Smoking

London is swinging again thanks to bride and princess-to-be Kate Middleton. Millions are hanging on her every move — where she shops, where she primps, what she eats and drinks. Although the couple live (part of the time) in a rented farmhouse in North Wales, Middleton and Prince William will likely move to London's Kensington Palace at some point in the future. And Middleton certainly spends a lot of time in London — especially now that the wedding is a month away — mostly in the swish neighborhoods of South Kensington, Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Mayfair, all of which are in close proximity to Hyde Park and the Buckingham and Kensington palaces.

It's no surprise that someone who has never smoked, who eats a Mediterranean diet and keeps a normal weight and who exercises regularly is healthy. How healthy? Chances of death from all causes is reduced by 80% over eight years. Pretty healthy. Those four healthy behaviors also protected against heart disease and the buildup of calcium deposits in the arteries, the researchers said. Those are the results of a multiyear study of more than 6,000 people led by Johns Hopkins University researchers and published online Monday in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The Navajo Nation Council has voted to ban smoking and chewing tobacco in public places on the vast reservation, including such outdoor venues as rodeos and fairs. The council approved the ban on a vote of 42-27 at the end of its weeklong summer session in the Navajo capital of Window Rock, Ariz. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. has 10 days to decide whether to sign or veto the law once it reaches his desk.

The Glendale City Council on Tuesday moved to ban smoking in all new apartment and condominium units, give individuals the right to sue others who break smoking rules and increase the distance between smokers and non-smokers in outdoor dining areas. Since 2008, Glendale has implemented a variety of smoking bans at common areas, private balconies and patios in multi-unit buildings. Many wide-sweeping prohibitions have taken effect, but there have also been tweaks to the rules, making smoking restrictions a recurring topic of discussion at City Hall.

Time may heal all wounds, but the scars that remain can be unsightly, itchy, stiff and painful. Pharmacy aisles beckon with "clinically proven, doctor-recommended" scar products, and the Internet teems with anecdotes of different creams and elixirs that supposedly erase old scars or prevent new ones from forming. But not all of those claims stick. "There are a thousand wives' tales and a whole bunch of things you can buy, but none have scientific validity to speak of," says Dr. Terence Davidson, a professor of surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Sure, smoking is bad for you -- but what happens when you combine it with something really good -- like running eight miles a day? Do you get a healthier smoker? Or an unhealthy athlete? It's one of those is-the-cigarette-half-smoked-or-half-unsmoked conundrums. And there's no definitive answer. "If people can quit, that's the best thing," says Dr. Robert Sallis, director of sports medicine at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana.

Cigarette maker Philip Morris has developed an inhaler that could deliver a nicotine mist deep into the lungs, giving smokers a satisfying dose of the addictive drug without the carcinogens, gases and toxic metals that make tobacco smoke so dangerous. Cloaked in secrecy, the device was invented nearly a dozen years ago at a time the tobacco industry was vigorously denying that nicotine was addictive, internal company documents show.

Even in these days of strict indoor clean air laws, you can still legally puff away in movie theaters, restaurants or even on a plane. You just have to use a cigarette that runs on a battery, not tobacco. Electronic cigarettes — battery-powered devices that deliver a fine spray of nicotine without any flame or smoke — have been sold in this country for about three years now. Some people use them as a way to quit smoking real cigarettes. Unlike gum or patches, the devices mimic the sensation of smoking while providing the nicotine rush.

For seven years, Scott Stokes conducted his own reckless inquiries into the physiological effects of pot. "I woke up to get high, and I got high to go to bed," recalled the 19-year-old from El Toro, who broke his marijuana habit only after he was arrested two years ago for burglarizing a head shop. "If I didn't have it, I would . . . start sweating, and when I'd breathe deep I'd get into these weird breathing patterns. "People say that marijuana is not addictive, but it's extremely addictive."

Rising 10 stories next to the Hollywood Freeway, the sleek, stucco-and-glass building looks more like a backdrop for television's "L.A. Law" than a prison designed to house some of the most notorious criminal suspects in Southern California. Kevin Mitnick, the 25-year-old computer genius accused of breaking into university and corporate computers from Los Angeles to Leeds, England, now calls it home.

President Obama was asked about the metastasizing Benghazi scandal in a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday. Referring to the Americans who died in Benghazi, the president said, "We dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus. " He added that "the whole issue of talking points, throughout this process, frankly, has been a sideshow.… There's no there there. " He's half right. The talking points drafted by the State Department, the CIA and the White House and given to congressional Republicans and, most famously, to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice are not the center of this story.

Now that Bludso's Bar & Que has opened in the former Tar Pit space on La Brea Avenue, I can indulge in Kevin Bludso's Texas-style smoked beef brisket more than once in a blue moon. His original locale is in Compton, but the new location, opened in collaboration with Jason Bernstein and James Starr, the owners of the Golden State on Fairfax, is miles closer. It also has an ample, even huge, sit-down area - and a full bar, which is sweet. And I have the choice of take home or eat there.

POTOSÍ, Bolivia - A gentle breeze swept across Laguna Colorada, momentarily turning the magenta mineral lake water neon-orange as it rippled around the knobby knees of several dozen flamingos. Suddenly, a pair of frisky vicuñas trotted through the shallows, sending the flamingos aloft like a flock of hot pink pterodactyls. It was that kind of week. I tend to be lightheaded at altitude in the best of times, but road tripping across the Bolivian altiplano was downright psychedelic.

Authorities in Sacramento allege that a woman slapped a deputy as a way to go to jail and stop smoking. On Friday, Etta Lopez was sentenced to 63 days in jail for battery of a peace officer. She pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to jail time and three years of probation. Sacramento County sheriff's officials allege that Lopez attacked a deputy outside Sacramento County Jail, according to Fox 40. Authorities said she admitted to investigators that she waited for hours to hit a deputy.

Eyewitnesses have come forward with photos showing large flames coming from the back of a limousine as it crossed the San Mateo Bridge late Saturday, killing 5 women. NBC Bay Area published two photos Sunday showing the back of the limo engulfed in flames, with smoke coming from inside the vehicle. A California Highway Patrol spokesman told the station the "vehicle was partially engulfed" but could not confirm if there was any type of explosion inside the limo. KTVU-TV obtained a similar photo of flames in the back of the white Lincoln Town Car. Officials are trying to determine the cause of the fire.

It's possible that fire rings on the beach are a major contributor to air pollution. But there's reason to doubt it, especially since air regulators don't appear to have been worried about the venerable tradition of the Southern California beach bonfire until the city of Newport Beach got into the act. There aren't as many fire rings as there used to be; many cities got rid of them years ago because of liability issues. They're certainly not used every day, or pretty much at all during certain seasons.

Shakespeare on cigarette smoking: "And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death" (MacBeth, Act V, Scene V). JERRY HAMBLETON Laguna Beach

Re "Call tobacco tax a user fee," Column, May 7 I'm a nonsmoker who is generally in favor of anything that will reduce smoking and stick it to Big Tobacco, but I wonder if we are getting close to the point at which people who smoke - 12% of adults and 14% of high schoolers - can't or won't give it up no matter the price. Will we just be making life more miserable for the addicted while having little effect on the tobacco companies? After all, if their profits dip, they can just raise the price.

As thoroughly awful as everyone knows cigarettes to be - still the No. 1 cause of premature death in this country - public officials walk a blurry line when they try to reduce smoking's terrible toll. As long as they lack the will to ban tobacco altogether, they face all sorts of ethical, legal and political problems in regulating a product that is, after all, perfectly legal. High tobacco taxes, critics say, unfairly punish smokers, who are disproportionately low income. Banning advertising of a legal product raises free-speech issues.

Unless there is some recognized analgesic effect of rolling a joint, lighting it up and deeply inhaling the by-products of marijuana combustion, then it stands to reason that you could distill the psychoactive ingredient of marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol, and formulate it into, say, a capsule. Doing so would combine the relief that comes with smoked marijuana with the ease of a pill and the quality control that comes with approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Poof! Up in smoke goes the debate about medical marijuana.