"My mother passed away this morning just a short time ago, peaceful with my sister by her side, in her sleep," Bernsen said in a post on Facebook.

Bernsen had been updating the status of Cooper's health on Facebook and Twitter over the past few weeks. Neither the cause of Cooper's death nor what she had been suffering from has been disclosed.

Cooper joined the cast of CBS network's "The Young and the Restless," in its first season in 1973, and portrayed the boozy and wealthy Katherine Chancellor. She was still a cast member at the time of her death although her character recently underwent surgery for a brain tumor.

Known as the "The Duchess" and the "Grand Dame of Genoa City," the Chancellor character is credited with giving the series a dash of controversy during its beginnings and becoming an iconic figure in U.S. television soap opera genre.

Cooper's cast mates took to Twitter to remember an enduring star of U.S. daytime television.

"A very sad day for all of us," co-star Jessica Collins posted on Twitter.

"Heaven just gained one feisty angel," said Melissa Claire Egan, another actress on the series.

Cooper, a daytime Emmy winner, also brought her personal life onto the show in 1984 when footage of her real-life facelift was used to depict her character undergoing the same procedure.

Cooper was born in Taft, California, in 1928 and began her professional screen acting career in the 1953 film "The Redhead from Wyoming."

She also appeared on several television shows in the 1950s and 1960s, including "The Twilight Zone" and "Perry Mason," before joining "The Young and the Restless."

Cooper had three children, Caren, Collin and Corbin, who currently stars on the comedy-drama series "Psych" on the USA Network.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Jill Serjeant and Jackie Frank)

LAS VEGAS, May 1 (Reuters) - Eight-time world champion Floyd Mayweather refused to be drawn into a war of words at the final news conference for his WBC welterweight title clash with Robert Guerrero on Wednesday, despite being labeled a "woman beater" by his opponent's father.

The undefeated Mayweather (43-0, 26 KOs), who has said he has 30 months of boxing left before he brings the curtain down on his career, was a picture of calm as Ruben Guerrero screamed at him: "We are going to beat the woman beater".

Mayweather served two months of a 90-day sentence for domestic violence last year.

"I don't have to sit here and badmouth his father,"shrugged Mayweather after the news conference. "Only God can judge me."

The fight in Las Vegas on Saturday will mark a turning point in Mayweather's often contentious relationship with his own father, Floyd Sr, who will be in his corner for the first time since a March 2000 win over Gregorio Vargas.

"My dad is sick, and if I never made a bond with my father and something harsh happened, it would hurt me," said Mayweather of his father, who has been suffering from sarcoidosis. Mending fences with his father, he adds, has yielded professional as well as personal benefits.

"There's certain things only my dad may see in training camp," he told reporters. "For this fight, I made sure I got more rest.

"My dad said, 'You need the rest. And when you've rested, you can come back and box in the gym and you're going to look a lot better.' And he was right. I feel like I'm in tip-top shape, tip-top condition. I'm ready to fight."

Guerrero, too, is ready to fight, and believes Mayweather has invited more stress on himself by starting the countdown clock on his career.

"They say the pressure is on me. The pressure is on him to stay undefeated, to keep his legacy going," Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 KOs) told reporters on Wednesday. "He has these 30 months left, and he's got a lot of stuff to fulfill, so I think the pressure is on him and not me."

Guerrero first called for a fight with Mayweather in 2011, even though at lightweight he was two weight divisions lower.

However, he made the step up to welterweight and scored two victories last year, including a thrilling brawl with former title holder Andre Berto in November, to earn the shot at Mayweather's title.

"Definitely, I absolutely believed I would get (the fight)," said Guerrero. "That's why I kept on it, and kept fighting the fights I needed to get myself in position to make it happen, and here it is." (Editing by Peter Rutherford)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The Fab Four are headed to Broadway this summer.

The jukebox Beatles musical "Let It Be" will hit the Great White Way for a limited engagement in St. James Theatre, producers said Wednesday. The creative and design team and casting will be announced at a later date.

The show will continue its London West End run, where it has recouped its initial investment despite earning mixed notices from critics.

The Guardian's Michael Billington, for instance, wrote, "There is a good musical to be written about the Beatles, covering their artistic achievements as well as the internal friction that led to their breakup. Unfortunately, this is not it."

But other critics found the proceedings and, in particular, the catalogue of hits like "Twist and Shout" and "Yesterday" to be an engaging evening of theater.

The show samples liberally from The Beatles' canon as it traces their rise from Liverpool's Cavern Club to international stardom.

The show will begin previews on July 16, with opening night slated for July 24.

"Let It Be" will be produced on Broadway by Jeff Parry/Annerin Productions.

SERRA SAN BRUNO (Reuters) - Enrico Battaglin led an Italian 1-2-3 to win the fourth stage of the Giro d'Italia on Tuesday as Britain's Bradley Wiggins lost time in a testing finale.

The Tour de France champion lost 17 seconds as the peloton split in the final kilometers that included a quick descent followed by a flat section, which riders tackled in heavy rain with a cobbled section in the home straight.

Wiggins dropped from second to sixth overall, 34 seconds adrift of Italian Luca Paolini who retained the pink jersey after finishing safe in the bunch.

The Briton was one of several riders held up behind a crash involving Juan Manuel Garate, Cristiano Salerno and Laurent Pichon, which happened with less than two kilometers left in the stage.

International Cycling Union (UCI) regulations state that a rider who is held up in this way in the final three kilometers - with the exception of uphill finishes - is credited with the same time as the main bunch.

Herve Broecke, president of UCI commissaires on the Giro, explained, however, that the "three-kilometre" rule could not be applied to Wiggins as he had already dropped back.

"Wiggins was already behind the bunch when the crash took place because there was a split in the peloton, which was very strung out," he told reporters.

"The crash took place with less than three kilometers to go, we watched to see who had been affected by this crash and they were given the time of the riders they were with."

Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford played down the impact of Wiggins's time loss.

"It's like anything, you'd prefer it not to happen, but I don't think it's race changing," he told reporters.

"It puts him back on a par with everyone else. I think the big gaps will appear in the time trials and the big mountain stages, that's where this race is won and lost.

"On these early stages, you win some seconds here, and you lose seconds there."

Other pre-race favorites Cadel Evans of Australia, Italian Vincenzo Nibali and defending champion Ryder Hesjedal of Canada came home safe after a 246-km undulating trek from Policastro Bussentino.

Paolini leads Colombian Rigoberto Uran of Team Sky by 17 seconds with Spain's Benat Inxausti in third 26 seconds off the pace for Movistar.

PERFECTLY TIMED

Nibali and Hesjedal leapfrogged Wiggins and are now fourth and fifth, 31 and 34 seconds off the pace respectively.

Nibali, however, survived a scare with 35 kilometers remaining when he suffered a mechanical problem but managed to get back into the bunch after team mate Valerio Agnoli gave him his wheel.

With the second-category Croce Ferrata climb looming, several riders, among them Frenchman Sylvain Georges, tried their luck, jumping away from the main pack.

Team Sky moved to the front of the peloton, set a decent pace and toyed with the Frenchman.

Danilo Di Luca, the 2007 Giro winner, and Robinson Chalapud of Colombia also attacked and whizzed past Georges but the Italian was reined inthe final straight as Battaglin launched a perfectly-timed sprint.

Fabio Felline (Androni Giocattoli) and Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) finished second and third respectively.

"I knew that this finale was tailor-made for me," Battaglin told TV channel BeIn Sport.

"I knew it was now or never for me to win a stage."

Wednesday's fifth stage takes the peloton over 203 kilometers from Cosenza to Matera.

(Reporting by Alasdair Fotheringham; Writing by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)

Indian and Chinese soldiers faced off 100 meters (330 feet) apart on a plateau near the Karakoram mountain range, where they fought a war 50 years ago, for three weeks until they reached a deal on Sunday for both sides to withdraw.

The tension had threatened to overshadow a visit by the Indian foreign minister to Beijing on May 9. China's Premier Li Keqiang is expected to visit India later this month.

India said up to 50 Chinese soldiers set up camp in its territory on the western rim of the Himalayas on April 15. Some Indian officials and experts believed the incursion signaled Chinese concern about increased Indian activity in the area.

The Chinese camp was in an area India said was 19 km (12 miles) beyond what it understands to be the border in the Ladakh region of Kashmir, a vaguely defined line called the Line of Actual Control, which neither side agrees on.

Details of the deal have not been made public and there were differing versions about what had been dismantled. A source with direct knowledge of the decision making in New Delhi said India agreed to take down a temporary metal-roofed shelter in the Chumar area, further south along the disputed border.

The source said the dismantled shelter had been erected in Chumar shortly after China set up camp on the plateau.

However, an official from the Indian army's northern command said India had taken down more permanent structures from Chumar.

"The bunkers in Chumar were dismantled after we acceded to Chinese demand in the last flag meeting. These bunkers were live-in bunkers," the army officer told Reuters on Tuesday.

China won the border war they fought in 1962, which soured relations for decades, but ties between the Asian giants have been improving. China is India's top trade partner and the two occasionally hold joint military exercises.

India has been beefing up its military presence for several years on the remote Ladakh plateau, building roads and runways to catch up with Chinese development across the border in a disputed area known as Aksai Chin

The decision to agree to the Chinese demand followed heavy criticism of the Indian government over its handling of the incident by the opposition.

An official in India's Defense Ministry said on Monday the deal to end the standoff was "quid pro quo" and said China had also demanded India take down listening and observation posts in the Chumar area, which is close to a Chinese road through Tibet.

The source in New Delhi denied India was dismantling anything more than the border shelter.

(Reporting by Fayaz Bukhari in SRINAGAR; Additional reporting by Nigam Prusty; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Alison Williams)

The Boston Celtics are two victories from NBA history, and from extending the Knicks' postseason futility in a most improbable manner.

Kevin Garnett had 16 points and 18 rebounds and the Celtics stayed alive in the playoffs, cutting New York's lead to 3-2 with a 92-86 victory Wednesday night.

The Celtics will host Game 6 on Friday night, needing two wins to become the first NBA team to overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a series.

"Our mentality has been like a Game 7 mentality. It's an all-out mentality. One that is no tomorrow. Period. Point blank," Garnett said. "We put ourselves in this 3-0 position and now we're just trying to fight our way out of it."

Brandon Bass added 17 points, steadying Boston as it shook off an 11-0 deficit and pulled away in the second half to stop the Knicks again from achieving their first playoff series victory since 2000.

"That shows you how resilient we are. Down 11-0, it could have been easy to say, 'All right fellas, hey, we made a great effort but it just wasn't good enough,'" reserve Jason Terry said. "We know we're just starting to jell as a team and injuries have plagued us all season long, but in this series it's all about heart, who is willing to go out there every night, every possession and leave it all out there. If that's not good enough, then we'll be going home."

J.R. Smith, back from his one-game suspension for elbowing Terry with the Knicks way ahead late in Game 3, missed his first 10 shots and finished 3 of 14 for 14 points.

Jeff Green scored 18 points and Paul Pierce had 16 as he and Garnett, the two franchise stalwarts, extended this season and perhaps their Celtics careers at least one more game.

"Obviously being down 2-0 or 3-0 or whatever it was, we could have folded shop. Nobody in here is going to quit," said Terry, who scored 17.

Carmelo Anthony scored 22 points but was just 8 of 24 in another dismal shooting night for the Knicks, who blew a big lead in this game and now the series. They face an unwanted trip back to Boston instead of the rest this aging roster could surely use before the second round.

If they get there.

"I think we're fine," Knicks coach Mike Woodson said. "Sure we would've loved to close it out and move on, but nobody said it would be easy."

The Knicks would host Game 7 on Sunday.

"I told you from Game 1 that this wasn't going to be a breeze, it wasn't going to be a walk in the park, them guys were going to fight and they're showing some fight right now," Anthony said. "They threw a couple punches at us now and it's time for us to do the same."

The Celtics were the first of the eight NBA teams that have come from 3-1 down, beating Philadelphia in 1968, and put themselves on the short list of teams that have erased a 2-0 deficit the next year in the NBA Finals.

So perhaps it would be fitting if they were the first to overcome 3-0.

"I think so. I mean, I think that would be wonderful, and someone's going to do it and I want it to be us, obviously, since that's the situation we're in," Boston coach Doc Rivers said before the game. "Someone will do it, and I really want to be a part of that."

He's still got a chance.

The Knicks limited the Celtics to 75 points per game while winning the first three, and nearly came back to win Game 4 on Sunday even without Smith. So they felt good even after missing their first chance to wrap it up, when Anthony was 10 of 35 in an overtime loss.

Point guard Raymond Felton said the Knicks still feel in control of the series "for sure."

"I mean, this is what playoff basketball is about. Yes, we wish we could have swept them, yes we wish we could have won that game tonight. Sometimes things don't happen that way," he added. "Things aren't always pretty, things aren't always the way you want them to be. We've just got to grind it out and go get a win."

Though few of these players were here for the streak, the Knicks were perhaps a bit overconfident heading into the game for a franchise that lost an NBA-record 13 straight postseason games from 2001-12.

Smith said Tuesday he'd have been playing golf instead of practicing had he played in Game 4, and players wore black to the game Wednesday as if they were heading to the Celtics' "funeral."

The Celtics didn't like it, with reserve Jordan Crawford exchanging words with Anthony and Raymond Felton after the final buzzer.

Forget the funeral. The Celtics are still very much alive.

"Well, we was going to a funeral, but it looks like we got buried," Smith said. "Basketball is a very humbling game."

Smith finally made a 3-pointer to end his drought, and then another cut what had been a 15-point Boston lead to 88-83 with 1:05 remaining. But Garnett made a jumper, then knocked down two free throws to clinch it.

The Knicks were just 5 of 22 from 3-point range, which looked worse until Smith hit three late.

The Sixth Man of the Year received a loud ovation when he went to check in during the first quarter, but heard a few boos by the third. They will likely be deafening on Friday, the kind usually reserved in Boston for a Lakers player.

By the time Anthony drove right into the middle of the lane for a dunk that made it 11-0, the Celtics already had three turnovers. But Bass made a pair of free throws and then a dunk to settle them down. He added five more points in the period as Boston climbed within 22-20 even though Pierce missed all six shots in a scoreless 12 minutes.

He made a 3-pointer shortly after returning from a break in the second, and another gave the Celtics their first lead at 34-33 with 5:46 remaining in the half. Then Garnett had two baskets in an 8-0 run that gave Boston a 42-37 advantage, and the Celtics walked off at halftime to mostly stunned silence within Madison Square Garden with a 45-39 lead.

The second halves had belonged to the Knicks in the series, but the Celtics remained steady in the third quarter, opening a 69-60 lead on Terry's 3-pointer with 41 seconds left, and pushed it to 75-60 early in the fourth.

NOTES: Woodson said the team will try to get Amare Stoudemire some contact in practice to see if he will be ready to play in the next round. Woodson said Stoudemire, who is recovering from right knee surgery, is "looking pretty good right now." ... Jason Kidd was honored before the game after winning the NBA's Sportsmanship Award on Tuesday. He is the first player to win it in back-to-back years and joins Grant Hill as the only player to win it multiple times.

___

Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney

But thanks to a tourist willing to take him across the Pacific, an Airedale Terrier-Irish Wolfhound mix named Grady now enjoys a spacious California loft with a new owner.

The Kauai Humane Society since December has been reaching out to tourists and others traveling to California and Oregon to see if they're willing to check some extra luggage one of the island's many stray or abandoned dogs.

When a traveler agrees, the shelter pays a reduced rate of $100 to fly the dogs on Alaska Airlines to get them to shelters in Oakland, Calif., and Portland, Ore., where most get adopted within a couple of weeks. Dogs also can make the trip as cargo at a more expensive rate.

Shelter officials attribute some of the program's success to the uniqueness of the animals. Kauai's only shelter gets a lot of stray and abandoned dogs derived from hunting breeds used for stalking feral pigs on the island.

The animals can languish for months at Kauai's shelter. But once they're sent to the mainland, the dogs are snatched up quickly because they're different from others normally offered for adoption.

"Some are kind of funny looking, unusual looking," said Laura Fulda, vice president of marketing and development at the East Bay SPCA. "They tend to be a little shy, very sweet, well-behaved and have had some training, and they are friendly toward other dogs."

Grady was brought to Kauai's shelter in November by an owner who was moving away. He didn't get much attention at first, shelter operations manager Brandy Varvel said.

"He sat there, and I never saw a single person look at him," Varvel said.

But at the East Bay SPCA in Oakland, it was love at first sight when 46-year-old Martin Sprouse saw the 50-pound dog on the shelter's website.

Sprouse, who designs modern furniture for a living, was waiting when the shelter opened its doors the next morning.

"I walked right up to him, and he gave me those big eyes and rolled over on his back," Sprouse said. "I said, 'Oh my god, dude. It's on. You are coming home with me.' He melted me the minute I saw him."

Sprouse had been seriously looking for about two weeks for a dog to adopt but hadn't found a breed he wanted. There were a lot of smaller dogs in the local shelter, mostly Chihuahuas and pit bulls.

The dogs delivered from Hawaii have been mostly mixed breeds derived from Airedales, whippets and hounds breeds sometimes used on the islands to hunt feral pigs. On any given day, Kauai's shelter holds about 90 dogs and 45 cats, Varvel said.

Varvel came up with the idea to fly the dogs off the island to shelters that mainly take in other breeds.

The Kauai shelter has an open-door policy, meaning all animals are accepted regardless of space. The steady influx of hunting breeds was forcing the shelter to double and even triple up on dogs in their cages, Fulda said.

Some of the dogs had been in the shelter for at least six months when Varvel contacted the California shelter in late December. Varvel initially reached out to shelters on other Hawaiian islands, but found they had the same problem.

She now talks with shelter officials in Oakland every week to discuss which dogs to send to the mainland. Operations manager James Pumphrey said some of the biggest factors considered are how long a dog has been waiting to be adopted and whether it has a friendly, outgoing personality.

Since the program's start, 24 dogs have been adopted with one or two dogs shipped each week to California. Varvel also has an arrangement with the Oregon Humane Society to take some of Kauai's puppies and small dogs.

And Grady, who was named Kruger before he was adopted, seems to enjoy his new life riding around Oakland in Sprouse's truck.

"Everyone thinks they win the dog lottery," Sprouse said. "I know I have won the dog lottery with him."

The research, conducted bycompany Syncapse, studied more than 2,000 Facebook users who had liked a brand, taking into account such factors as product spending, loyalty, propensity to recommend, media value acquisition cost and brand affinity to determine the value of a Facebook fan.

Facebook fans spend more money not only on the brands they fan ($116 more per year than nonfans), but also within the brand's sector 43 percent more, despite not having a higher income than nonfans, the study found.

Those fans are also 18 percent more satisfied with their brands than nonfriends, and 11 percent more likely to continue using the brand than nonfriends.

Following the old maxim that 20 percent of customers represent 80 percent of revenues (also known as ), the study suggests that the better you can isolate key customer segments, the more relevant your messaging can be to drive loyalty and grow revenues through targeted offers.

Brand managers should aim to interact with customers on Facebook to understand what they're passionate about, solicit their input and enable a feeling of ownership, the study advises.

There are two reasons brand managers should curry this crowd. Facebook users who like your brand are much more active in social media and are vocal about what they like and what they don't. They like to share good brand experiences, promotions and discounts, but are also likely to share a bad brand experience.

Your brand's Facebook users are your evangelists. The study recommends prioritizing yourinvestment to make sure they're happy: Ensure they feel appreciated and nurtured, and find ways to talk about your brand and share their opinion.

"The increase in average fan value is driven by fans' tendencies to be superconsumers," the report said. "Not only do they tend to be brand users first, they spend more, engage more, advocate more and are more loyal. The significant and increasing value of aaffirms past social marketing investment and mandates deeper commitment and accountability in the future."

Reach BusinessNewsDaily senior writer Ned Smith at . Follow him on Twitter @nedbsmith.Follow us @BNDarticles, Facebook or Google +.

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