The 35-year-old Froch, who lost to Kessler in Denmark three years ago, put on a typically gutsy performance to win with a scorecard that read 115-113, 116-112 and 118-110 in favor of the Nottingham fighter to the delight of the 20,000 crowd.

Froch's record is now 31-2, with his only other defeat coming at the hands of American Andre Ward in Atlantic City in 2011, compared to Kessler's 46-3 after an action-packed fight that saw the Dane hanging on near the end of the final round.

"It feels really, really good, only thing that feels bad is I have had to beat a real gentleman and a nice man, Mikkel Kessler," Froch told Sky Sports. "It's 1-1 now, who knows do you fancy a third one? Best of three maybe?

"I deserved to win, but he won't lie down for any man and massive respect to him," added Froch before turning his thoughts to a possible rematch with unbeaten WBA title holder Ward who was watching at ringside.

"The winner of this fight should be moving on to avenge their other loss and now I move on to the second best boxer in the world," said Froch. "Let's get Andre Ward over to the UK and fight him here."

The 34-year-old Kessler, whose only other defeats were against unbeaten Welshman Joe Calzaghe in 2007 and Ward in 2009, said: "I gave it my all but didn't have the energy and couldn't cope with Carl. It is nice to fight such a warrior."

(Writing by Ken Ferris; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

In a speech on the final day of his visit to Japan, Hollande said that the potentially destructive debt crisis has served to "reinforce" Europe and foster greater integration of the 17 member economies that use the euro currency.

He said authorities are developing tools to ensure greater stability and solidarity such as a Europe-wide "banking union" and budgetary rules.

"What you need to understand here in Japan is that the crisis in Europe is over. And that we can work together, France and Japan, to open new doors for economic progress," he said in the speech at the Imperial Hotel organized by The Nikkei, a major financial newspaper.

Although the eurozone debt crisis that erupted at the end of 2009 has eased, the region's collective economy has shrunk for six straight quarters and unemployment has reached 12.2 percent, the highest since the euro was introduced in 1999.

Hollande said Europe needs to put more emphasis on taking steps to promote growth and competitiveness "so that we can have a better presence in the world."

He also highlighted his proposal to create a common economic government for the eurozone that would set economic policy.

Hollande called Japan an "exceptional partner" and urged both countries to invest more in each other. France's annual exports to Japan total about 7.5 billion euros ($9.8 billion), while its imports are just over 9 billion euros. Both rank 11th as respective trade partners.

He said some people may have the impression that France and Japan are countries that have left their best years behind them, but they are mistaken.

"We don't think we are countries from the past. We should lead the world economy," he said.

He said it was "encouraging" that Japan was embarking on a growth strategy under Prime Miniser Shinzo Abe to revive long stagnant growth through a massive monetary easing and fiscal stimulus.

During the three-day visit, Japan and France agreed to deepen their cooperation on nuclear technology. Asked about the deal amid national debate in Japan over the future of nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster, Holland reiterated that as forerunners in nuclear energy technology, the two nations need to cooperate over its safety "so that there is no doubt over its reliability."

Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and France's Areva are cooperating on construction of a reactor in Turkey

In response to a question about China, Hollande said that while France does have trade disputes with China and a yawning trade deficit of 25 billion euros Paris needs to "work with" Beijing and shouldn't be expected to choose between Japan and China as they were both important regional economic powers.

"We have the will to work with Asia, and not to oppose any particular country," he said. "We have a friendly relationship with China for a long time now, and a relationship of exceptional partnership with Japan," he said. "Please do not ask us to choose."

Hollande also commented on the trade dispute over solar panels between the European Union and China, saying discussion is ongoing and that the issue will be on the agenda in the upcoming meeting of the European Commission later this month.

"We will debate this with the European Commission because it's important that all European countries agree on the decisions made" he said.

On Tuesday, the EU announced duties averaging 47 percent on Chinese-made solar panels, cells and wafers but said it would postpone imposing the full tariffs until August to allow time for negotiation.

In particular, close observers on both sides of the gay marriage divide are wondering whether Justice Anthony Kennedy's view could be decisive since he often has been the swing vote on the high court.

It is always possible that Justice Kennedy is reading the newspapers and is impressed with the progress," said Michael Klarman, a Harvard University law professor and author of a recent book on the gay marriage fight.

In earlier cases on gay rights and the death penalty, Kennedy has cited the importance of changing practices, both nationally and around the world.

The court is expected to rule by late June in two cases involving same-sex marriage. One is a challenge to California's voter-approved Proposition 8 that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The other seeks to strike down a portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that denies to legally married same-sex couples a range of benefits that generally are available to married heterosexuals.

The justices took an initial vote in the days after hearing arguments in the two cases in late March. The senior justice on the winning side and the senior justice in dissent assigned opinions based on those votes. But while that first vote is important, it is not the end of the process; justices' assessments of a case can shift subtly or, in some cases, dramatically.

In 1992, Kennedy initially drew the assignment to write a majority opinion for five justices allowing prayers at public school graduations. In the end, he ended up writing the opinion for a different five-justice majority striking down the graduation prayers. According to several accounts, Kennedy simply changed his mind during the writing process.

Current events also can find their way into opinions. Last year, Justice Antonin Scalia's fiery dissent from a court ruling that watered down Arizona's crackdown on immigration included a reference to comments President Barack Obama made at a news conference that took place between the argument in the case in April and the announcement of the decision in June.

There is no way to know at this point whether anything similar will happen in the gay marriage cases, either of which could be decided on technical legal grounds that would say little about the court's view of the issue. But there has been no shortage of action.

In a 10-day span earlier this month, lawmakers in Delaware, Minnesota and Rhode Island gave final approval to bills to legalize same-sex marriages. Minnesota was the last of the three to act, on May 13, and when Gov. Mark Dayton signed the bill into law the following day, Minnesota became the 12th state, plus the District of Columbia, to approve same-sex unions. The other nine are: Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Washington.

Internationally, French President Francois Hollande signed a law this month making France the 14th country to recognize gay marriages. Uruguay and New Zealand took similar steps in April.

And further change could come soon. The Illinois Senate has approved a gay marriage bill that now is pending in the state House in advance of the May 31 end of the legislative session. Gov. Pat Quinn has said he would sign it.

In Great Britain, a bill to legalize same-sex weddings in England and Wales easily cleared the House of Commons and will be debated in the House of Lords beginning in July.

Both sides in the high court gay marriage debate say the recent events reinforce arguments they made to the court in March.

Defenders of limiting marriage to heterosexuals say the justices need only look at the change in marriage laws to see that there is no reason for them to step in and declare a national rule in favor of gay marriage that would upend constitutional bans in 30 states and laws prohibiting same-sex unions in roughly half a dozen others.

"These developments provide yet further evidence...that the claim that gays and lesbians are politically powerless and that the courts therefore have some special role in subjecting classifications affecting them to strict scrutiny is baseless," said Ed Whelan, an opponent of same-sex marriage who is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Jim Campbell, a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, said the court should not short-circuit a vigorous national debate.

"The vast majority of the states have decided to retain the traditional view of marriage that has existed throughout Western civilization. This decision belongs to the people and should be decided by the people," Campbell said.

Mary Bonauto, the director of the Civil Rights Project at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said the assessment of the political clout of gays and lesbians is misleading. The number of states allowing same-sex weddings has doubled in less than a year and now represents 18 percent of the U.S. population. If Illinois joins in and the court were to affirm a lower court decision that struck down the California ban, just over a third of the population would live in 14 states and the District of Columbia where gay marriage would be legal.

That's not nearly enough, especially in the context of a decades-long struggle by gays and lesbians to win the right to marry, Bonauto said. "These states moving in the direction of marriage is a far cry from all states doing it," she said.

Klarman said gays and lesbians have made huge political strides in "deep blue" Democratic states.

"It is absolutely true that the political process continues to work and it is working with extraordinary rapidity," he said. By some estimates, in roughly 10 years majorities in all but a handful of Southern states will favor gay marriage.

"The only argument against this position is, what about the gay couple in Mississippi?" Klarman said, pointing to a state where the prohibition on same-sex unions is likely to endure.

The same argument could have been made, and was, during the court's deliberations over the Brown v. Board of Education case that outlawed segregation in public schools, he said.

Justice Stanley Reed, a Southerner, suggested that the court "let things play themselves out," although he eventually joined in the unanimous opinion in Brown.

During argument in the California case, Kennedy strongly suggested that he was not about to give gay marriage proponents what they are asking for, a decision that would allow same-sex couples to wed everywhere in the United States.

But Klarman wonders whether Kennedy might consider his legacy and the fact that at 76 years old, he might not be on the court for the next big gay marriage case. "He knows that today, he can write the opinion that would be the Brown of the gay rights movement," Klarman said.

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Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter at www.twitter.com/shermancourt

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- New Zealand authorities say exports of frozen lamb, beef and mutton to China should resume next week after a paperwork problem resulted in hundreds of tons of meat getting stranded at Chinese docks.

New Zealand's Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy said Thursday that ministry officials were to blame for making certification mistakes which have now been resolved. New Zealand exporters changed the branding on their certificates in March after government departments merged.

Exporters say China stopped accepting any of their frozen meat two or three weeks ago and it has piled up on the docks there since. Because the meat is frozen, it hasn't spoiled and should now get clearance for sale and consumption.

China is New Zealand's largest export market and its largest buyer of sheep meat.

Interior Secretary Miguel Osorio Chong and his national security team met with local officials in the state capital of Morelia at a time of escalating tensions in Michoacan, where communities mistrustful of state authorities have been creating their own vigilante forces for protection against the cartels.

But Osorio Chong provided few details or an explanation of how sending troops to Michoacan would work any better than it had in the past. Then President Felipe Calderon made the same move when he launched a nationwide offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.

"The difference is the strategy," Osorio Chong said. "There will be a central command, close coordination between state and federal security ... and a system of intelligence that will permit us to move forward."

He did not answer when a reporter asked for specific dollar amounts or new programs behind the effort.

Michoacan is the Mexican state most visibly dominated by a drug cartel.

Gunmen in vehicles marked only with the Knights Templar symbol, a red cross, roam the countryside, burning businesses and homes of anyone who refuses to pay them protection money.

The cartel has boldly marked its territory by building small roadside chapels to "Saint Nazario," a fallen leader of the quasi-religious drug cartel who was killed in a battle with police in 2010.

As convoys of soldiers rode into the steamy territory known as Tierra Caliente late Monday, they passed the remains of chapels destroyed by local self-defense groups that sprang up in February to fight the cartel.

In the town of Coalcoman, soldiers sped past the still-smoldering remains of at least three sawmills torched by the cartel's gunmen last week after that town rose up against them. They also passed burned-out hulks of two trucks and a passenger bus set afire by gunmen on the highway outside town as a warning to anyone who tried to bring supplies or reinforcements in.

Coalcoman was the latest of several communities to form an armed self-defense group to kick out the Knights Templar cartel and end their extortion racket.

"They demanded we pay 120 pesos (about $10) for every square meter of wood we sold," said one of the sawmill owners whose business was burned. Gunmen torched the mills that didn't pay, said the owner, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.

Local avocado growers were charged 2,000 pesos (about $175) for every hectare of orchards they owned.

"The man who charged you would say it was money for 'the company.' They didn't say the name of the cartel," recalled one resident of the town of Buenavista, who later battled the cartel. "But if you didn't pay, the trucks with the red crosses would show up and start killing people."

Like most cartel opponents, the man wouldn't give his name for fear of reprisals.

Government intervention until now has been against the community patrols. Some 40 members of vigilante patrols were arrested in April after the government accused them of having links to a rival drug cartel, Jalisco Nueva Generation. Townspeople deny that.

Still, residents of La Ruana lined up on the town's main street Monday to cheer the arrival of the soldiers.

Hipolito Mora, the leader of the self-defense forces in La Ruana, agreed to stop community patrols and let the army take over patrolling.

"We reached an agreement that we are going to return to our homes and work," Mora told the crowd of cheering townspeople. "But I told them (the army) that if they leave us alone for one day, we are going to return to duty again."

The secretary of defense, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, said the vigilante groups had disappeared when troops arrived.

"It's a very complex problem, because there are some who are taking up arms to protect their communities and others who are not, who are financed by other groups," he said.

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Associated Press writer Gustavo Ruiz in Morelia contributed to this report.

Hannah Warren has been unable to breathe, eat, drink or swallow on her own since she was born in South Korea in 2010. Until the operation at a central Illinois hospital, she had spent her entire life in a hospital in Seoul. Doctors there told her parents there was no hope and they expected her to die.

The stem cells came from Hannah's bone marrow, extracted with a special needle inserted into her hip bone. They were seeded in a lab onto a plastic scaffold, where it took less than a week for them to multiply and create a new windpipe.

About the size of a 3-inch tube of penne pasta, it was implanted April 9 in a nine-hour procedure.

Early signs indicate the windpipe is working, Hannah's doctors announced Tuesday, although she is still on a ventilator. They believe she will eventually be able to live at home and lead a normal life.

"We feel like she's reborn," said Hannah's father, Darryl Warren.

"They hope that she can do everything that a normal child can do but it's going to take time. This is a brand new road that all of us are on," he said in a telephone interview. "This is her only chance but she's got a fantastic one and an unbelievable one."

Warren choked up and his wife, Lee Young-mi, was teary-eyed at a hospital news conference Tuesday. Hannah did not attend because she is still recovering from the surgery. She developed an infection after the operation but now is acting like a healthy 2-year-old, her doctors said.

Warren said he hopes the family can bring Hannah home for the first time in a month or so. Hannah turns 3 in August.

"It's going to be amazing for us to finally be together as a family of four," he said. The couple has an older daughter.

Only about one in 50,000 children worldwide are born with the windpipe defect. The stem-cell technique has been used to make other body parts besides windpipes and holds promise for treating other birth defects and childhood diseases, her doctors said.

The operation brought together an Italian surgeon based in Sweden who pioneered the technique, a pediatric surgeon at Children's Hospital of Illinois in Peoria who met Hannah's family while on a business trip to South Korea, and Hannah born to a Newfoundland man and Korean woman who married after he moved to that country to teach English.

Hannah's parents had read about Dr. Paolo Macchiarini's success using stem-cell based tracheas but couldn't afford to pay for the operation at his center, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. So Dr. Mark Holterman helped the family arrange to have the procedure at his Peoria hospital, bringing in Macchiarini to lead the operation. Children's Hospital waived the cost, likely hundreds of thousands of dollars, Holterman said.

Part of OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, the Roman Catholic hospital considers the operation part of their mission to provide charity care, but also views it as a way to champion a type of stem-cell therapy that doesn't involve human embryos, the surgeons said. The Catholic church opposes using stem cells derived from human embryos in research or treatment.

Macchiarini has been involved in 14 previous windpipe operations using patients' own stem cells five using man-made scaffolds like Hannah's but in adults; and nine using scaffolds made from cadaver windpipes, including one in a 10-year-old British boy.

He said only one patient died, a 30-year-old man from Abingdon, Md., who had the operation in November 2011 to treat late-stage cancer of the windpipe. He died about four months later of uncertain causes, Macchiarini said.

Similar methods have been used to grow bladders, urethras and last year a girl in Sweden got a lab-made vein using her own stem cells and a cadaver vein.

Scientists hope to eventually use the method to create solid organs, including kidneys and livers, said Dr. Anthony Atala, director of Wake Forest University's Institute for Regenerative Medicine. He said the operation on Hannah Warren "is really showing that the technique is workable."

Hannah had breathing difficulties at birth and Korean doctors soon discovered the missing windpipe. They reconfigured her esophagus so that a breathing tube could go down it from her mouth to her lungs. The esophagus normally runs behind the windpipe and carries food to the stomach.

Korean doctors said she couldn't live long with the tube and told her parents there was nothing more they could do.

Hannah outlived their expectations and has thrived despite the grim prognosis and other abnormalities including an undeveloped voice box that prevented her from speaking. Now that she has a windpipe and can breathe more normally, doctors expect the larynx to grow and function normally. She will work with speech therapists to help her learn to talk.

Holterman said Hannah will likely need a new windpipe in about five years, as she grows.

She breathes with help from a ventilator but no longer has a tube in her mouth that she'd lived with since shortly after birth, Holterman said. She's not yet able to eat normally, but doctors let her have her first taste ever of food a few licks on a lollipop. Her father said she already has discriminating taste and prefers chocolate Korean lollipops to the American kind.

"I asked her, 'Is it good?'" he said, "and she immediately nodded her head."

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Online:

Regenerative Medicine: http://1.usa.gov/13IWdrx

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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SATURDAY, MAY 25: LANDMARK BRIDGES

Profile America Saturday, May 25th. Two famous landmarks at opposite ends of the country are having anniversaries around this time. Both are landmarks of the cities they serve, and both were considered engineering marvels when they were built. San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, hailed as a technological marvel then as now. And, the Brooklyn Bridge, spanning New York's East River, opened in 1883 to link Manhattan and Brooklyn. It now daily carries thousands of automobiles, instead of the 1880s horse-drawn vehicles. More than 604,000 other bridges form a vital part of the nation's highway system. Of these, nearly a quarter are considered deficient and obsolete to cope with modern traffic. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at .

Sources: Chase's Calendar of Events 2012, p. 285, 290Statistical Abstract of the United States 2012, t. 1090

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on a monthly CD or on the Internet at(look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau