Throat

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.

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.

Michael Douglas has a tumor in his throat and will undergo eight weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, his rep tells People. Doctors recently discovered the mass in the film star's throat, his representative said. A full recovery is expected. "I am very optimistic," Douglas said in a statement. It's been a tumultuous year for the actor, whose son Cameron was sentenced in May to five years in prison after pleading guilty to possession of heroin and distribution of crystal meth.

Adele's voice has given her the biggest success this year — and the most trouble. The singer will have throat surgery and has now canceled all tour dates and promotional appearances for the year. Columbia Records announced Friday that the "Rolling in the Deep" singer will have surgery "to alleviate the current issues with her throat. " A full recovery is expected. Earlier this month, the 23-year-old performer canceled a U.S. concert run due to a hemorrhage in her vocal cord; she also canceled concerts in June due to laryngitis.

Enjoyed Lawrence Chua's review of "The Queen's Throat." Not the leanest prose I've read, though. I once heard Arthur Ferrante and Louis Teicher do Debussy's "Clair de Lune" on two nine-foot grands: two men chasing a butterfly with sledge hammers. FRED SCIFERS DOWNEY

A woman who last month shared in a $700,000 California Lotto win was found dead in her home with her throat slashed, San Diego County authorities said today. Ann Marie Jenkins, 30, was found by her husband when he returned home from work about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. "No suspects have been identified and no motive is known," Lt. Bill Baxter said. Jenkins and her husband, Gary, won about $700,000 last month in the state Lotto game.

A man trying to bench-press 295 pounds died after dropping the barbell on his throat, authorities said Monday. Richard Craig English, a 28-year-old house painter from Vancouver, died Friday at a hospital in this British Columbian city. He was working out alone at a health club and had previously refused offers to use "spotters" to monitor his lifting, Sgt. Doug Bond said. When a club staff member discovered English, "the barbell was across his throat and he was blue," Bond said Monday.

A 25-year-old man was killed Tuesday when he was stabbed in the throat in an alley in the 3400 block of West Canoga Place, near Del Monte Drive, authorities said. The Anaheim man, whose name has not been released, was treated at the scene by paramedics and taken to Anaheim Humana West Hospital just after 3 p.m., where he died. Police at the scene doubted the killing was gang-related, Sgt. Steve Rodig said.

We had a house guest last week, a feisty 83-year-old who drives about the country every year visiting old friends and dispensing wisdom. The wisdom is usually couched in anecdotes full of heroes, villains and unsoftened opinion. He has decided--and he's probably right--that if you achieve 83, it is no longer necessary to carefully balance opinion in the interest of evenhandedness. He knows what he knows, and he believes what he believes.

Sometimes, late at night, her faith run ragged from trying to raise a voice from the dead, Kim Mallory sneaks away to listen to her dream. She clicks her son's old laptop to YouTube. She clicks to an old video of her son giving an interview. He is Stafon Johnson, a USC running back, speaking to a television reporter after scoring the first two touchdowns of his career. "He's stuttering, he's searching for the right words," she says. "He sounds just beautiful."

Reporting from Atkinson, Neb. Some might have been surprised to hear that plans to build a 1,700-mile oil pipeline through the Midwest to the Gulf Coast — a source of new oil and thousands of jobs — would drive an emotional fault line down the middle of the conservative heartland. But any skepticism would have quickly evaporated here in the noisy bleachers of the West Holt High School gymnasium. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline — the subject of public hearings convened by the State Department last week along the route from Montana to Texas — was alternately described as a plot by a foreign corporation to exploit America, a potentially perilous polluter of the nation's greatest freshwater resource, the answer to America's energy insecurity, a generator of the last great family-wage jobs and, oh yes, a dangerous new instigator of global warming.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told a business audience Thursday in suburban New York that President Obama is leading the country "on a road to ruin" unless he starts taking the federal deficit and debt more seriously. Palin cited higher unemployment and rising commodity prices as evidence that the Obama agenda of "European-style socialist policies being basically crammed down our throats" has failed. "I am sick and tired of the games that are being played in Washington," she said.

In 1992, Debi Austin had a laryngectomy after she was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. Austin had smoked her first cigarette at 13 and, even after surgery, remained a two- to three-pack-a-day smoker. The image of her smoking through the hole in her throat in a 1997 state-sponsored anti-smoking ad has remained indelible. In the ad she said: "They say nicotine isn't addictive. " She took a puff and asked: "How can they say that?" Austin, of Canoga Park, finally quit smoking months after the ad aired.

It's tempting at this time of year, with worn-out Christmas tunes blaring nonstop through every grocery store, hair salon and shopping mall from here to the Atlantic, to believe that, musically speaking, there's nothing new under the holiday sun. But you've never really heard "Jingle Bells" until you've heard it sung by Tuvan throat singers in an arrangement that sounds like bluegrass from one of the outer rings of Saturn. That's one of the sonic surprises that's likely to greet audiences this weekend when forward-gazing banjo player Béla Fleck brings his band, the Flecktones through Southern California on a brief holiday tour highlighting music from their Grammy Award-winning 2008 album, "Jingle All the Way. " For that collection, which snagged the pop instrumental album award two years ago, 11-time Grammy winner Fleck and his genre-blind associates did what they'd been doing for nearly two decades: They threw out the rule book, abandoned all sense of musical convention and let their inspiration run wild.

When UCLA neuroscientist J. David Jentsch was a grad student, he never expected his life as an academic would require around-the-clock armed guards, or a closed-circuit TV inside his bedroom so he could keep constant watch over his home. But the high-powered security proved necessary again this month when the researcher, who experiments on monkeys, opened a letter left in his mailbox to discover razor blades and a death threat. "We follow you on campus," Jentsch recalled the note reading.

Just two weeks into a scheduled two months of daily radiation for Stage 4 throat cancer, Michael Douglas sits in his darkened living room. The treetops of Central Park are just visible through a crack in the drawn curtains, and in the shadowy afternoon light, Douglas appears his always-handsome self. But he sips frequently from an aloe drink to soothe the sores in his mouth, and when he speaks, it is as if he is addressing a dozing child, gently turning the words over in his mouth for maximum effect without projecting.

Back in Montana after winning his record 11th NBA championship as a coach, Phil Jackson hinted at what his plans might be while adding that watching fellow coach George Karl struggle with health issues is influencing his decision. After giving the keynote speech at the Western Governors' Assn. annual meeting Sunday, Jackson said his decision to return as the head coach of the Lakers hinges on his health. "My concern, to be quite blunt, is I don't want to happen to me what happened to Denver this year with George Karl," Jackson said.

Loved "Mom Food"! I read it avidly, sometimes with a lump in my throat. The combination of affection, food, photographs was powerful. S.H. DAVIDSON, Long Beach

Michael Douglas’ revelation on the Late Show with David Letterman on Tuesday night that his throat cancer is stage four elicited a gasp from the audience. But what exactly does stage four mean? As Douglas went on to explain, “You like to be down at stage one,” when the tumor is relatively small and isolated. But, according to Douglas, doctors said his chances of survival are 80%. That may be because even though stage-four cancer is considered advanced, there are different substages within it, said Dr. Gady Har-El, chairman of Lenox Hill Hospital’s Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery in New York.

A homeless man who went on a crime rampage in downtown Long Beach that included slashing two women's throats was sentenced Monday to 11 life terms and 433 years in prison. Charles Juan Proctor, 45, was convicted this month of 22 counts including attempted murder, kidnapping for robbery and mayhem. He was accused of robbing various Long Beach businesses and one in Hawaiian Gardens for cash ranging from $35 to about $700, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Rose. In the process, Proctor threatened, slashed, stabbed or strangled six female shop owners, according to Rose.