US government pushes for smoke-free public housing

The US government Thursday proposed to ban lit tobacco products inside public housing in a push to make hundreds of thousands of units across the country smoke-free. Julian Castro, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and a rising star in the Democratic party, introduced the measure as a cost-cutting, healthy initiative. "We have a responsibility to protect public housing residents from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, especially the elderly and children who