Texans top Lions 34-31 in OT after coach's mistake

DETROIT (AP) — The Houston Texans took advantage of a big mistake by Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz.

Shayne Graham's 32-yard field goal with 2:21 left overtime lifted Houston to a 34-31 win over Detroit on Thursday after Schwartz broke an NFL rule on a scoring play.

Detroit kicker Jason Hanson had a chance to get Schwartz off the hook, but his 47-yard field goal attempt on the fifth possession of the extra period hit the right upright.

Schwartz threw a challenge flag when Houston's Justin Forsett scored on an 81-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. Replays showed Forsett was down near midfield, but Schwartz negated the automatic review by challenging the play and was called for unsportsmanlike conduct.

"It's on me," Schwartz said to his assistant coaches and players on the sideline as he tapped his chest. "It's on me."

Yes, it was.

That touchdown pulled Houston within three points counted and Schwartz was called for unsportsmanlike conduct.

AFC South-leading Houston (10-1) took its first lead when Graham made up for missing a field goal earlier in a turnover-filled OT. The Texans have won five straight — two in a row in OT — and if a handful of teams lose they might be in the playoffs by the time they get back on the practice field after a long weekend.

Detroit (4-7) has lost three straight to make it extremely difficult to reach its goal of earning a spot in consecutive postseasons for the first time since the mid-1990s.

And as if the Lions don't have enough problems, defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh could be in trouble with the league again after his left cleat connected with Matt Schaub's groin area in the first quarter. It wasn't clear on replays Thursday whether it was intentional, but it might be tough for Suh to get the benefit of doubt.

Suh was on his chest, taken down by an offensive lineman, when he extended his left foot below Schaub's belt.

Last year on Thanksgiving, Suh was ejected for stomping on the right arm of Green Bay offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith and was suspended for two games. He has been fined in previous seasons for roughing up quarterbacks: Cincinnati's Andy Dalton, Chicago's Jay Cutler and Cleveland's Jake Delhomme.

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Follow Larry Lage on Twitter: http://twitter.com/larrylage

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Study finds mammograms lead to unneeded treatment

Mammograms have done surprisingly little to catch deadly breast cancers before they spread, a big U.S. study finds. At the same time, more than a million women have been treated for cancers that never would have threatened their lives, researchers estimate.

Up to one-third of breast cancers, or 50,000 to 70,000 cases a year, don't need treatment, the study suggests.

It's the most detailed look yet at overtreatment of breast cancer, and it adds fresh evidence that screening is not as helpful as many women believe. Mammograms are still worthwhile, because they do catch some deadly cancers and save lives, doctors stress. And some of them disagree with conclusions the new study reached.

But it spotlights a reality that is tough for many Americans to accept: Some abnormalities that doctors call "cancer" are not a health threat or truly malignant. There is no good way to tell which ones are, so many women wind up getting treatments like surgery and chemotherapy that they don't really need.

Men have heard a similar message about PSA tests to screen for slow-growing prostate cancer, but it's relatively new to the debate over breast cancer screening.

"We're coming to learn that some cancers — many cancers, depending on the organ — weren't destined to cause death," said Dr. Barnett Kramer, a National Cancer Institute screening expert. However, "once a woman is diagnosed, it's hard to say treatment is not necessary."

He had no role in the study, which was led by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School and Dr. Archie Bleyer of St. Charles Health System and Oregon Health & Science University. Results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer and cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Nearly 1.4 million new cases are diagnosed each year. Other countries screen less aggressively than the U.S. does. In Britain, for example, mammograms are usually offered only every three years and a recent review there found similar signs of overtreatment.

The dogma has been that screening finds cancer early, when it's most curable. But screening is only worthwhile if it finds cancers destined to cause death, and if treating them early improves survival versus treating when or if they cause symptoms.

Mammograms also are an imperfect screening tool — they often give false alarms, spurring biopsies and other tests that ultimately show no cancer was present. The new study looks at a different risk: Overdiagnosis, or finding cancer that is present but does not need treatment.

Researchers used federal surveys on mammography and cancer registry statistics from 1976 through 2008 to track how many cancers were found early, while still confined to the breast, versus later, when they had spread to lymph nodes or more widely.

The scientists assumed that the actual amount of disease — how many true cases exist — did not change or grew only a little during those three decades. Yet they found a big difference in the number and stage of cases discovered over time, as mammograms came into wide use.

Mammograms more than doubled the number of early-stage cancers detected — from 112 to 234 cases per 100,000 women. But late-stage cancers dropped just 8 percent, from 102 to 94 cases per 100,000 women.

The imbalance suggests a lot of overdiagnosis from mammograms, which now account for 60 percent of cases that are found, Bleyer said. If screening were working, there should be one less patient diagnosed with late-stage cancer for every additional patient whose cancer was found at an earlier stage, he explained.

"Instead, we're diagnosing a lot of something else — not cancer" in that early stage, Bleyer said. "And the worst cancer is still going on, just like it always was."

Researchers also looked at death rates for breast cancer, which declined 28 percent during that time in women 40 and older — the group targeted for screening. Mortality dropped even more — 41 percent — in women under 40, who presumably were not getting mammograms.

"We are left to conclude, as others have, that the good news in breast cancer — decreasing mortality — must largely be the result of improved treatment, not screening," the authors write.

The study was paid for by the study authors' universities.

"This study is important because what it really highlights is that the biology of the cancer is what we need to understand" in order to know which ones to treat and how, said Dr. Julia A. Smith, director of breast cancer screening at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Doctors already are debating whether DCIS, a type of early tumor confined to a milk duct, should even be called cancer, she said.

Another expert, Dr. Linda Vahdat, director of the breast cancer research program at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said the study's leaders made many assumptions to reach a conclusion about overdiagnosis that "may or may not be correct."

"I don't think it will change how we view screening mammography," she said.

A government-appointed task force that gives screening advice calls for mammograms every other year starting at age 50 and stopping at 75. The American Cancer Society recommends them every year starting at age 40.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer, said the study should not be taken as "a referendum on mammography," and noted that other high-quality studies have affirmed its value. Still, he said overdiagnosis is a problem, and it's not possible to tell an individual woman whether her cancer needs treated.

"Our technology has brought us to the place where we can find a lot of cancer. Our science has to bring us to the point where we can define what treatment people really need," he said.

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Online:

Study: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1206809

Screening advice: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Lawsuit against Madonna dismissed in Russia

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — A Russian court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit that sought millions of dollars in damages from Madonna for allegedly traumatizing minors by speaking up for gay rights during a concert in St. Petersburg.

The ruling came after a one-day hearing that bordered on the farcical. During it, plaintiffs claimed that Madonna's so-called "propaganda of perversion" would negatively affect Russia's birthrate and erode the nation's defense capability by depriving the country of future soldiers. At one point, the judge threatened to expel journalists from the courtroom if they laughed too much.

In the end, the Moskovsky district court in St. Petersburg threw out the Trade Union of Russian Citizens' lawsuit and the 333 million rubles ($10.7 million) it sought from the singer for allegedly exposing youths to "homosexual propaganda."

Madonna did not attend the trial, and her publicist Liz Rosenberg said Thursday the star wouldn't comment about it.

Anti-gay sentiment is strong in Russia, particularly in St. Petersburg, where local legislators passed a law in February that made it illegal to promote homosexuality to minors. Six months later, Madonna criticized the law on Facebook, then stood up for gay rights during a concert in St. Petersburg that drew fans as young as 12.

"Who will children grow up to be if they hear about the equal rights of the lesbian lobby and manly love with traditional sexual relations?" one of the plaintiffs, Darya Dedova, testified Thursday. "The death rate prevails over the birth rate in the West; young guys are becoming gender neutral."

The plaintiffs submitted evidence about gay culture drawn from Wikipedia pages, claiming that a real encyclopedia could not have articles about homosexuality.

"We aren't against homosexual people, but we are against the propaganda of perversion among minors," Dedova told the court. "We want to defend the values of a traditional family, which are currently in crisis in this country. Madonna violated our laws and she should be punished."

Madonna, who performed in Moscow and St. Petersburg in August as part of her world tour, also angered Russian officials by supporting jailed members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot. The American said during her Moscow concert that she would "pray for them," then turned around so the audience could see the words "Pussy Riot" written on her back. The singer also donned a ski mask similar to those worn by Pussy Riot.

Despite international outrage, three of that band's members were sentenced to two years in jail on hooliganism charges for performing a "punk prayer" at Moscow's main cathedral, during which they pleaded with the Virgin Mary to deliver Russia from President Vladimir Putin. One of the Pussy Riot members was later released from jail on appeal, but the other two were sent to prison camps to serve their sentences.

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Seddon reported from Moscow.

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Judge to let Hostess liquidation proceed

Hostess Brands Inc. on Wednesday won permission from a U.S. bankruptcy judge to begin shutting down, and expressed optimism it will find new homes for many of its iconic brands, which include Twinkies, Drake's cakes and Wonder Bread.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York authorized management, led by restructuring specialist Gregory Rayburn, to immediately begin efforts to wind down the 82-year-old company, a process expected to take one year.

"It appears clear to me that the debtors have taken the right course in seeking to implement the wind-down plan as promptly as possible," Drain said near the end of a four-hour hearing.

The judge authorized Hostess to begin the liquidation process one day after his last-ditch mediation effort between the Irving, Texas-based company and its striking bakers' union broke down.

Roughly 15,000 workers were expected to lose their jobs immediately, and most of the remaining 3,200 would be let go within four months.

"This is a tragedy, and we're well aware of it," Heather Lennox, a lawyer for Hostess, told the judge. "We are trying to be as sensitive as we can possibly be under the circumstances to the human cost of this."

Lennox said Hostess has received a "flood of inquiries" from potential buyers for several brands that could be sold at auction, and expects initial bidders within a few weeks.

Joshua Scherer, a partner at Perella Weinberg Partners, which is advising Hostess, said the company was in "active dialogue" over its Drake's brand with one "very interested" party that had toured a New Jersey plant on Tuesday.

He said that regional bakeries, national rivals, private equity firms and others have also expressed interest in various brands and that more than 50 nondisclosure agreements have been signed.

"These are iconic brands that people love," Scherer said.

While prospective buyers were not identified at the hearing, bankers have said rivals including Flowers Foods Inc. and Mexico's Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV were likely to be interested in some of the brands.

Representatives of neither company responded on Wednesday to requests for comment.

Scherer said Hostess could be worth $2.3 billion to $2.4 billion in a normal bankruptcy, an amount equal to its annual revenue. It also has about $900 million of secured debt and faces up to about $150 million of administrative claims.

Scherer expects a discount in this case because plants have already been closed and Hostess' value could fall further if the liquidation were dragged out.

"I've had buyers tell me, 'Josh, the longer it takes, the less value I'm going to be able to pay you,' " he said.

Hostess decided to liquidate on Nov. 16, saying it was losing about $1 million per day after the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union, representing close to one-third of its workers, went on strike a week earlier.

The bakers union walked out after Drain authorized Hostess to impose pay and benefit cuts, which the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Hostess' largest union, had accepted.

Hostess has about 33 plants, plus three it decided to close after the strike began, as well as 565 distribution centers and 570 bakery outlet stores.

Many of the 3,200 workers expected to stay on will help shut these properties and prepare them for sale. Hostess expects to need only about 200 employees by late March.

Rayburn, a former chief restructuring officer for the bankrupt phone company WorldCom Inc., said that letting 15,000 workers go now helps preserve their ability to obtain unemployment benefits.

"I need to maximize the value of the estate, but I need to do the best I can for my employees," he said.

Hostess filed for Chapter 11 protection on Jan. 11, its second bankruptcy filing in less than three years.

The case is In re: Hostess Brands Inc. et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-22052.

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Jesse Jackson Jr. resigns, acknowledges federal probe

Rep. Jesse Jackson resigned from Congress Wednesday, saying in a letter that he is cooperating with a federal investigation "into my activities" but blaming his health problems for his decision to step down just two weeks after his re-election.

Jackson's letter to House Speaker John Boehner was his first acknowledgment of the ongoing corruption probe into his alleged misuse of campaign dollars.

"I am doing my best to address the situation responsibly, cooperate with the investigators, and accept responsibility for my mistakes, for they are my mistakes and mine alone," Jackson said in the two-page letter dated Nov. 21. "None of us is immune from our share of shortcomings or human frailties and I pray that I will be remembered for what I did right."

Despite his admission of "my share of mistakes," Jackson said his deteriorating health was the reason he was quitting. He has been on medical leave since June while receiving treatment for bipolar depression.

"Against the recommendations of my doctors, I had hoped and tried to return to Washington and continue working on the issues that matter most to the people of the Second District. I know now that will not be possible," Jackson said in the letter.

"My health issues and treatment regimen have become incompatible with service in the House of Representatives. Therefore, it is with great regret that I hereby resign as a member of the United States House of Representatives, effective today, in order to focus on restoring my health," Jackson wrote.

The congressman could not be reached.

Hours after the letter was submitted, Jackson's attorneys -- including former federal prosecutor Dan Webb -- released a statement saying any "resolution" of the federal probe could be months away.

“Mr. Jackson is cooperating with the investigation," the statement read. "We hope to negotiate a fair resolution of the matter but the process could take several months. During that time, we will have no further comment and urge you to give Mr. Jackson the privacy he needs to heal and handle these issues responsibly.”

Jackson, 47, won election this month while being treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. and issued a statement on election night saying he would return to work once his doctors approved.

"Once the doctors approve my return to work, I will continue to be the progressive fighter you have known for years," said Jackson, no longer a patient at Mayo. "My family and I are grateful for your many heartfelt prayers and kind thoughts. I continue to feel better every day and look forward to serving you."

He has not appeared in the House since June 8. Nor did he stage a campaign event -- or even run a TV ad. Jackson advanced to the general election after defeating a one-term member of Congress, Debbie Halvorson, in a March primary.

The next Congress will be sworn in Jan. 3 and Jackson would have been required to take the oath of office before being allowed to vote.

News of the resignation on the eve of Thanksgiving, when Congress was not meeting and many Washingtonians were traveling, seemed to take even Jackson staffers by surprise.
 
His press secretary, Frank Watkins, said Wednesday morning that he didn’t know anything about a possible resignation. Watkins attributed the rumors to press speculation.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement that she had spoken to Jackson and his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, earlier in the afternoon.
 
“As he works to address his health, our thoughts and prayers are with him, his wife Sandi, his children as well as his parents," she said in a statement. "We are grateful to him and his family for their longstanding record of public service to our country.”

The House adjourned Friday and reconvenes at 2 p.m. Tuesday.  Protocol calls for Jackson's letter to be placed before the House on Tuesday and his resignation noted then, an official said. Normally the House has 435 members, but there is now one vacancy, so Jackson's will be a second.

Under Illinois law, Gov. Pat Quinn, a fellow Democrat, would call a special election to fill Jackson’s 2nd District congressional seat, which extends from Chicago’s South Side to Kankakee. Quinn has five days to set a schedule for the election. Election law says it must be held within 115 days.

Jackson's resignation, long suspected by political insiders, set off a scramble with as many as a dozen names of potential successors already surfacing. They range from political has-beens to up-and-comers in the south suburban district.

Jackson has been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged improprieties related to his bid to win appointment in 2008 to the Senate seat that had been held by President Barack Obama. A Jackson emissary is alleged to have offered to raise up to $6 million in campaign funds for disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in exchange for the governor appointing Jackson to the Senate seat.

Blagojevich is serving a prison term for corruption convictions including trying to sell or trade the Senate seat.

After the March primary election, the congressman’s aides belatedly announced his medical leave, which at first was blamed on “exhaustion.”

He is the son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, and the husband of Chicago Ald. Sandi Jackson, 7th.

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In HP-Autonomy debacle, many advisers but little good advice

(Reuters) - When Hewlett Packard acquired Autonomy last year for $11.1 billion, some 15 different financial, legal and accounting firms were involved in the transaction -- and none raised a flag about what HP said Tuesday was a major accounting fraud.

HP stunned Wall Street with the allegations about its British software unit and took an $8.8 billion writedown, the latest in a string of reversals for the storied company.

HP Chief Executive Meg Whitman, who was a director at the company at the time of the deal, said the board had relied on accounting firm Deloitte for vetting Autonomy's financials and that KPMG was subsequently hired to audit Deloitte.

HP had many other advisers as well: boutique investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners to serve as its lead adviser, along with Barclays. Banking advisers on both sides of the deal were paid $68.8 million, according to data from Thomson Reuters/Freeman Consulting.

Barclays pocketed the biggest banker fee of the transaction at $18.1 million and Perella was paid $12 million. The company's legal advisers included Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Drinker Biddle & Reath; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which advised the board.

On Autonomy's side of the table were Frank Quattrone's Qatalyst Partners, which specializes in tech deals and which picked up $11.6 million.

UBS, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America were also advising Autonomy and were paid $5.4 million each. Slaughter & May and Morgan Lewis served as the company's legal advisers.

While regulators in the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are likely to spend many months if not years investigating what happened, legal experts said on Tuesday that it wasn't clear if any of the advisers would ultimately be held liable.

"The most logical deep pocket would be the acquired firm's auditors, who should have allegedly caught these defalcations," said James Cox, a professor at Duke University law school who specializes in corporate and securities law. Since both auditors missed the problems and it appeared to have taken HP a while to catch it after it took over Autonomy, the auditors may have a strong defense.

"You can have a perfectly sound audit and still have fraud exist," he said. A Deloitte UK spokesman said the company could not comment and would cooperate with any investigations.

The law firms and the bankers will likely argue that they were not hired to review the bookkeeping and had relied on the opinion of the auditors, securities law experts said.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the HP-Autonomy transaction added that the big-name banks on Autonomy's side were brought in days before the final agreement was struck. These sources said the banks were brought on as favors for their long relationships with the companies, in a little-scrutinized Wall Street practice of crediting -- and paying -- investment banks that actually have little do with the deal.

LAWSUITS, REPUTATIONS AT STAKE

Plaintiffs lawyers said they were taking calls from investors about HP on Tuesday. Darren Robbins, a San Diego-based plaintiff lawyer who represents shareholders, said the tech icon appears to have spent billions on a shoddy company without undertaking the proper due diligence, and thus misrepresented its finances to investors.

"I think they have serious troubles," he said.

But plaintiff lawyers may have difficulty bringing so-called derivative lawsuits against professional services firms, said Brian Quinn, an M&A professor at Boston College Law School. In those cases, plaintiff lawyers can sue third parties, such as auditors, on behalf of HP -- but they must convince a judge that HP's board is unfit to pursue those claims itself. In this situation, though, HP's board disclosed the alleged fraud itself, Quinn said.

Even if the bankers and lawyers escape any legal problems, they could suffer a reputational hit. The scrutiny could be particularly unwelcome for Perella Weinberg: the firm advised Japanese camera maker Olympus' acquisition of British Gyrus -- a transaction that prompted investigations in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan into fees and payments made by Olympus.

Olympus had hired Perella to execute the transaction, which included a fee paid to "advisers" of $687 million - way beyond the usual scale for a transaction valued at only $2 billion. Perella was not implicated in the matter.

Meanwhile, the most controversial banker involved in the HP-Autonomy deal, Frank Quattrone of Qatalyst, represented Autonomy and played a key role in getting HP to pay a high price.

A star investment banker in the 1990s, Quattrone had worked at Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, and helped arrange some of the biggest tech initial public offerings of the era, including Amazon.com Inc and Cisco Systems Inc.

But his time at the top of Silicon Valley was curtailed by charges that he blocked an investigation into IPO kickbacks. After two trials failed to resolve his case, he ultimately reached a deal with prosecutors.

His return to the Silicon Valley M&A scene has impressed many in the tech world.

"His reputation is at an all-time high right now," said Dan Scheinman, the former head of mergers and acquisitions at Cisco who has worked with Quattrone on several deals.

Analysts almost uniformly deemed the $11.1 billion he got HP to pay for Autonomy as overly rich -- a compliment to him at the time, but possibly a hollow success if HP's allegations prove true.

(Reporting By Nadia Damouni and Nicola Leske in New York and Andrew Callus in London. Additional reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco.; Editing by Peter Lauria, Jonathan Weber, Muralikumar Anantharaman, Janet McBride)

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Boxer 'Macho' Camacho critical in Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hector "Macho" Camacho was clinging to life Wednesday after being shot in the face while in a car, with doctors and his family expected to decide whether to remove the former boxing champion from life support.

Doctors initially had said Camacho was in critical, but stable condition and expected to survive after he was shot Tuesday night in his hometown of Bayamon. But his condition worsened overnight and his heart stopped at one point, said Dr. Ernesto Torres, director of the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan.

"He's battling minute to minute. This is the most important fight of his life," Torres told The Associated Press outside the hospital in the Puerto Rican capital.

The 50-year-old Camacho was shot as he and a friend sat in a Ford Mustang parked outside a bar. Police spokesman Alex Diaz said officers found nine small bags of cocaine in the friend's pocket, and a 10th bag open inside the car.

Torres said doctors were trying to determine the boxer's level of brain activity.

The specialists will then consult with other doctors and Camacho's mother, who flew in Wednesday from New York, to discuss whether he should be removed from life support, said Ismael Leandry, a longtime friend and former manager who was also at the hospital.

"We just have to wait to see if 'Macho' gets better. It's a hard battle," Leandry told AP.

Torres said Camacho's mother, Maria Matias, spent about 20 minutes with her son, one of the most dynamic boxing personalities of his era, and was expected to return for a second visit on Wednesday night.

"His mother came and she is devastated," he said. "She knows the prognosis is not at all favorable."

A godson, Widniel Adorno, said the family has discussed the possibility of organ donation but no final decision has been made.

Camacho's friend, identified as 49-year-old Adrian Mojica Moreno, was killed in the attack. Police said two assailants fled in an SUV but no arrests have been made and no motive has been disclosed.

Camacho was rushed to Centro Medico, where doctors initially said the bullet passed through his jaw and lodged in his shoulder. Torres said the bullet damaged three of the four main arteries in his neck and fractured two vertebrae, which could leave him paralyzed if he were to survive.

Steve Tannenbaum, who has also represented Camacho in the past, had been told earlier by friends at the hospital that the boxer would make it.

"This guy is a cat with nine lives. He's been through so much," he said. "If anybody can pull through it will be him."

Friends and family members waited anxiously at the hospital, fondly recalling Camacho's high-energy personality and his powerful skills in the ring.

"He was like a little brother who was always getting into trouble," said former featherweight champion Juan Laporte, a fellow Puerto Rican who grew up and trained with Camacho in New York.

Camacho has been considered one of the more controversial figures in boxing, but also popular among fans and those who worked in the sport.

"The Macho Man was a promoter's dream," renowned promoter Don King told AP. "He excited boxing fans around the world with his inimitable style. He was a nice, amiable guy away from the ring."

King had promoted Camacho but was caught off guard by news of the attack on the former champion. "What a tragedy this is," he said. "I'm very sorry for Hector and his family. My prayers go out to him."

The fighter's last title bout came against then-welterweight champion Oscar De La Hoya in 1997, a loss by unanimous decision. He last fought in May 2010, losing to Saul Duran. Tannenbaum said they were looking at a possible bout in 2013.

"We were talking comeback even though he is 50," he said. "I felt he was capable of it."

Camacho was born in Bayamon, one of the cities that make up the San Juan metropolitan area

He left Puerto Rico as a child and grew up mostly in New York's Harlem neighborhood, one of the reasons he later earned the nickname "the Harlem Heckler."

He went on to win super lightweight, lightweight and junior welterweight world titles in the 1980s.

Camacho has fought other high-profile bouts in his career against Felix Trinidad, Julio Cesar Chavez and Sugar Ray Leonard. Camacho knocked out Leonard in 1997, ending what was that former champ's final comeback attempt.

Camacho has a career record of 79-6-3.

In recent years, he has divided his time between Puerto Rico and Florida, appearing regularly on Spanish-language television as well as on a reality show called "Es Macho Time!" on YouTube. In San Juan, he had been living in the beach community of Isla Verde, where he would obligingly pose for photos with tourists who recognized him on the street, said former pro boxer Victor "Luvi" Callejas, a neighbor and friend.

"We all know what Macho Camacho has done, but in the last couple of months he hasn't been in any trouble," Callejas said as he kept vigil outside the hospital. "He has been taking it easy. He's been upbeat."

Drug, alcohol and other problems have trailed Camacho since 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.

His wife also filed domestic abuse complaints against him twice before their divorce several years ago.

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Associated Press writer David Skretta in Kansas City contributed to this report.

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US abortions fall 5 pct, biggest drop in a decade

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. abortions fell 5 percent during the recession and its aftermath in the biggest one-year decrease in at least a decade, perhaps because women are more careful to use birth control when times are tough, researchers say.

The decline, detailed on Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, came in 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Both the number of abortions and the abortion rate dropped by the same percentage.

Some experts theorize that some women believed they couldn't afford to get pregnant.

"They stick to straight and narrow ... and they are more careful about birth control," said Elizabeth Ananat, a Duke University assistant professor of public policy and economics who has researched abortions.

While many states have aggressively restricted access to abortion, most of those laws were adopted in the past two years and are not believed to have played a role in the decline.

Abortions have been dropping slightly over much of the past decade. But before this latest report, they seemed to have pretty much leveled off.

Nearly all states report abortion numbers to the federal government, but it's voluntary. A few states — including California, which has the largest population and largest number of abortion providers — don't send in data. While experts estimate there are more than 1 million abortions nationwide each year, the CDC counted about 785,000 in 2009 because of incomplete reporting.

To come up with reliable year-to-year comparisons, the CDC used the numbers from 43 states and two cities — those that have been sending in data consistently for at least 10 years. The researchers found that abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age fell from about 16 in 2008 to roughly 15 in 2009. That translates to nearly 38,000 fewer abortions in one year.

Mississippi had the lowest abortion rate, at 4 per 1,000 women of child-bearing age. The state also had only a couple of abortion providers and has the nation's highest teen birth rate. New York, second to California in number of abortion providers, had the highest abortion rate, roughly eight times Mississippi's.

Nationally since 2000, the number of reported abortions has dropped overall by about 6 percent and the abortion rate has fallen 7 percent.

By all accounts, contraception is playing a role in lowering the numbers.

Some experts cite a government study released earlier this year suggesting that about 60 percent of teenage girls who have sex use the most effective kinds of contraception, including the pill and patch. That's up from the mid-1990s, when fewer than half were using the best kinds.

Experts also pointed to the growing use of IUDs, or intrauterine devices, T-shaped plastic sperm-killers that a doctor inserts into the uterus. A study released earlier this year by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization that does research on reproductive health, showed that IUD use among sexually active women on birth control rose from less than 3 percent in 2002 to more than 8 percent in 2009.

IUDs essentially prevent "user error," said Rachel Jones, a Guttmacher researcher.

Ananat said another factor may be the growing use of the morning-after pill, a form of emergency contraception that has been increasingly easier to get. It came onto the market in 1999 and in 2006 was approved for non-prescription sale to women 18 and older. In 2009 that was lowered to 17.

Underlying all this may be the economy, which was in recession from December 2007 until June 2009. Even well afterward, polls showed most Americans remained worried about anemic hiring, a depressed housing market and other problems.

You might think a bad economy would lead to more abortions by women who are struggling. However, John Santelli, a Columbia University professor of population and family health, said: "The economy seems to be having a fundamental effect on pregnancies, not abortions."

More findings from the CDC:

— The majority of abortions are performed by the eighth week of pregnancy, when the fetus is about the size of a lima bean.

— White women had the lowest abortion rate, at about 8.5 per 1,000 women of child-bearing age; the rate for black women was about four times that. The rate for Hispanic women was about 19 per 1,000.

— About 85 percent of those who got abortions were unmarried.

— The CDC identified 12 abortion-related deaths in 2009.

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Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell offer custom recordings

NEW YORK (AP) — Imagine having William Shatner supply your outgoing voicemail message. Or maybe you'd prefer Morgan Freeman coolly telling callers to wait for the beep. Or perhaps having Betty White joke around is more your speed.

All it takes is $299 and some luck.

The advocacy group Autism Speaks is offering custom-recorded messages from those celebrities as well as Will Ferrell, Carrie Fisher, Tom Hanks, Derek Jeter, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart and Ed Asner.

From Dec. 3 to Dec. 9, a limited number of 20-second long MP3 messages will be recorded by each celebrity on a first-come, first-served basis for fans to do with as they wish. All requests must be of the PG variety.

Asner, the curmudgeonly Emmy Award winner of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Lou Grant," dreamed up the unusual fundraiser with his son Matt, who works for Autism Speaks.

"I think people will get a charge out of it," says Asner, who is currently on Broadway in the play "Grace." ''I'll probably say, 'What are you wearing?' Or, 'Take it off.' Something like that."

All proceeds will support autism research and advocacy efforts. An estimated 1 in 88 children in the U.S. is on the autism spectrum, a developmental disorder characterized by communication difficulties, social and behavioral challenges, as well as repetitive behaviors.

If he could get a message from one of the other stars participating, which would Asner want?

"I'm awfully stuck on Will Ferrell, having been subjected to him in 'Elf,'" Asner says. "But they're all such standouts — Patrick Stewart, Leonard Nimoy, Shatner. The list doesn't stop. Even Betty White," he adds about his "MTM" co-star. "She's still got some good left in her."

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Online: http://SoundOffForAutismSpeaks.com

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Judge rejects 9/11 suit against United

United Airline employees help passengers at the check-in counter in Terminal 1 at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. (Stacey Wescott, Chicago Tribune / November 15, 2012)

Reuters

9:48 a.m. CST, November 21, 2012

United Airlines bears no responsibility for suspected security lapses at a Maine airport that allowed hijackers onto the American Airlines plane that crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Wednesday granted a request by United and its parent United Continental Holdings Inc. to dismiss negligence claims brought by Larry Silverstein, the leaseholder of the World Trade Center property.

The decision concerned the destruction of 7 World Trade Center, the North Tower that collapsed hours after being pierced by debris stemming from the crash of AMR Corp.'s American Airlines Flight 11 into 1 World Trade Center.

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