No. 1 Notre Dame beats USC 22-13, earns title shot

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Fighting Irish punched their ticket to Miami.

Theo Riddick rushed for 146 yards and a touchdown, Kyle Brindza kicked five field goals, and No. 1 Notre Dame secured a spot in the BCS championship game with a 22-13 victory over Southern California on Saturday night.

Everett Golson passed for 217 yards as the Irish (12-0) completed their first perfect regular season since 1988, earning a trip to south Florida on Jan. 7 to play for the storied program's first national title in 24 years.

Although they did little with flash on an electric night at the Coliseum, the Irish woke up more echoes of past Notre Dame greats with a grinding effort in this dynamic intersectional rivalry with USC (7-5), which has lost four of five.

Notre Dame's hard-nosed defense appropriately made the decisive stand in the final minutes, keeping USC out of the end zone on four plays from the Irish 1 with 2:33 to play.

"Well, that's who we are," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. "It's been our defense all year. Our offense is able to manage enough points."

After spending more than a decade looking up at the Trojans, the Irish are back on top of this rivalry with two straight wins in Los Angeles. The school of Knute Rockne, the Four Horsemen and Paul Hornung has new heroes now, from inspirational linebacker Manti Te'o to Kelly, who took the Irish from unranked to start the season to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 for the first time in 19 years.

Te'o, the Heisman Trophy hopeful, had a key interception against USC and became the second Irish defender with three 100-tackle seasons — and he took particular pride in that last defensive stand, which included three straight Trojans runs resulting in nothing.

"It doesn't matter where the ball is," Te'o said. "We're going to protect the end zone at all costs."

After Brindza's school record-tying fifth field goal put the Irish up by nine points with 5:58 left, Marqise Lee caught a 53-yard pass from USC freshman Max Wittek at the Notre Dame 2.

But after USC failed on three straight runs at a defense that has allowed just 11 rushing TDs in 30 games, Wittek threw incomplete to fullback Soma Vainuku, setting off a leaping, chest-bumping celebration on the Notre Dame sideline and in the Irish sections of the sold-out Coliseum.

"They've had a great goal-line defense all year," USC coach Lane Kiffin said. "They've done that to everybody down on the goal line. ... It's just so hard to score touchdowns versus them. When the ball is on the 2-inch line, you'd think you could score touchdowns."

The grind-it-out win highlighted an unforgettable season for the Irish, who began the year with questions about their relevancy and survived some uninspiring performances and nail-biting finishes with their unbeaten record intact.

Notre Dame is likely to face an Southeastern Conference opponent in Miami, but won't know for another week which one. Alabama and Georgia play for the SSEC title in Atlanta.

With the Irish offense repeatedly stalling in the red zone against the Trojans, Brindza went five for six on field goals, even hitting a 52-yarder at the halftime gun.

Wittek passed for 186 yards with two interceptions in his first career start for the Trojans, who completed their tumble from the preseason No. 1 ranking with four losses in five games in an enormously disappointing season. Wittek filled in capably for injured Matt Barkley, but USC is headed to a lower-tier bowl in the first year after its NCAA-mandated two-year postseason ban ended.

Lee caught five passes for 75 yards, yet still broke the Pac-12 single-season receptions record established last year by teammate Robert Woods, who had seven catches for 92 yards.

Barkley watched from the sideline in a grey hoodie with a sling on his right arm after spraining his shoulder in last week's loss at UCLA. The senior and Pac-12 career passing leader won twice in South Bend during his career, but never got to face the Irish at the Coliseum, sidelined by injuries for both visits.

Barkley still ran down the Coliseum tunnel with the rest of the USC seniors for their final home game. He participated in the coin toss, but could only watch while the Irish opened the game with three clock-consuming drives resulting in 13 points.

USC's much-criticized defensive caution under assistant head coach Monte Kiffin was exploited by the Irish, with Golson patiently finding the sags in the Trojans' pass coverage for 181 yards passing in the first half. Riddick went 9 yards for a TD in the first quarter, but USC also stiffened to hold Notre Dame to field goals twice in the red zone.

Notre Dame held its 12th straight opponent without a first-quarter touchdown, but Wittek found Woods for a 9-yard score on the first play of the second quarter — just the ninth touchdown allowed by Notre Dame all season long. The Irish took a 16-10 lead to halftime when Brindza hit the second-longest field goal in Notre Dame history.

Te'o made the seventh interception of his phenomenal season when Wittek threw directly to him on USC's second play of the second half. Both teams struggled to move the ball in the third quarter, and USC settled for a field goal with 9:20 to play just a few moments after Kiffin called a timeout right before a play that ended with Lee appearing to catch a pass on the goal line.

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Deborah Raffin, Actress and Audio-Book Entrepreneur, dies at 59

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Actress Deborah Raffin, who went on to found a profitable audio-book company, died Wednesday after a battle with leukemia, the Los Angeles Times reports. She was 59.

Raffin’s brother William told the Times that she had been diagnosed with the disease approximately a year ago. She died at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

The Los Angeles native landed early parts in the 1973 film “40 Carats” and in 1975′s “Once Is Not Enough,” adapted from the steamy Jacqueline Susann novel. In the 1980s, she became something of a TV-movie staple appearing in such fare as “Mind Over Murder,” “Willa” and “For the Love of It.”

She also starred in a short-lived TV series based on the Goldie Hawn/Chevy Chase film “Foul Play,” assuming Hawn’s role of Gloria Mundy.

Raffin and her husband, producer Michael Viner, launched the audio-book company Dove Books-on-Tape in the mid-’80s, publishing a profitable mix of titles that included Sidney Sheldon’s “The Naked Face” and Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time.”

Viner and Raffin, who had one child together, divorced in 2005. Viner died in 2009.

In later years, Raffin had a recurring role on the WB drama “7th Heaven” and appeared in three episodes of ABC Family’s “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.”

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

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Hobbits, superheroes put magic in NZ film industry

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A crate full of sushi arrives. Workers wearing wetsuit shirts or in bare feet bustle past with slim laptops. With days to go, a buzzing intensity fills the once-dilapidated warehouses where Peter Jackson's visual-effects studio is rushing to finish the opening film in "The Hobbit" trilogy.

The fevered pace at the Weta Digital studio near Wellington will last nearly until the actors walk the red carpet Nov. 28 for the world premiere. But after "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" hits theaters, there's more work to be done.

Weta Digital is the centerpiece of a filmmaking empire that Jackson and close collaborators have built in his New Zealand hometown, realizing his dream of bringing a slice of Hollywood to Wellington. It's a one-stop shop for making major movies — not only his own, but other blockbusters like "Avatar" and "The Avengers" and hoped-for blockbusters like next year's "Man of Steel."

Along the way, Jackson has become revered here, even receiving a knighthood. His humble demeanor and crumpled appearance appeal to distinctly New Zealand values, yet his modesty belies his influence. He's also attracted criticism along the way.

The special-effects workforce of 150 on "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy a decade ago now numbers 1,100. Only five of Weta Digital's workers are actual employees, however, while the rest are contractors. Many accept the situation because movie work often comes irregularly but pays well. Union leaders, though, say the workers lack labor protections existing in almost any other industry.

Like many colleagues, Weta Digital's director, Joe Letteri, came to New Zealand in 2001 to work on the "Rings" trilogy for two years. The work kept coming, so he bought a house in Wellington and stayed.

"People come here because they know it's their chance to do something really great and to get it up on the screen," he said in a recent interview.

Jackson, who declined to be interviewed for this story, launched Weta in 1993 with fellow filmmakers Jamie Selkirk and Richard Taylor. Named after an oversized New Zealand insect, the company later was split into its digital arm and Weta Workshop, which makes props and costumes.

Loving homages to the craft are present in Weta Digital's seven buildings around the green-hilled suburb of Miramar. There are old-time movie posters, prop skulls of dinosaurs and apes, and a wall of latex face impressions of actors from Chris O'Donnell to Tom Cruise.

Its huge data center, with the computing power of 30,000 laptops, resembles a milk-processing plant because only the dairy industry in New Zealand knew how to build cooling systems on such a grand scale.

Little of Weta's current work was visible. Visitors must sign confidentiality agreements, and the working areas of the facilities are off-limits. The company is secretive about any unannounced projects, beyond saying Weta will be working solidly for the next two years, when the two later "Hobbit" films are scheduled to be released.

The workforce has changed from majority American to about 60 percent New Zealanders. The only skill that's needed, Letteri says, is the ability to use a computer as a tool.

Beyond having creativity as a filmmaker, Jackson has proved a savvy businessman, Letteri says.

"The film business in general is volatile, and visual effects has to be sitting right on the crest of that wave," Letteri says. "We don't get asked to do something that somebody has seen before."

The government calculates that feature films contribute $560 million each year to New Zealand's economy. Like many countries, New Zealand offers incentives and rebates to film companies and will contribute about $100 million toward the $500 million production costs of "The Hobbit" trilogy. Almost every big budget film goes through Jackson's companies.

"New Zealand has a good reputation for delivering films on time and under budget, and Jackson has been superb at that," says John Yeabsley, a senior fellow at New Zealand's Institute of Economic Research. "Nobody has the same record or the magic ability to bring home the bacon as Sir Peter."

"You cannot overestimate the fact that Peter is a brand," says Graeme Mason, chief executive of the New Zealand Film Commission. "He's built this incredible reputational position, which has a snowball effect."

Back in 2010, however, a labor dispute erupted before filming began on "The Hobbit." Unions said they would boycott the movie if the actors didn't get to collectively negotiate. Jackson and others warned that New Zealand could lose the films to Europe. Warner Bros. executives flew to New Zealand and held a high-stakes meeting with Prime Minister John Key, whose government changed labor laws overnight to clarify that movie workers were exempt from being treated as regular employees.

Helen Kelly, president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, says a compromise could easily have been reached. She says the law changes amounted to unnecessary union-busting and a "gross breach" of employment laws.

"I was very disappointed at Peter Jackson for lobbying for that," she says, "and I was furious at the government for doing it."

Weta Digital's general manager Tom Greally compared it to the construction industry, where multiple contractors and mobile workers do specific projects and then move on.

Animal rights activists said last week they plan to picket the premiere of "The Hobbit" after wranglers alleged that three horses and up to two dozen other animals died in unsafe conditions at a farm where animals were boarded for the movies. Jackson's spokesman Matt Dravitzki acknowledged two horses died preventable deaths at the farm but said the production company worked quickly to improve animal housing and safety. He rejected claims any animals were mistreated or abused.

Jackson's team pointed out that 55 percent of animal images in "The Hobbit" were computer generated at Weta. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have asked Jackson in the future to create all his animals in the studio.

Controversies aside, the rise of Weta and the expat American community in and around Miramar is visible in everything from a Mexican restaurant to yoga classes. On Halloween, which in the past was not much celebrated in New Zealand, hundreds of costumed children roamed about collecting candy. Americans gave the tradition a boost here, but the locals have embraced it.

The National Business Review newspaper estimates Jackson's personal fortune to be about $400 million, which could rise considerably if "The Hobbit" franchise succeeds. Public records show Jackson has partial ownership stakes in 21 private companies, most connected with his film empire. He's spent some of his money on philanthropy, helping save a historic church and a performance theater.

For all his influence, Jackson maintains a hobbit-like existence himself, preferring a quiet home life outside of work. In the end, many say, he seems to be driven by what has interested him from the start: telling great stories on the big screen.

___

Follow Nick Perry on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nickgbperry

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Rosenthal: Big Ten getting too big for its own good?

There's a lesson the empire builders at Big Ten Conference headquarters in Park Ridge would do well to heed if they can be convinced to stop peering out to the distant horizon:

Growth through acquisition is fraught with peril.

"In the business world you acquire new companies and you have to deal with different corporate cultures, different priorities and so forth," Robert Arnott, chairman of Research Affiliates LLC, an investment firm, said in an interview. "Merging them is often very messy and often fails. Here you're merging two teams into an existing conference and it creates risks. … Even college football teams have different cultures, different ways of thinking about how to win and different standards."

There undoubtedly was a logic behind each acquisition as the old Sears sought to expand and diversify its corporate profile. By the time the Chicago-area company's portfolio grew to include Allstate insurance, Coldwell Banker real estate and Dean Witter Reynolds stock brokerage, it was clear the increase in size was in no way matched by an increase in strength.

Rather than an all-powerful Colossus astride many sectors at once, it was reduced to an unfocused blob, bereft of identity, covering plenty of ground but hardly standing tall. Years after shedding its far-flung holdings, Sears has yet to regain its muscle, mojo or market share.

"It's hard to find a better example of a company that lost its mission and focus in the quest for growth," Arnott said.

"(Growth) may be partly a defensive move. It may be ego driven. In the corporate arena, you certainly see that in spades," he said. "When growth is through acquisition, you have to figure out what the real motivation is. Is it synergy, the most overused word in the finance community, or is it ego?"

Adding the University of Maryland and New Jersey's Rutgers University in 2014 will push the Big Ten to 14 schools and far beyond the Midwestern territory for which it's known. But doing so may not achieve what its backers envision.

Rather than spread the conference's brand, it may merely dilute it. The fit may be corrosive, not cohesive.

There is a school of thought that this is but the latest evidence that the Big Ten is not about athletics, academics or even the Midwest. Instead, it is just a television network, the schools content providers and student-athletes talent.

As it is, the overall TV payout is said to give each of the 12 current Big Ten schools about $21 million per year. They point to the Big Ten's lucrative deals with ESPN and its own eponymous cable network, a partnership with News Corp. They note that public schools Rutgers and Maryland are near enough to New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., to drive a better bargain with cable carriers.

To Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, a New Jersey native, the addition is more the result of a paradigm shift that has redrawn the college sports map over the past decade. Some conferences splinter. Others seize new turf. The result: Idaho's Boise State football team is poised to join the Big East Conference next year.

"Institutions that get together for academics or athletics have got to be cognizant that they are competing for students, they are competing for student athletes, they are competing for research dollars," Delany told reporters.

"When you see a Southern conference in the Midwest or you see a Southern conference in the Plains states or whether you see other conferences in the Midwest or Northeast, it impacts your recruitment. ... It impacts everything you do," he said. "At a certain point you get to a tipping point. The paradigm has shifted, and you decide on a strategy to basically position yourself for the next decade or half-century."

Big has always meant more than 10 in the Big Ten, an intercollegiate entity formed by seven Midwestern universities that now boasts 12 with the bookends of Penn State and Nebraska added in 1990 and last year, respectively. Last week's announcement of adding schools 13 and 14 was just a reminder that the conference has only had 10 member schools for 70 of its 116 years and won't again for the foreseeable future.

Rutgers President Robert Barchi said his school looked "forward as much to the collaboration and interaction we're going to have as institutions as we do to what I know will be really outstanding competition on our field of play."

But make no mistake, the Big Ten was born out of sports, specifically football. A seven-school 1896 meeting at Chicago's Palmer House had Northwestern among those still stinging from a scathing Harper's Weekly critique of college sports abuses, the Tribune reported at the time.

A prohibition on allowing scholarship and fellowship students to compete was shot down. But "a move towards the coordination of Faculty committees" in terms of standards and enforcement passed and the precursor to the Big Ten was born.

Along the way, the conference has added member schools and come to recognize that the Big Ten's image has much to say about how those institutions are perceived. Scandals already are no stranger to the Big Ten. But whether you play in a stadium or on Wall Street, the bigger one gets, the bigger target one becomes.

"Whoever's biggest draws scrutiny," said Arnott, co-author of a research paper, "The Winners Curse: Too Big to Succeed." "That means politicians, regulators, the general public generally don't root for the biggest. They look to take them down a notch, so it's harder to succeed as the largest. It's also harder to move the dial and move from success to success as you get really big."

Everyone talks about becoming too big to fail, but there's also too big to scale, companies that are unable to capitalize on the efficiencies of their increased size ostensibly because they are so big that they cannot be managed adequately.

"People talk about economies of scale. There are also vast diseconomies of scale, mostly in bureaucracies," Arnott said. "The more people you have involved, the more people you have who feel they have to have their views reflected in whatever's done. So you wind up with innovation by committee."

That's deadly. That's why companies break up, citing the need to get smaller so they can grow.

"If you break up companies into operating entities that are more nimble," Arnott said, "the opportunities to grow are no longer hamstrung by centralized bureaucracies that have to pursue synergies that don't exist."

Size matters in all fields of play. Sometimes smaller is better.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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Woman hit by cab in Lakeview

By Peter Nickeas




Tribune reporter

7:23 a.m. CST, November 24, 2012

A 26-year-old woman crossing the intersection of Clark and School streets was hit by a taxi cab early this morning and is in critical condition.

The woman was hit about 12:45 a.m. and taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Amina Greer said. The cab was southbound on Clark when it hit the woman, police said.

The cab driver remained at the scene, she said. The department's Major Accidents Investigations unit is at investigating the crash.

Police said the woman was crossing the intersection on a diagonal. The cab driver is being held for testing, which is required after any personal injury crash involving a taxi cab, police said.

Check back for more information.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

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Sony at greater risk than Panasonic in electronics downturn: Fitch

TOKYO (Reuters) - Panasonic Corp has a better chance than rival Sony Corp of surviving Japan's consumer electronics slump because of its unglamorous but stable appliance business of washing machines and fridges, credit rating agency Fitch said Friday.

Fitch cut Panasonic's rating by two notches to BB and Sony three notches to BB minus on Thursday, the first time one of the three major ratings agencies have put the creditworthiness of either company into junk-bond territory.

Rival agencies Moody's and S&P rate both of Japan's consumer electronic giants at the same level, just above junk status. Moody's last cut its rating on Panasonic on Tuesday.

Panasonic "has the advantage of a relatively stable consumer appliance business that is still generating positive margins", Matt Jamieson, Fitch's head of Asia-Pacific, said in a conference call on Friday to explain its ratings downgrades.

But at Sony, he added, "most of their electronic business are loss making, they appear to be overstretched."

Japan's TV industry has been bested by cheaper, more innovative models from Samsung Electronics and other foreign rivals, while tablets and smartphones built by Apple Inc have become the dominant consumer electronics devices.

Investors are focusing on the fate of Sony and Panasonic after another struggling Japanese consumer electronics firm, Sharp Corp, maker of the Aquos TV, secured a $4.6 billion bail-out by banks including Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

Sony and Panasonic have chosen divergent survival paths.

Panasonic, maker of the Viera TV, is looking to expand its businesses in appliances, solar panels, lithium batteries and automotive components. Appliances amount to around only 6 percent of the company's sales, but they generate margins of more than 6 percent and make up a big chunk of operating profit.

Sony, creator of the Walkman, is doubling down on consumer gadgets in a bid to regain ground from Samsung and Apple in mobile devices while bolstering digital cameras and gaming.

The latest downgrades will curtail the ability of both Japanese companies to raise money in credit markets to help fund restructurings of their business portfolios.

For now, however, that impact is limited, given the support Panasonic and Sony are receiving from their banks.

In October, Panasonic, which expects to lose $10 billion in the year to March 31, secured $7.6 billion of loan commitments from banks including Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ, a financing backstop it says will help it avoid having to seek capital in credit markets.

Sony, which has forecast a full-year profit of $1.63 billion helped by the sale of a chemicals business to a Japanese state bank, announced plans to raise $1.9 billion through a convertible bond before the latest rating downgrade.

Thomson Reuters' Starmine structural model, which evaluates market views of credit risk, debt levels and changes in asset values gives Panasonic and Sony an implied rating of BB minus. Sharp's implied rating is three notches lower at B minus.

Standard & Poor's rates Panasonic and Sony at BBB, the second lowest of the investment grade, while Moody's Investors Service has them on Baa3, the lowest of its high-grade category. Moody's has a negative outlook for both firms while S&P sees a stable outlook for Panasonic and a negative one for Sony.

Stock markets in Japan were closed on Friday for a national holiday.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

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Ex-boxer 'Macho' Camacho dies after shooting

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hector "Macho" Camacho, a Puerto Rican boxer known for skill and flamboyance in the ring as well as for a messy personal life and run-ins with the police, was declared dead on Saturday, four days after being shot in the face. He was 50.

Shot while sitting in a parked car outside a bar Tuesday with a friend in the city of Bayamon, he was declared dead at the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan. The friend, 49-year-old Adrian Mojica Moreno, died at the scene of the shooting. Police said Mojica had nine small bags of cocaine in his pocket and a 10th bag was found open in the car.

Originally from Bayamon, just outside San Juan, Camacho was long regarded as a flashy if volatile talent, a skilled boxer who was perhaps overshadowed by his longtime foil, Mexican superstar Julio Cesar Chavez, who would beat him in a long-awaited showdown in Las Vegas in 1992.

Camacho fought professionally for three decades, from his humble debut against David Brown at New York's Felt Forum in 1980 to an equally forgettable swansong against Sal Duran in Kissimmee, Florida, in 2010.

In between, he fought some of the biggest stars spanning two eras, including Sugar Ray Leonard, Felix Trinidad, Oscar De La Hoya and Roberto Duran.

"This is something I've done all my life, you know?" Camacho told The Associated Press after a workout in 2010. "A couple years back, when I was doing it, I was still enjoying it. The competition, to see myself perform. I know I'm at the age that some people can't do this no more."

Camacho's family moved to New York when he was young and he grew up in Spanish Harlem, which at the time was rife with crime. Camacho landed in jail as a teenager before turning to boxing, which for many kids in his neighborhood provided an outlet for their aggression.

Former featherweight champion Juan Laporte, a friend since childhood, described Camacho as "like a little brother who was always getting into trouble," but otherwise combined a friendly nature with a powerful jab.

"He's a good human being, a good hearted person," Laporte said as he waited with other friends and members of the boxer's family outside the hospital in San Juan after the shooting. "A lot of people think of him as a cocky person but that was his motto ... inside he was just a kid looking for something."

Laporte lamented that Camacho never found a mentor outside the boxing ring.

"The people around him didn't have the guts or strength to lead him in the right direction," Laporte said. "There was no one strong enough to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him how to do it."

Drug, alcohol and other problems trailed Camacho after the prime of his boxing career. He was sentenced in 2007 to seven years in prison for the burglary of a computer store in Mississippi. While arresting him on the burglary charge in January 2005, police also found the drug ecstasy.

A judge eventually suspended all but one year of the sentence and gave Camacho probation. He wound up serving two weeks in jail, though, after violating that probation.

Camacho's former wife, Amy, obtained a restraining order against him in 1998, alleging he threatened her and one of their children. The couple, who had two children at the time, later divorced.

He divided his time between Puerto Rico and Florida in recent years, appearing on Spanish-language television as well as on a reality show called "Es Macho Time!" on YouTube.

Inside the boxing ring, Camacho flourished. He won three Golden Gloves titles as an amateur, and after turning pro, he quickly became a contender with an all-action style reminiscent of other Puerto Rican fighters.

Long promoted by Don King, Camacho won his first world title by beating Rafael Limon in a super-featherweight bout in Puerto Rico on Aug. 7, 1983. He moved up in weight two years later to capture a lightweight title by defeating Jose Luis Ramirez, and successfully defended the belt against fellow countryman Edwin Rosario.

The Rosario fight, in which the victorious Camacho still took a savage beating, persuaded him to scale back his ultra-aggressive style in favor of a more cerebral, defensive approach.

The change in style was a big reason that Camacho, at the time 38-0, lost a close split decision to Greg Haugen at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas in 1991.

Camacho won the rematch to set up his signature fight against Chavez, this time at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Camacho was roundly criticized for his lack of action, and the Mexican champion won a lopsided unanimous decision to retain the lightweight title.

It was at that point that Camacho became the name opponent for other rising contenders, rather than the headliner fighting for his own glory.

He lost a unanimous decision to another young Puerto Rican fighter, Trinidad, and was soundly defeated by De La Hoya. In 1997, Camacho ended Leonard's final comeback with a fifth-round knockout. It was Camacho's last big victory even though he boxed for another decade.

"Hector was a fighter who brought a lot of excitement to boxing," said Ed Brophy, executive director of International the Boxing Hall of Fame. "He was a good champion. Roberto Duran is kind of in a class of his own, but Hector surely was an exciting fighter that gave his all to the sport."

The fighter's last title bout came in 1997 against welterweight champion Oscar De La Hoya, who won by unanimous decision. Camacho's last fight was his defeat by Duran in May 2010. He had a career record of 79-6-3.

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AP PHOTOS: TV icon Larry Hagman through the years

Larry Hagman, whose masterful portrayal of the charmingly loathsome J.R. Ewing on “Dallas” brought him his greatest stardom, has died at the age of 81. That role on CBS’ long-running nighttime soap opera was a ratings bonanza for the network, particularly the “Who shot J.R.?” story twist.

Years before “Dallas,” Hagman gained TV fame as a nice guy with the fluffy 1965-70 NBC comedy “I Dream of Jeannie.” He played Capt. Tony Nelson, an astronaut whose life is disrupted when he finds a comely genie, portrayed by Barbara Eden, and takes her home to live with him.

He also starred in two short-lived sitcoms, “The Good Life” (NBC, 1971-72) and “Here We Go Again” (ABC, 1973). His film work included well-regarded performances in “The Group,” ”Harry and Tonto” and “Primary Colors.”

Here, in images, are some of Hagman’s memorable moments:

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

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