Revolution

A new study showing an estimated 7% of American teens and adults carry the human papillomavirus in their mouths may help health experts finally understand why rates of mouth and throat cancer have been climbing for nearly 25 years. The evidence makes it clear that oral sex practices play a key role in transmission. The new data, published online Thursday by the Journal of the American Medical Assn., are the first to assess the prevalence of oral HPV infection in the U.S. population.

NBC evidently believes laughter is the best medicine: The struggling network will have a strong dose of comedy on four nights in its fall lineup plus the Season 3 return of"The Voice. " Keeping its Thursday sitcom block essentially intact with existing series, NBC will push the low-rated comedies"Community"and"Whitney"to Fridays and open up Tuesdays and Wednesdays for new sitcoms such as "Go On," "Animal Practice" and "Guys With Kids. " Nearly one-quarter of NBC's fall prime-time schedule will consist of sitcoms; last fall, the figure was just 14%. Also on the schedule: the Monday one-hour series "Revolution," the new sci-fi drama from producer J.J. Abrams, and, for Wednesday, "Chicago Fire," from "Law & Order" mastermind Dick Wolf.

The new Black Widow pendulum swing coming to Kennywood in 2012 will fling riders through the air like pint-size passengers on an enormous spinning Frisbee. > Photos: Black Widow thrill ride at Kennywood The 90-foot-tall thrill ride is set to debut May 17 with opening of the West Mifflin, Pa., theme park for the summer season. Riders will sit in 40 outward facing coaster-style seats as a counterclockwise-spinning circular gondola swings back and forth in a pendulum motion.

It seems that some people never fail to get worked up at the sight of young people standing up to an entrenched power. That's the only way I can explain the vehement reaction to my recent Op-Ed article, " Not their fathers' economics ," about the budding movement against orthodox economics among students from around the world. The general dismissive attitude seems to be that these students have no real right to speak their minds because they're so young that they haven't had a chance to be fully informed.

ART As part of Pacific Standard Time's Performance and Public Art festival, Eleanor Antin's "Before the Revolution" explores Antin's imaginary character Eleanora Antinova, an African American ballerina trying to make it in a famous Russian ballet company. Performed by actors who manipulate Antin's original life-scale puppets, the production is directed by Antin and Robert Castro. Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd. 2 and 7 p.m. Sun. Free. (310) 443-7000.

Cinematography "Avatar" Mauro Fiore In tribute to the film's groundbreaking visuals -- a combination of live-action and computer-generated images -- the award for cinematography went to Mauro Fiore for his work on director James Cameron's "Avatar." The film was shot using high-definition digital cameras and a system for creating 3-D effects invented specifically for the film. "I want to thank the academy for this unbelievable honor," said the 45-year-old Italian-born Fiore, who received his first Oscar nomination for "Avatar."

Sayed Hussein Sayed sits low in a broken truck. His wife is having their first child soon and no one is bringing him tires to fix. He's running out of money. "The country," he says, "is falling apart. " The neighborhood plumber shakes his head "I've got five kids to feed but work is down 30%," says Kamel Fouad, whose grandfather started the family business decades ago. "I could bear it during the first month of the revolution. I borrowed from neighbors. But nobody has any money left.

Not only is Robert Hilburn's Top 20 list based on an intellectual confusion, it's almost as if Hilburn is trying to make peace with what is actually being shoved down people's throats as music and his own personal nostalgic taste ("20 for 2000 1/2," July 1). It's about time that American music critics actually did some hard work and took a look outside of the States as to what's really going on in music revolution. It ain't here folks, its a cross-cultural mix. It's happening with world music, electronica, techno-rock, Latin music, etc. For every million people who are buying these Top 20 records in America, there are millions who are not. TANJU ARMAND New York

Ibrahim Shaban said he was 15, but he looked much younger in his pajama pants and sweat shirt with the worn-away rhinestones, dirt caked on his bare feet, a knife scar on his face. He strolled through the crowds in Tahrir Square the other day, watching banners unfurl, listening to speeches. He sometimes sounded like a miniature rebel, distilling the nation's rage in his narrow body. "My father died a month ago, so I've been living in the square," he said. "He had heart problems. He sold cups and glasses in the street.

Bela Kiraly, one of the military leaders of Hungary's short-lived anti-Soviet revolution in 1956, has died, the government said. He was 97. A brief Defense Ministry statement provided no other details. The daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet reported that Kiraly died Saturday morning in Budapest. Kiraly served in the Hungarian army during World War II and later led its military academy.

California is on the verge of a justice revolution. Realignment, as it is known, is a set of changes thrust upon the state by our collective inertia: Prisons had become so overcrowded as to violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and Californians demonstrated no will to pay more money for more prisons. As a result, the courts ordered the prisons to reduce their inmate population by 30,000 over the next two years. So Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic-controlled Legislature quickly and somewhat carelessly adopted realignment, which transfers responsibility for many felons who have completed their prison time, and many newly convicted felons, from the state to the counties.

SANTIAGO, Cuba — The way Cesar Cruz and his buddies see it, the "revolution of our grandparents" just doesn't cut it anymore. The 19-year-old student and his friends gather every Saturday in leafy Cespedes Park in the shadow of Santiago de Cuba's cathedral, listening to music and sharing spins on an old scooter, and dreaming of an impossible future. "We don't have the chance to think of a better life, without misery," Cruz said. "The only option is to leave the country.

There is a growing student protest movement against orthodox economics that could change the field as we know it. If it is sustained, historians likely will cite Nov. 2, 2011, as the start of the revolution. On that day at Harvard University, roughly 70 students organized a walkout of an introductory economics class taught by N. Gregory Mankiw. Mankiw is the former head of the Council of Economic Advisers for President George W. Bushand an advisor to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

At first, Dayna Hanson says, she felt "a little intimidated" when she decided to create a "multimedia extravaganza" about the American Revolution. As an artist, she says, "I don't often undertake such sweeping topics, and I didn't feel like I had a ton of knowledge about this part of history. " Best known for co-founding the Seattle-based dance-theater company 33 Fainting Spells, Hanson wound up embarking on a rigorous research-based quest to expose the contradictions she observed between America's founding principles and current political and economic realities.

Remember all that talk about the dynasty the Galaxy was building? Never mind. The New York Yankees of soccer looked more like the Seattle Mariners on Saturday, bumbling, fumbling and stumbling in a 3-1 loss to the New England Revolution. "We were certainly beat tonight from the opening kickoff. It's that simple," said Coach Bruce Arena, whose team fell to 1-2 in MLS play and 1-3-1 overall. "We were very poor. " And there may have been some collateral damage in this latest loss after Arena, irate over his team's poor first half, took his anger out on David Beckham, pulling him in favor of Michael Stephens at the start of the second half.

When: 8. Where: Home Depot Center. On the air: TV: NBC Sports Network; Radio: 1330 and 1220. Records: Galaxy 1-1, Revolution 1-2. Record vs. New England (2011): 1-0-1. Update: The Galaxy, whose far-flung players didn't come together as a team until just days before the season opener, used its two-week break to try to develop some much-needed chemistry on the training pitch, but it also may have lost captain and playmaker Landon Donovan, who will probably miss the game with tightness in his left quad.

Regarding "The Kinsey Effect" [Nov 15]: I think one of the biggest influences on the sexual revolution was left out -- Playboy and the Playboy advisor. Hugh Hefner glamorized sex and made it fun. Kinsey was to me a creepy guy, a voyeur giving us clinical news that was totally sexless. Mike Salisbury Venice

Fourteen years after Pope John Paul II made his landmark visit to Cuba, his successor, Benedict XVI, arrives Monday in a changed country where the Roman Catholic Church occupies its most influential role since the communist revolution half a century ago. The once-marginalized church's new position owes to the careful diplomacy of charismatic Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the most senior Cuban prelate; the political ascension of Raul Castro, more pragmatic...

In the latest political tumult in China, it is the Maoists who find themselves in trouble. Maoist websites have been shut down, ostensibly for "maintenance. " A public park in Chongqing where retirees sang and twirled to patriotic anthems while waving red flags posted a notice saying the music was now banned because it disturbed the neighborhood. A former television host, known for his Maoist views, found his scheduled speeches abruptly canceled. The crackdown started late last week during the conclusion of the National People's Congress.