At the second day of a bail hearing for Olympian Oscar Pistorius, a South African investigator who arrived at the scene of the Feb. 14 fatal shooting said that Reeva Steenkamp was shot from a high angle, which prosecutors say contradicts the runner's account that he was not wearing his prosthetics when he shot his girlfriend to death.
Pistorius, a double-amputee who runs on carbon-fiber blades, appeared in court for the second day in a row after his arrest in the death of girlfriend Steenkamp at his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa.
Read Oscar Pistorius' Full Statement to the Court
PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing
Arresting officer Hilton Botha told the court today that the 26-year-old was standing in the master bathroom when he shot the supermodel, who was crouched in a defensive position behind a locked door in a smaller powder room. He also said that the bullets that were fired had been fired from high up, and the bullets seemed to be coming in a downward direction.
"[The angle] seems to me down. Fired down," Botha told the court.
Pistorius said Tuesday that he went to the bathroom and fired through the door before putting on his prosthetic legs.
Oscar Pistorius: Defense Presents New Evidence Watch Video
'Blade Runner' Appears in Court to Hear Murder Charges Watch Video
He said he mistakenly shot his girlfriend, thinking she was an intruder.
Prosecutors also said that they found two boxes of testosterone in the bedroom, although the defense disputes that, saying it's just herbal supplements.
The court also heard that a witness, someone about 2,000 feet away from Pistorius' home, heard nonstop fighting the morning of the shooting.
"We have a witness who says she heard non-stop shouting and fighting between 2 and 3 a.m.," said prosecutor Gerrie Nel, who added that another witness saw lights on at the time of the gunshots.
Pistorius says he spent a quiet night with Steenkamp before the shooting.
Nel said that Pistorius' actions and phone calls on the night indicate pre-planning, and that there was a "deliberate aiming of shots at the toilet from about 1.5 meters [about 5 feet]."
He says Steenkamp was shot on the right side of her body.
Officer Botha also said Pistorius should be considered a flight risk because investigators discovered that he has offshore bank accounts and a house in Italy.
"I think it would be hard to get him back," Botha told the court. "This is a very serious crime, shooting an unarmed woman behind closed door."
Prosecutors also say they may file more charges for unlicensed ammunition, after a special-caliber .38 round was found in a safe in Pistorius' home.
Botha told the court today that he arrived at Pistorius' home at 4:15 a.m. Valentine's Day to find Steenkamp already dead, dressed in a white shorts and a black vest, and covered in towels. The only thing that Pistorius said was, 'I thought it was a burglar,'" according to Botha.
The 26-year-old sprinter Tuesday denied that he willfully killed Steenkamp, telling the court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.
Botha said today that he attended Steenkamp's postmortem, and that she had three entrance wounds: one on the head, one in the elbow and one in the hip.
Describing the scene to the court, Botha said that the shots fired into the bathroom were aimed at the toilet bowl.
The shooter "would have to walk into the bathroom and turn directly at the door to shoot at the toilet the way the bullets went," he said.
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests against high power prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during Europe's debt crisis.
Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, a former bodyguard who swept to power in 2009 on pledges to root out corruption and raise living standards in the European Union's poorest member, now faces a tough task to prop up eroding support ahead of a probable early election.
Wage and pension freezes and tax hikes have bitten deep in a country where living standards are less than half the EU average and tens of thousands of Bulgarians have rallied in protests that have turned violent, chanting "Mafia" and "Resign".
On Tuesday, 11 people were hospitalized - including one man bleeding heavily from the head - and 11 arrested after protesters threw flares at police, who fought demonstrators with shields and truncheons.
"I will not participate in a government under which police are beating people," Borisov, who began his career guarding the Black Sea state's communist dictator Todor Zhivkov, said as he announced his resignation on Wednesday.
Parliament is expected to accept the resignation later in the day.
The spark for the protests was high electricity bills, after the government raised prices by 13 percent last July. But it quickly spilled over into wider frustration with Borisov's domineering manner and unpredictable decision making.
The prime minister made sacrifices in an attempt to cling on, sacking his finance minister, cutting power prices and risking a diplomatic row with the Czech Republic by punishing foreign-owned companies, a move that conflicted with EU norms on protection of investors and due process.
Borisov's rightist GERB party is the dominant faction in parliament but will not take part in talks to form a new government, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said, indicating that an election planned for July will now be held early.
"He made my day," student Borislav Hadzhiev, 21, in central Sofia said, commenting on Borisov's resignation. "The truth is that we're living in an extremely poor country."
IRE
GERB's popularity has held up well and it still leads, just, in the polls, largely because budget cutbacks have been relatively mild compared with those in many other European countries. Salaries and pensions were frozen rather than cut.
But the last opinion poll, taken before protests grew last weekend already showed the opposition Socialists were nearly tied with the ruling party and analysts said the protests had boosted the Socialists' chances.
Unemployment in the country of 7.3 million is far from the highs hit in the decade after the end of communism but remains at 11.9 percent and average salaries are stuck at around 800 levs ($550) a month.
Millions have emigrated in search of a better life, leaving swathes of the country depopulated and little hope for those who remain.
The measures announced this week has also put the country on a collision course with the EU and financial investors without easing the tension at home.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas demanded an explanation from Bulgaria and accused it of "politicizing" the power sector by threatening to revoke the electricity distribution license of central Europe's largest listed company CEZ, 70 percent of which is owned by the Czech state.
There have also been fines for another Czech company, Energo-Pro and Austria's EVN.
The precedent is unlikely to encourage other foreign investors, who already have to navigate complicated bureaucracy and widespread corruption and organized crime if they want to take advantage of Bulgaria's 16-percent flat tax rate.
"The resignation is the only responsible move," said Kantcho Stoychev, an analyst with pollster Gallup International. "It also gives Borisov some legitimacy to stay in political life in the future, despite the violent police actions last night."
(Additional reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Patrick Graham)
SINGAPORE: Travellers have welcomed the move to build a high-speed rail link between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
Industry players, however, said the impact on buses and airlines will depend on the future rail link's fare structure.
Presently, those travelling by bus between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur pay as little as $25 per trip for the five-hour ride.
This is in contrast to just 90 minutes on the high-speed rail link to be built by 2020.
Some say they do not mind paying more - for speed and predictability on the rail link.
"It is more secure and more safety. And the timing will be more fixed."
"I'm expecting about S$80 to S$90 per trip, per one-way trip."
The Express Bus Agencies Association says the rail option may have a "tremendous impact" on the industry, and called on operators to be "prepared to re-strategise".
This includes complementing the rail service, by offering services to smaller towns from the stations along the rail line.
Still, it feels bus operators will retain some market share.
Mr Sebastian Yap, who is from the Association's Terminal Services sub-committee elaborates.
"We have to look at the fare structure, to me the high speed train cannot be cheaper than bus, there's no way about it. So in terms of the pricing, I think we still have a bit of a competitive edge," he said.
Flights between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur can take up about 40 minutes to an hour, with budget carriers offering cheap fares.
But industry watchers say budget carriers are less likely to see an impact, compared to full-service ones.
Mr Siva Govindasamy, Managing Editor from Flight global Asia, said: "The bigger impact could actually be on the full-service carriers, because passengers - the premium passengers, are the ones who would want to get from point A to point B comfortably.
"So if this high-speed rail system offers a premium proposition for these business people who need to get from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore comfortably and very fast, then I think it's the full-service carriers who could have a bigger impact, because the leisure passengers are still price-sensitive.
"The budget airlines cater to these leisure passengers, so they might not have an impact, as trends worldwide point that while the high-speed rail system - while efficient, are more expensive and that's the case here, then it might affect the full service carriers more than the budget carriers."
Mr Logan Velaitham, CEO of AirAsia Singapore, said: "This high-speed rail introduction to be implemented in 2020 is not going to be a big challenge to us because being a low-cost carrier, the biggest competitor for us is cost itself and if we keep our costs low as much as possible.
"Therefore we can compete against any form of alternative travel mode that is coming in. No doubt there will be some market shifting over to this mode of travel given the fact, the convenience they want to have or a stopover along the way which is hard beyond our reach."
When contacted, Tiger Airways said it will "re-strategise accordingly should business conditions change or new opportunities arise."
Singapore's Transport Ministry said that the Iskandar- Malaysia Joint Ministerial Committee will study details of the system including its alignment.
Separately, Malaysia's Transport Minister Kong Cho Ha said that based on initial study, the line may have five new stations stopping by Negeri Sembilan, Malacca and Iskandar Johor, before heading to Singapore.
The stops are Seremban (Negeri Sembilan), Ayer Keroh (Melaka), Muar, Batu Pahat and Iskandar Johor (johor).
Apple today said it too was targeted as part of the string of hacking efforts on companies and news agencies.
The iPhone and Mac maker today told Reuters that hackers targeted computers used by its employees, but that "there was no evidence that any data left Apple."
In a statement, Apple said it discovered malware that made use of a vulnerability in the Java plug-in, and that it was sourced from a site for software developers.
Reuters says Apple plans to release a security update later today to protect user computers. CNET has reached out to the company for additional information and will update this post when we know more.
Apple joins a list of companies that includes Facebook, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, as targets of a group of hackers believed to originate from China.
A report Monday by The New York Times claimed that an "overwhelming percentage" of the cyberattacks on U.S. corporations, government agencies, and organizations all came from an office building in Shanghai with ties to the People's Liberation Army, information that remains unconfirmed and flatly denied by Chinese authorities.
The hack itself stemmed from an attack on The New York Times, with attackers stealing corporate passwords of its employees as well as spying on personal computers owned by employees. Apple says only "a small number of systems" were infected before being isolated.
Oscar Pistorius in court following his bail hearing in Pretoria, South Africa, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. /AP Photo
Oscar Pistorius, the famed double amputee South African Olympian, has been charged by prosecutors with intentionally murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his Pretoria home.
Play Video
Pistorius: I thought girlfriend was a burglar
He has said it was an accident, that he mistook her for a burglar when he fired several rounds through a locked bathroom door with a 9mm pistol. When a judge ruled Tuesday that he could not outright dismiss the prosecution's premeditated murder charge, Pistorius told his side of the story to the court on the same day Steenkamp's family laid her to rest in coastal Port Elizabeth.
The following are the portions of the statement Pistorius' lawyers submitted to the court via an affadavit that offer his view of the tragic events of this past Valentine's Day:
16.2 I have been informed that I am accused of having committed the offence of murder. I deny the aforesaid allegation in the strongest terms.
16.3 I am advised that I do not have to deal with the merits of the case for purposes of the bail application. However, I believe that it is appropriate to deal with the merits in this application, particularly in view of the State's contention that I planned to murder Reeva. Nothing can be further from the truth and I have no doubt that it is not possible for the State to present objective facts to substantiate such an allegation, as there is no substance in the allegation. I do not know on what different facts the allegation of a premeditated murder could be premised and I respectfully request the State to furnish me with such alleged facts in order to allow me to refute such allegations.
16.4 On the 13th of February 2013 Reeva would have gone out with her friends and I with my friends. Reeva then called me and asked that we rather spend the evening at home. I agreed and we were content to have a quiet dinner together at home. By about 22h00 on 13 February 2013 we were in our bedroom. She was doing her yoga exercises and I was in bed watching television. My prosthetic legs were off. We were deeply in love and I could not be happier. I know she felt the same way. She had given me a present for Valentine's Day but asked me only to open it the next day.
16.5 After Reeva finished her yoga exercises she got into bed and we both fell asleep.
16.6 I am acutely aware of violent crime being committed by intruders entering homes with a view to commit crime, including violent crime. I have received death threats before. I have also been a victim of violence and of burglaries before. For that reason I kept my firearm, a 9 mm Parabellum, underneath my bed when I went to bed at night.
16.7 During the early morning hours of 14 February 2013, I woke up, went onto the balcony to bring the fan in and closed the sliding doors, the blinds and the curtains. I heard a noise in the bathroom and realised that someone was in the bathroom.
16.8 I felt a sense of terror rushing over me. There are no burglar bars across the bathroom window and I knew that contractors who worked at my house had left the ladders outside. Although I did not have my prosthetic legs on I have mobility on my stumps.
16.9 I believed that someone had entered my house. I was too scared to switch a light on.
16.10 I grabbed my 9mm pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom I screamed words to the effect for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch dark in the bedroom and I thought Reeva was in bed.
16.11 I noticed that the bathroom window was open. I realised that the intruder/s was/were in the toilet because the toilet door was closed and I did not see anyone in the bathroom. I heard movement inside the toilet. The toilet is inside the bathroom and has a separate door.
16.12 It filled me with horror and fear of an intruder or intruders being inside the toilet. I thought he or they must have entered through the unprotected window. As I did not have my prosthetic legs on and felt extremely vulnerable, I knew I had to protect Reeva and myself. I believed that when the intruder/s came out of the toilet we would be in grave danger. I felt trapped as my bedroom door was locked and I have limited mobility on my stumps.
16.13 I fired shots at the toilet door and shouted to Reeva to phone the police. She did not respond and I moved backwards out of the bathroom, keeping my eyes on the bathroom entrance. Everything was pitch dark in the bedroom and I was still too scared to switch on a light. Reeva was not responding.
16.14 When I reached the bed, I realised that Reeva was not in bed. That is when it dawned on me that it could have been Reeva who was in the toilet. I returned to the bathroom calling her name. I tried to open the toilet door but it was locked. I rushed back into the bedroom and opened the sliding door exiting onto the balcony and screamed for help.
16.15 I put on my prosthetic legs, ran back to the bathroom and tried to kick the toilet door open. I think I must then have turned on the lights. I went back into the bedroom and grabbed my cricket bat to bash open the toilet door. A panel or panels broke off and I found the key on the floor and unlocked and opened the door. Reeva was slumped over but alive.
16.16 I battled to get her out of the toilet and pulled her into the bathroom. I phoned Johan Stander ("Stander") who was involved in the administration of the estate and asked him to phone the ambulance. I phoned Netcare and asked for help. I went downstairs to open the front door.
16.17 I returned to the bathroom and picked Reeva up as I had been told not to wait for the paramedics, but to take her to hospital. I carried her downstairs in order to take her to the hospital. On my way down Stander arrived. A doctor who lives in the complex also arrived. Downstairs, I tried to render the assistance to Reeva that I could, but she died in my arms.
16.18 I am absolutely mortified by the events and the devastating loss of my beloved Reeva. With the benefit of hindsight I believe that Reeva went to the toilet when I went out on the balcony to bring the fan in. I cannot bear to think of the suffering I have caused her and her family, knowing how much she was loved. I also know that the events of that tragic night were as I have described them and that in due course I have no doubt the police and expert investigators will bear this out.
Olympian Oscar Pistorius today denied that he willfully killed his girlfriend, telling a South African court that he shot the woman through his bathroom door because he believed she was an intruder.
Pistorius, 26 and a double-amputee Olympian, was charged today with premeditated murder, or a Schedule 6 offense, which under South African law limits his chances for parole if convicted.
"I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated murder because I had no intention to kill my girlfriend," Pistorius said in a statement, read by his lawyer.
"I deny the accusation," he said. "Nothing can be further from the truth that I planned the murder of my girlfriend."
PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing
Pistorius, who gained worldwide fame for running on carbon-fiber blades and competing against able-bodied runners at the Olympics, is accused of shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 14.
In a statement read by his lawyer, the runner said he and Steenkamp went to bed together before he was awoken by a noise he thought was an intruder coming from the bathroom.
Filled with a "sense of terror," he removed the 9-mm pistol he kept hidden under his bed and, without putting on his prosthetic legs, began shooting through the bathroom door, according to his statement.
Oscar Pistorius: Was Shooting Premeditated? Watch Video
Conflicting Theories Muddle Oscar Pistorius Murder Case Watch Video
Oscar Pistorius Allegedly Fought the Night of Shooting Watch Video
"I was scared and didn't switch on the light," he said. "I got my gun and moved towards the bathroom. I screamed at the intruder because I did not have my legs on. I felt vulnerable. I fired shots through the bathroom door and told Reeva to call police.
"I walked back to the bed and realized Reeva was not in bed. It's then it dawned on me it could be her in there," he said.
That's when he realized Steenkamp was not in bed, he said in the statement. Fearing she was inside the bathroom, he says, he broke down the door using a cricket bat and carried the woman outside, where he called for help, and she soon died.
Excerpts of Prosecutor's Case Against Pistorius
Pistorius appeared in court today for the first time since his Valentine's Day arrest, as prosecutors laid out their case, insisting that the runner could not have mistaken his girlfriend for an intruder.
"[Pistorius] shot and killed an innocent woman," Gerrie Nel, the senior state prosecutor, said in court, adding that there is "no possible explanation to support" the notion that Pistorius thought Steenkamp was an intruder.
Police responding to neighbors' calls about shouting and gunshots at Pistorius' home in the guarded and gated complex in the South African capital discovered Steenkamp's body. A 9-mm pistol was recovered at the home.
Prosecutors said Steenkamp had arrived at the house with the expectation of spending the night with Pistorius. They said that Steenkamp was shot while in the bathroom, which is about 21 feet from the main bedroom, and that the two rooms are linked by a passage. The door to the toilet was broken down from the outside, prosecutors said, implying that the bathroom door had been locked.
Prosecutors believe it's a case of premeditated murder because, they say, Pistorius had to stop, put on his prosthetic legs, grab a gun and then walk 21 feet to a bathroom.
The premeditated murder charge means that he would likely be sentenced to life in prison if convicted, and that he is likely to be denied bail, which is expected to be decided later today.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro would comfortably win a presidential election should his boss Hugo Chavez's cancer force him out of power, according to an opinion poll.
The first survey on such a scenario, by local pollster Hinterlaces, gave Maduro a potential 50 percent of votes, compared to 36 percent for opposition leader Henrique Capriles.
Chavez returned to Venezuela on Monday after a long stay in Cuba to continue treatment at home for the disease that is jeopardizing his 14-year socialist rule of the South American OPEC nation.
He has named 50-year-old former bus driver and union activist Maduro as his preferred successor. But Capriles, 40, a center-left state governor who lost to Chavez in a presidential vote last year, would likely run again.
Chavez still has not said a word in public since his December 11 operation in Cuba, and Venezuelans were debating on Tuesday the various possible scenarios after his homecoming - from full recovery, to resignation, or even death from the cancer.
Should Chavez be forced out, Venezuela's constitution stipulates an election must be held within 30 days.
Capriles, who crossed swords with Hinterlaces at various points during the presidential election, again mocked its director, Oscar Schemel, as being biased against him.
"That man is not a pollster, he's on the government's payroll," Capriles told local TV.
"He said in December I would lose the Miranda governorship," he added, referring to his defeat of government heavyweight Elias Jaua, now foreign minister, in that local race.
Opinion surveys are notoriously controversial and divergent in Venezuela, with both sides routinely accusing pollsters of being in the pocket of the other.
Hinterlaces surveyed 1,230 people between January 30-February 9.
FRANKFURT: German luxury car maker BMW is recalling about 750,000 cars worldwide over potential electrical problems, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
The recall affects mainly about 500,000 cars in the United States, specifically various versions of its 1-Series and 3-Series cars built between March 2007 and July 2011 and its Z4 model built between March 2009 and June 2011.
Cars sold in Canada, Japan and South Africa were also affected, the spokesman said.
The recall is the results of problems with a battery cable connector which could break and cause a loss of electrical power to the vehicle, causing the car to stall unexpectedly and even crash.
The Twitter account associated with the fast-food chain Burger King was suspended after an apparent hacking that defaced the page with messages that the account had been sold to rival McDonald's.
The @BurgerKing account name was changed today to "McDonalds" and the Golden Arches' familiar logo was added to the page, as was a message that the account had been sold to McDonald's "because the whopper flopped."
The page has since been taken down, but images of the defacement are still visible on Web cache.
Before the feed's suspension, hackers posted messages to Burger King's some 83,000 followers that included racial epithets.
The online hacktivist collective Anonymous appeared to take responsibility for the hack in a tweet that mentioned a new operation dubbed #OpMadCow, although it was not immediately clear what the aim of that campaign was.
CNET has contacted Burger King and will update this report when we learn more.
LOS ANGELES Jerry Buss, the Los Angeles Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA franchise to 10 championships from the `80s Showtime dynasty to the Kobe Bryant era, died Monday, his assistant said.
Buss died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said Bob Steiner, his assistant. He was 80.
23 Photos
Jerry Buss: 1933-2013
He'd been hospitalized for cancer, but the immediate cause of death was kidney failure, Steiner said.
Various Los Angeles media reported late last week that several current and former Lakers players had visited Buss in the hospital, including Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Under Buss' leadership since 1979, the Lakers became Southern California's most beloved sports franchise and a worldwide extension of Hollywood glamour. Buss acquired, nurtured and befriended a staggering array of talented players and basketball minds during his Hall of Fame tenure.
Few owners in sports history can even approach Buss' accomplishments with the Lakers, who made the NBA finals 16 times through 2011 during his 32 years in charge, winning 10 titles between 1980 and 2010. The Lakers easily are the NBA's winningest franchise since he bought the club.
Few owners have ever been more beloved by their players than Buss, who always referred to the Lakers as his extended family. Working with front-office executives Jerry West and Mitch Kupchak, Buss spent lavishly to win his titles despite lacking a huge personal fortune, often running the NBA's highest payroll while also paying high-profile coaches Pat Riley and Phil Jackson.
Always an innovative businessman, Buss paid for the Lakers through both their wild success and his own groundbreaking moves to raise revenue. He co-founded a basic-cable sports television network and sold the naming rights to the Forum at times when both now-standard strategies were unusual, adding justification for his induction into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.
Magic Johnson and fellow Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy formed lifelong bonds with Buss during the Lakers' run to five titles in nine years in the 1980s, when the Lakers earned a reputation as basketball's most exciting team with their glamorous Showtime style.
Jackson then led Shaquille O'Neal and Bryant to a threepeat from 2000-02, rekindling the Lakers' mystique, before Bryant and Pau Gasol won two more titles under Jackson in 2009 and 2010.
Although Buss was proudest of his two hands full of NBA title rings, he also was a scholar, Renaissance man and bon vivant who epitomized California cool — and a certain Los Angeles lifestyle — for his entire public life.
The father of six rarely appeared in public without at least one attractive, much younger woman on his arm at USC football games, boxing matches, poker tournaments — and, of course, Lakers games from his private box at Staples Center, which was built under his watch.
Buss earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at age 24 and had careers in aerospace and real estate development before getting into sports. With money largely from his Santa Monica real-estate ventures, Buss bought the then-struggling Lakers, the NHL's Los Angeles Kings and both clubs' arena — the Forum — from Jack Kent Cooke in a $67.5 million deal that was the largest sports transaction in history at the time.
The Lakers were recently valued at $900 million by Forbes, CBS Los Angeles reports.
Buss also helped change televised sports by co-founding the Prime Ticket network in 1985, even receiving a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 for his work in television. Breaking the contemporary model of subscription services for televised sports, Buss' Prime Ticket put beloved broadcaster Chick Hearn and the Lakers' home games on basic cable.
Buss also sold the naming rights to the Forum in 1988 to Great Western Savings & Loan — another deal that was ahead of its time.
Born in Salt Lake City, Gerald Hatten Buss was raised in Wyoming and attended USC for graduate school, eventually becoming a chemistry professor and working as a chemist for the Bureau of Mines before his life took an abrupt turn into wealth and sports.
The former mathematician claimed his fortune grew out of a $1,000 real-estate investment in a West Los Angeles apartment building with partner Frank Mariani, an aerospace engineer.
Buss purchased Cooke's entire Los Angeles sports empire in 1979, including a 13,000-acre ranch in Kern County. Buss' love of basketball was the motivation for his purchase, and he immediately worked to transform the Lakers — who had won just one NBA title since moving west from Minneapolis in 1960 — into a star-powered endeavor befitting Hollywood.
"One of the first things I tried to do when I bought the team was to make it an identification for this city, like Motown in Detroit," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. "I try to keep that identification alive. I'm a real Angeleno. I want us to be part of the community."
Buss' plans immediately worked: Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar and coach Paul Westhead led the Lakers to the 1980 title. Johnson's ball-handling wizardry and Abdul-Jabbar's smooth inside game made for an attractive style of play evoking Hollywood flair and West Coast cool.
Riley, the former broadcaster who fit the L.A. image perfectly with his slick-backed hair and chiseled good looks, was surprisingly promoted by Buss early in the 1981-82 season after West declined to co-coach the team. Riley became one of the best coaches in NBA history, leading the Lakers to four straight NBA finals and four titles, with Worthy, Michael Cooper, Byron Scott and A.C. Green playing major roles.
Overall, the Lakers made the finals nine times in Buss' first 12 seasons while rekindling the NBA's best rivalry with the Boston Celtics, and Buss basked in the worldwide celebrity he received from his team's achievements. His womanizing and partying became Hollywood legend, with even his players struggling to keep up with Buss' lifestyle.
Johnson's HIV diagnosis and retirement in 1991 staggered Buss and the Lakers, the owner recalled in 2011. The Lakers struggled through much of the 1990s, going through seven coaches and making just one conference finals appearance in an eight-year stretch despite the 1996 arrivals of O'Neal, who signed with Los Angeles as a free agent, and Bryant, the 17-year-old high schooler acquired in a draft-week trade.
Shaq and Kobe didn't reach their potential until Buss persuaded Jackson, the Chicago Bulls' six-time NBA champion coach, to take over the Lakers in 1999. Los Angeles immediately won the next three NBA titles in brand-new Staples Center, AEG's state-of-the-art downtown arena built with the Lakers as the primary tenant.
After the Lakers traded O'Neal in 2004, they hovered in mediocrity again until acquiring Gasol in a heist of a trade with Memphis in early 2008. Los Angeles made the next three NBA finals, winning two more titles.
Through the Lakers' frequent successes and occasional struggles, Buss never stopped living his Hollywood dream. He was an avid poker player, frequently participating in high-stakes tournaments, and a fixture on the Los Angeles club scene well into his 70s, when a late-night drunk-driving arrest in 2007 — with a 23-year-old woman in the passenger seat of his Mercedes-Benz — prompted him to cut down on his partying.
Buss owned the NHL's Kings from 1979-87, and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks also won two league titles under Buss' ownership. He also owned Los Angeles franchises in World Team Tennis and the Major Indoor Soccer League.
Buss' children moved into leadership roles with the Lakers in their father's later years. Jim Buss, the Lakers' executive vice president of player personnel and the second of Buss' six children, has taken over much of the club's primary decision-making responsibilities in the last few years, while daughter Jeanie is a longtime executive on the franchise's business side — and Jackson's longtime companion.
Yet Jerry Buss served two terms as President of the NBA's Board of Governors, and was actively involved in the 2011 lockout negotiations, developing blood clots in his legs attributed to his extensive travel during that time
