Nation IN BRIEF : ILLINOIS : Trial of Suit Against Tobacco Firm Opens

The nation’s second-largest tobacco company engaged in a conspiracy out of greed to hide the truth about the dangers of smoking, an attorney for a lung-cancer patient told a jury as a lawsuit trial opened in Belleville, Ill. At the trial, the first since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that warning labels do not shield cigarette makers from lawsuits, an attorney for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. countered that the dying man knew the hazards when he smoked. Charles Kueper, 51, said in his lawsuit that R.J. Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute, a trade association, conspired to persuade him and millions of others to ignore evidence that smoking is dangerous.