Survival

Disco legend Donna Summer, 63, died Wednesday night, reportedly of lung cancer. As of press time, her family hadn't released details about her illness, so it was unknown what type of lung cancer she had, and how long she may have been ailing. According to the American Cancer Society , lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both women and men, killing more than 150,000 people per year -- more than colon, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers combined. In 2012, the group estimates, there will be about 226,000 new cases of lung cancer in the U.S. Survival rates of people with lung cancer are low. Only about half of people diagnosed with early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (the more common type)

As the World Health Assembly convenes in Geneva this week, one item on the agenda will be polio, or more specifically, how to finally deliver on an epic promise made a quarter-century ago: to liberate humankind from one of the world's most deadly and debilitating diseases. The world's war on polio has been as ambitious an undertaking as the successful campaign to eradicate another great public health menace, smallpox. Slowly but surely we have advanced on that goal. Polio, a highly preventable disease, today survives in only three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.

The PSA test should be abandoned as a prostate cancer screening tool, a government advisory panel has concluded after determining that the side effects from needless biopsies and treatments hurt many more men than are potentially helped by early detection of cancers. At best, one life will be saved for every 1,000 men screened over a 10-year period, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. But 100 to 120 men will have suspicious results when there is no cancer, triggering biopsies that can carry complications such as pain, fever, bleeding, infection and hospitalization.

"Natural Selection," an intriguing and intelligent first effort from indie filmmaker Robbie Pickering, digs deep into the heart of Texas for its soulful tale of small town saints and sinners and a road trip to redemption. Laced with humor and regret, the film rests on a finely textured performance by Rachael Harris, a prolific character actress especially memorable as the harpy of a fiancée perpetually haranguing Ed Helms in "The Hangover. " Here she's dialed it down to a bare whisper for the 40ish Linda White, whose quiet life of desperation is about to be dissected.

For those who bring a ghoulish curiosity to their scrutiny of Southern California's environmental decay, I offer the case of the raven. The evolution of the raven to Frankenstein status may not be a major milepost of our decline, but it's a sign of something. You might put the raven in the same league with the solemya clam. Connoisseurs of this sort of thing will recall that the solemya clam was discovered thriving in the sewage sludge at the bottom of Santa Monica Bay.

The Drowned Cities A novel Paolo Bacigalupi Little, Brown., 439 pp.: $17.99, ages 14 and up Whether it's a conscious or subliminal reaction to U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, war is an increasingly common theme in modern young adult literature. But its horrors are rarely so thoroughly detailed as in Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Drowned Cities. " One of the more graphically violent young adult titles of late, "The Drowned Cities" reads like a dystopian mash-up of the Vietnam War and modern geopolitics, where survivalism battles personal loyalties in a brutal and chaotic world.

Medical errors tend to occur more frequently at night and on weekends due to increased sleepiness, shortage of staff and a variety of other factors. Overall, such errors represent a significant problem for the medical community. A 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine showed that all medical errors -- including daytime errors, as well as night and weekend mistakes -- cause as many as 98,000 deaths each year and cost as much as $29 billion annually. Transplants are considered a source of concern by many experts because the surgeries occur when organs become available, and that is just as likely to be at an off-hour as during normal business hours.

A hospital worker preparing a drowned toddler for the funeral home noticed the boy was breathing -- more than an hour after he had been pronounced dead. Logan Pinto, who is 22 months old, was listed in critical condition Friday but showing signs of improvement, Rexburg Police Capt. Randy Lewis said. Logan apparently wandered away from his baby sitter Thursday and fell into a canal near his home in Rexburg, about 275 miles east of Boise.

Lauren Elder will never know why she survived the plane crash that killed two friends and stranded her on an icy Sierra mountaintop, wearing a lightweight skirt and vest and high-heeled boots. But she knows how she survived below-freezing temperatures when the plane crashed 30 years ago: by climbing down a 13,264-foot snow-covered mountain in spite of a broken arm, shattered teeth and a gashed and swollen leg.

A young woman walked into a restaurant last week and sat close enough to get a good look at Anne Hjelle's face. A mountain lion had torn off the left side four years before, leaving it hanging by a flap of skin. Six surgeries hadn't camouflaged the scars. "She saw me and had a deer-in-the-headlights look," said Hjelle, 35, of Mission Viejo. "She quickly got up and moved so she didn't have to look at me." The stranger's reaction didn't hurt Hjelle's feelings.

WASHINGTON - Overcoming objections from conservatives, Congress gave final approval to legislation to reauthorize the nation's Export-Import Bank, sending to President Obama a key legislative priority for the business community. The Senate passed the measure 78 to 20 after turning back several proposed GOP amendments to do away with the bank or scale back its lending authority. Conservatives in the House and Senate have fought the bank as a form of corporate welfare. The bank subsidizes the sale of U.S. exports, which critics said props up some companies and harms others through unfair competition.

— In 2009, the Kings finished 14th in the Western Conference, one season removed from the sharp-tongued impatience of former coach Marc Crawford and slowly assembling the defensive foundation that would launch them back toward respectability. In 2009, the Phoenix Coyotes finished 13th in the West but made headlines off the ice. Owner Jerry Moyes filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May, plunging the team into a haze of uncertainty. Players weren't sure where their next paychecks might come from or what currency those checks might be in. Things only got worse when Wayne Gretzky, a part owner, stepped down as coach days before the 2009-10 season was to start.

Bring on Oklahoma City? The Lakers teetered and tottered in Game 7 against the Denver Nuggets, finally prevailing, 96-87, to end their first-round series Saturday night at Staples Center. In a season when nothing came easy, when unpredictability easily beat out the sane and rational, the Lakers lost a 16-point third-quarter lead but came back to win. It was nonsensical, Steve Blake leading the way with 19 points, outscoring Kobe Bryant (17 points) and Andrew Bynum (16)

Though the 1971 Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical "Follies" puts male-female relationships under a microscope with its probing exploration of unhappy showbiz marriages and broken dreams, most would agree that this show belongs to the women. "If you think of all the specialty numbers throughout, it really is female-oriented," says Eric Schaeffer, director of the Broadway production opening Wednesday at the Ahmanson Theatre, which was nominated last week for eight Tony Awards, including revival of a musical.

Never Fall Down A Novel Patricia McCormick Balzer + Bray: 224 pp., $17.99, ages 14 and up When it comes to genocide, Hitler is obviously well covered. There are countless titles for young readers about the atrocities he inspired. The Khmer Rouge, which seized control of Cambodia in 1975 and, in its attempts to create an agrarian form of communism, killed millions of its own people, is less familiar territory, especially for young readers. "Never Fall Down" offers a detailed look at what it was like to live under such a cruel government from the perspective of one of its best-known survivors, Arn Chorn Pond.

The most remarkable achievement within Charlotte Rogan's debut novel, "The Lifeboat," is how neatly it exceeds, and defies, expectations. The plot seems basic: Some people clamber aboard a lifeboat as a ship sinks, and we think we're all set for a tale in which someone inevitably will be eaten for dinner. But Rogan delivers something entirely different (rest easy, no one gets eaten) by using a familiar setting to explore moral ambiguity, human nature and the psychology of manipulation.

His day begins at 4:30 a.m. The 64-year-old retired math teacher doesn't own a clock or even a watch, but the internal alarm that has kept him alive while so many of his fellow North Koreans have starved to death tells him he had better get out to pick grass if his family is to survive. Soon the streets of his city, Chongjin, will be swarming with others doing the same. Some cook the grass to eat. The teacher feeds it to the rabbits his family sells at the market. At 10 a.m.

Sometimes, late at night, it all comes back to Joe Cicippio. The horror of Russian Roulette. The time his guards threatened to castrate him. The trauma of 1,908 days in captivity. Six months after he was freed by his Lebanese kidnapers, Cicippio still has trouble sleeping and often gets up at 3 a.m. to pace the floor. Those are the good nights. Sometimes, he wakes up screaming. "I hear him shouting 'No! No!' and wake him up," says his wife, Elham.

Medical errors tend to occur more frequently at night and on weekends due to increased sleepiness, shortage of staff and a variety of other factors. Overall, such errors represent a significant problem for the medical community. A 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine showed that all medical errors -- including daytime errors, as well as night and weekend mistakes -- cause as many as 98,000 deaths each year and cost as much as $29 billion annually. Transplants are considered a source of concern by many experts because the surgeries occur when organs become available, and that is just as likely to be at an off-hour as during normal business hours.

In “The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” keyboard virtuoso Mona Golabek essentially channels her mother, pianist Lisa Jura, and strikes musical and emotional notes that transcend technical display or biographical sentiment. This elegant, heartfelt solo show, which opened at the Geffen Playhouse's intimate Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater on Wednesday, is an arresting, deeply affecting triumph. Based on Golabek's acclaimed book, "The Children of Willesden Lane," the narrative course reveals itself with almost casual assurance.