued this week by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which requires manufacturers selling cigarettes in the state to report on nicotine content annually. (Utah and Texas are the only other states to collect such data each year.)
The nation's unemployment rate dropped slightly to 4.7 percent in August as the economy added 128,000 new jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning.
AP - Qatar became the first Arab country Monday to commit troops to monitor a tense cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, pledging 200 to 300 soldiers to a U.N. peacekeeping force. Pakistan's prime minister toured devastated south Beirut and considered a similar offer.
AP - A gunman opened fire on tourists at the Roman Amphitheater in Jordan's capital on Monday, killing a British man and wounding six other people, including a police officer, officials said.
AP - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44.
Steve Irwin, the TV host known as the "Crocodile Hunter," has died after being stung by a stingray off Australia's north coast. Irwin, 44 was killed by a stingray barb that went through his chest, according to police sources. Irwin was filming an underwater documentary at the time.