SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after mass protests against high power prices and falling living standards, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during four years of debt crisis.
Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, an ex-bodyguard who took power in 2009 on pledges to root out graft and raise incomes in the European Union's poorest member, faces a tough task of propping up eroding support ahead of an expected early election.
Wage and pension freezes and tax hikes have bitten deep in a country where earnings 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".
Moves by Borisov on Tuesday to blame foreign utility companies for the rise in the cost of heating homes was to no avail and an eleventh day of marches saw 15 people hospitalized and 25 arrested in clashes with police.
"My decision to resign will not be changed under any circumstances. I do not build roads so that blood is shed on them," said Borisov, who began his career guarding the Black Sea state's communist dictator Todor Zhivkov.
A karate black belt, Borisov has cultivated a Putin-like "can-do" image since he entered politics as Sofia mayor in 2005 and would connect with voters by showing up on the capital's rutted streets to oversee the repair of pot-holes.
But critics say he has often skirted due process, sometimes to the benefit of those close to him, and his swift policy U-turns have wounded the public's trust.
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 and political elites with perceived links to shadowy businesses.
"He made my day," said student Borislav Hadzhiev in central Sofia, commenting on Borisov's resignation. "The truth is that we're living in an extremely poor country."
POLLS, PRICES
The prime minister's final desperate moves on Tuesday included cutting power prices and risking a diplomatic row with the Czech Republic by punishing companies including CEZ, moves which conflicted with EU norms on protection of investors and due process.
CEZ officials were hopeful on Wednesday that it would be able to avoid losing its distribution license after all and officials from the Bulgarian regulator said the company would not be punished if it dealt with breaches of procedure.
But shares in what is central Europe's largest publicly-listed company fell another 1 percent on Wednesday.
If pushed through, the fines for CEZ and two other foreign-owned firms will not encourage other investors in Bulgaria, who already have to navigate complicated bureaucracy and widespread corruption and organized crime to take advantage of Bulgaria's 10-percent flat tax rate.
Financial markets reacted negatively to the turbulence on Wednesday. The cost of insuring Bulgaria's debt rose to a three-month high and debt yields rose some 15 basis points, though the country's low deficit of 0.5 percent of gross domestic product means there is little risk to the lev currency's peg against the euro.
Borisov's interior minister indicated that elections originally planned for July would probably be pulled forward by saying that his rightist GERB party would not take part in talks to form a new government.
MILLIONS GONE
GERB's woes have echoes in another ex-communist EU member, Slovenia, where demonstrators have taken to the streets and added pressure to a crumbling conservative government.
A small crowd gathered in support of Borisov outside Sofia's parliament, which is expected to approve his resignation on Thursday, while bigger demonstrations against the premier were expected in the evening.
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. Average salaries are stuck at around 800 levs ($550) a month and millions have emigrated, leaving swathes of the country depopulated and little hope for those who remain.
GERB's popularity has held up well and it still led in the latest polls before protests grew in size last weekend, but analysts say the opposition Socialists should draw strength from the demonstrations.
The leftists, successors to Bulgaria's communist party, have proposed tax cuts and wage hikes and are likely to raise questions about public finances if elected.
(Additional reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Patrick Graham)
BRUSSELS: The EU moved closer Wednesday to centralised oversight on national budgets, negotiators said, an increasingly sensitive topic as Brussels readies to issue new economic forecasts with France in the firing line over puny growth and a probable deficit overshoot.
Long-contested tweaks to a package of laws designed to harmonise economic governance especially across the eurozone met with a breakthrough, participants said.
The talks included European Parliament, the European Commission and the current Irish chair of the council of European Union governments.
The idea is that national spending decisions not only are proofed by Brussels before parliamentary approval is sought, but also that priority -- and leeway if excessive deficits return -- is given to spending towards growth and jobs, the new EU mantra amid dogged recession.
The deal has still to pass a full vote in the EU legislature, but talks co-sponsor, Portuguese Socialist MEP Elisa Ferreira, said that with austerity "not delivering ... we need to adapt the medicine."
She underlined: "We need to rebalance our short-term objectives to better address growth and the vicious spiral of high debt-financing interest rates.
"Countries now making superhuman sacrifices need to know that their efforts are recognised and will be rewarded."
EU economy and euro commissioner Olli Rehn, whose forecasts on Friday morning will mainly be watched for their likely effect on French leaders' promises to meet treaty-agreed deficit targets, also hailed the agreement.
Google wants you to fall in love with the idea of a computer on your face. It has released another promo video showing what Google Glass could do (even though it's not a real product yet), and launched a contest for a chance to buy a $1,500 prototype. But as Forbes points out, people are using the #ifihadglass hashtag contest to point out the drawbacks of Glass.
Today's tech news roundup also looks at the redesign of Yahoo's home page, and the updated SwiftKey app for Android.
Watch CNET Update in the video above, and subscribe to the podcast via the links below.
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.
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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.
Dr. Drew Pinsky defended his show "Celebrity Rehab" on "The View" today, saying that he received messages of support from former participants after the death of Mindy McCready. . She was the fifth person who has appeared on the show to die in the past two years.
Dr. Drew was defending his show in the face of fresh criticism from the public and recovery advocates who say the process "doesn't belong on our TV screens." The grandfather of another one of the show's deceased alums said that when he heard about McCready, he thought to himself, "Dr. Drew lost another one."
"I wish I could be more responsible for them," Dr. Drew said of the show's alums when he called into "The View" today. "I've received yesterday about 10 emails and texts from those that are doing well that are so grateful and wanted to reassure me."
Former madam and show participant Heidi Fleiss emailed Dr. Drew to tell him the show was "the best thing I've ever done for myself," he said.
Mindy McCready is Fifth 'Celebrity Rehab' Death
Dr. Drew said he hadn't been McCready's doctor in years, but wished some of the show's participants would have continued treatment with his team. The VH1 show had five seasons from 2008 to 2011. McCready appeared on the third season of the show.
Mindy McCready Dead at 37 From Apparent Suicide Watch Video
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Mindy McCready Details Moment Cops Found Her, Son Watch Video
McCready, 37, died Sunday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at her Arkansas home, police said.
Dr. Drew said he reached out to McCready recently after her boyfriend and father of one of her two children, David Wilson, died in January of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"She was so severely shattered by that experience. All the people around her, her friends began calling me," Dr. Drew told "The View." "She was in trouble...She was really struggling and she knew it."
He said McCready was "mortified" about the "stigma and judgment" from the public and the press and that it took convincing to get her to go a hospital. He said she eventually went, but left "prematurely" because of the fear of stigmatization and "that's when things really unraveled."
Losing custody of her children was "the last straw," Dr. Drew said.
SEE PHOTOS: Notable Deaths in 2013
The country singer who soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," struggled with substance abuse, served time in jail and fought a lengthy battle with her mother over custody of her son.
McCready's death has revived much criticism for the TV show from the pubilc on social media and from experts.
"For whatever reason, there's this incredible fascination with people while they're actively using and their lives in addiction and we really think it doesn't belong on our TV screens," Patricia Taylor, executive director of Faces & Voices of Recovery, an advocacy group for people in recovery, told ABCNews.com.
"We don't have shows with people with cancer or diabetes or other health conditions," she said.
Taylor said that people not wanting to get treatment because they are afraid of how others will perceive them is an issue with many people, not just celebrities.
"We are very concerned about the deaths and unfortunately too many people in America are dying from addiction and we really need to make sure to make it possible for people to get the help that they need to recover," she said.
AMMAN (Reuters) - A Syrian missile killed at least 20 people in a rebel-held district of Aleppo on Tuesday, opposition activists said, as the army turns to longer-range weapons after losing bases in the country's second-largest city.
The use of what opposition activists said was a large missile of the same type as Russian-made Scuds against an Aleppo residential district came after rebels overran army bases over the past two months from which troops had fired artillery.
As the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, now a civil war, nears its two-year mark, rebels also landed three mortar bombs in the rarely-used presidential palace compound in the capital Damascus, opposition activists said on Tuesday.
The United Nations estimates 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict between largely Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's supporters among his minority Alawite sect. An international diplomatic deadlock has prevented intervention, as the war worsens sectarian tensions throughout the Middle East.
A Russian official said on Tuesday that Moscow, which is a long-time ally of Damascus, would not immediately back U.N. investigators' calls for some Syrian leaders to face the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Moscow has blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have increased pressure on Assad.
Casualties are not only being caused directly by fighting, but also by disruption to infrastructure and Syria's economy.
An estimated 2,500 people in a rebel-held area of northeastern Deir al-Zor province have been infected with typhoid, which causes diarrhea and can be fatal, due to drinking contaminated water from the Euphrates River, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
"There is not enough fuel or electricity to run the pumps so people drink water from the Euphrates which is contaminated, probably with sewage," the WHO representative in Syria, Elisabeth Hoff, told Reuters by telephone.
The WHO had no confirmed reports of deaths so far.
BURIED UNDER RUBBLE
In northern Aleppo, opposition activists said 25 people were missing under rubble of three buildings hit by a several-meter-long missile. They said remains of the weapon showed it to be a Scud-type missile of the type government forces increasingly use in Aleppo and in Deir a-Zor.
NATO said in December Assad's forces fired Scud-type missiles. It did not specify where they landed but said their deployment was an act of desperation.
Bodies were being gradually dug up, Mohammad Nour, an activist, said by phone from Aleppo.
"Some, including children, have died in hospitals," he said.
Video footage showed dozens of people scouring for victims and inspecting damage. A body was pulled from under collapsed concrete. At a nearby hospital, a baby said to have been dug out from wreckage was shown dying in the hands of doctors.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
Opposition activists also reported fighting near the town of Nabak on the Damascus-Homs highway, another route vital for supplying forces in the capital loyal to Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since the 1960s.
Rebels moved anti-aircraft guns into the eastern Damascus district of Jobar, adjacent to the city centre, as they seek to secure recent gains, an activist said.
"The rebels moved truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns to Jobar and are now firing at warplanes rocketing the district," said Damascus activist Moaz al-Shami.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told a news conference a U.N. war crimes report, which accuses military leaders and rebels of terrorizing civilians, was "not the path we should follow ... at this stage it would be untimely and unconstructive."
Syria is not party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC and the only way the court can investigate the situation is if it receives a referral from the Security Council, where Moscow is a permanent member.
PRETORIA: South African Olympic hero Oscar Pistorius on Tuesday tearfully denied the premeditated murder of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, telling a court he shot at her through a locked bathroom door believing she was an intruder.
"I am absolutely mortified by the events and the devastating loss of my beloved Reeva," Pistorius said in an affidavit at a court hearing in the capital Pretoria, his first public comments on the Valentine's Day killing.
The 26-year-old double amputee track star broke down in tears repeatedly as his own words filled the court: "We were deeply in love and couldn't be more happy."
"I had no intention to kill my girlfriend," he said in the statement, read out by his lawyer as Pistorius sat in the dock, struggling to hold his composure.
At one point the court was forced to break so the track star could get himself together.
"He's definitely been broken," his public relations manager Stuart Higgins said.
As the court hearing was under way, Steenkamp was being laid to rest at an emotional private ceremony at a crematorium in her hometown of Port Elizabeth.
The "Blade Runner" became an inspiration to millions when he became the first double amputee to compete against able-bodied athletes in the Olympics.
He now faces a charge of premeditated murder, which will likely result in remand without bail and, if convicted, a life sentence behind bars.
Pistorius said the couple, who had been dating since late last year, had spent the evening at his upscale Pretoria home watching television and with the 29-year-old Steenkamp doing yoga.
He awoke in the dead of night to bring in a fan from the balcony when he heard a noise.
"Filled with horror and fear" that someone was in the bathroom, he said he felt "very vulnerable" because he did not have his prosthetic legs on.
"I fired shots at the toilet door and shouted to Reeva to phone the police.
"Reeva was not responding. 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."
After smashing the door with a cricket bat, Pistorius said "Reeva was slumped over but alive"
"I tried to render the assistance to Reeva that I could, but she died in my arms."
He said he kept a firearm, a 9 mm Parabellum, under his bed at night because he had been a "victim of violence and burglaries before."
He was not only acutely aware of intruders intending to commit violent crime but that "I have received death threats before."
Prosecutors argued that far from being an accident, Steenkamp's death was a premeditated act of murder.
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel told the court Pistorius had armed himself, put on his prosthetic legs, walked seven metres and fired four shots into the bathroom door, hitting a terrified Steenkamp three times and fatally wounding her.
"She could go nowhere," Nel said. "She locked the door for a purpose. We will get to that purpose."
There was no decision on bail Tuesday, with court proceedings adjourned until Wednesday.
Prosecution spokesman Medupe S'Maiku said the hearings could take all week.
Magistrate Desmond Nair said he could not rule out that there was some planning involved in the killing, which may be considered as a premeditated murder for the purposes of bail.
But Pistorius's legal team rejected the claims as he sought to argue he was not a flight risk.
Pistorius revealed he earned 5.6 million rand ($640,000) a year and owned the $570,000 house in the gated estate where the killing took place and two other homes.
Lawyers submitted affidavits from friends of both Pistorius and Steenkamp, which spoke of the couple's close relationship.
Pistorius, who off the track has a rocky private life of rash behaviour, beautiful women, guns and fast cars, has built up a powerful team of lawyers, medical specialists and public relations experts for his defence.
In 2009 Pistorius -- who once admitted to a newspaper that he slept with a pistol, machine gun, cricket bat and baseball bat for fear of burglars -- spent a night in jail after allegedly assaulting a 19-year-old woman at a party.
Meanwhile in Port Elizabeth, tearful friends and family said goodbye to Steenkamp, whose cloth-draped coffin with white flowers laid on top was carried into a chapel in the southeastern coastal city where she grew up.
"There's a space missing inside all of the people that she knew that can't be filled again," her brother Adam, who gave the eulogy, said after the ceremony. "We'll miss her."
A funeral programme simply entitled "Reeva" bore the dates of her birth and death, and a black-and-white portrait of Steenkamp with the words "God's Gift, A Child" written on the back.
Pistorius, a Paralympian gold-medallist, became the first double amputee to run against able-bodied athletes at last year's Olympics in London on the carbon-fibre running blades that inspired his nickname.
But his career has been put on hold since the shooting, forcing him to cancel races in Australia, Brazil, Britain and the United States between March and May.
The case has shocked South Africa, where Pistorius is still considered by many to be a shining example of how individuals can triumph over adversity.
South Africa's sports minister on Tuesday expressed shock and disbelief that the star has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend as the country battles epidemic levels of violence against women.
"None of our sporting heroes and heroines should be associated with such acts of violence against women and children," said Fikile Mbalula.
Boeing's 787 Dreamliners on the assembly line at the aviation giant's Everett, Wash. facility.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)
There's been no shortage of publicity and investigation surrounding the grounding of the world's 787 Dreamliner fleet after recent battery fires aboard the Boeing airplanes. But there's one question that has gone unanswered: Where are all those Dreamliners?
Thanks to our friends at Airchive.com, we now know where all those planes are sitting as regulators, Boeing, and its battery suppliers work to once again get eager passengers aboard the much-hyped aircraft.
According to Airchive.com, there are currently eight carriers flying Dreamliners -- if you can call having a bunch of planes parked on tarmacs at airports all over the world "flying." The eight are Air India, All Nippon Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, Japan Airlines, LAN Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Qatar Airways, and United Airlines. Between them, they have 50 Dreamliners, which, of course, are in addition to 787s that Boeing has completed, but which it has yet to deliver.
Airchive.com looked into the location of each of those 50 planes, and determined that they are currently parked at 17 airports across five continents. Twelve Dreamliners are at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, while seven others are at Tokyo's Narita. Five are in Mumbai, India, four are in both Houston and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, three are in Santiago, Chile, and two are at Japan's Takamatsu Airport. The remaining grounded Dreamliner fleet consists of single planes waiting in Bangalore, India; Frankfurt, Germany; Japan's Matsuyama and Kumamoto Airports; Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; London Heathrow; Warsaw, Poland; and Doha, Qatar.
In addition, Boeing has a number of 787s sitting at its Boeing Field and Paine Field facilities in Seattle and Everett, Wash., respectively.
For now, the carriers have no choice but to keep their Dreamliners parked at these 17 airports and wait for the FAA and other government agencies to give the thumb's-up to start flying the planes again. No one knows, however, how long that will take.
LOS ANGELES Jerry Buss, the Los Angeles Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA team to 10 championships from the Showtime dynasty of the 1980s to the Kobe Bryant era, died Monday. He was 80.
He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said Bob Steiner, his assistant.
23 Photos
Jerry Buss: 1933-2013
Buss had been hospitalized for most of the past 18 months while undergoing cancer treatment, but the immediate cause of death was kidney failure, Steiner said.
With his condition apparently worsening in recent weeks, several prominent former Lakers visited Buss to say goodbye, including Bryant, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
"The NBA has lost a visionary owner whose influence on our league is incalculable and will be felt for decades to come," NBA Commissioner David Stern said. "More importantly, we have lost a dear and valued friend."
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.
"He's meant everything to me in my career in terms of taking a risk on a 17-year-old kid coming out of high school and then believing in me my entire career," Bryant said Friday during the NBA's All-Star Game weekend. "And then for the game itself, the brand of basketball that he implemented in Showtime carried the league."
James Worthy, the Lakers' Hall of Fame forward, tweeted:
Few owners in sports history can approach Buss' accomplishments with the Lakers, who made the NBA finals 16 times through 2011 during his nearly 34 years in charge, winning 10 titles between 1980 and 2010. The Lakers easily are the NBA's winningest franchise since he bought the club, which is now run largely by Jim Buss and Jeanie Buss, two of his six children.
"We not only have lost our cherished father, but a beloved man of our community and a person respected by the world basketball community," the Buss family said in a statement issued by the Lakers.
"It was our father's often-stated desire and expectation that the Lakers remain in the Buss family. The Lakers have been our lives as well, and we will honor his wish and do everything in our power to continue his unparalleled legacy."
Buss always referred to the Lakers as his extended family, and his players rewarded his fanlike excitement with devotion, friendship and two hands full of championship rings. Working with front-office executives Jerry West, Bill Sharman 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, further justifying his induction to the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.
"Dr. Jerry Buss was a cornerstone of the Los Angeles sports community and his name will always be synonymous with his beloved Lakers," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. "It was through his stewardship that the Lakers brought `Showtime' basketball and numerous championship rings to this great city. Today we mourn the loss and celebrate the life of a man who helped shape the modern landscape of sports in L.A."
Johnson and fellow Hall of Famers Abdul-Jabbar and 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 flamboyant Showtime style. The buzz extended throughout the Forum, where Buss used the Laker Girls, a brass band and promotions to keep Los Angeles fans interested in all four quarters of their games.
Jackson then led O'Neal and Bryant to a three-peat from 2000-02, rekindling the Lakers' mystique, before Bryant and Pau Gasol won two more titles under Jackson in 2009 and 2010.
Although Buss gained fame and fortune with the Lakers, 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.
Buss rarely appeared in public without at least one attractive, much younger woman on his arm at USC football games, boxing matches at the Forum, poker tournaments — and, of course, Lakers games from his private box at Staples Center, which was built under his watch. In failing health recently, Buss hadn't attended a Lakers game this season.
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 from his real-estate ventures and a good bit of creative accounting, 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.
Last month, Forbes estimated the Lakers were worth $1 billion, second most in the NBA.
Buss also helped change televised sports by co-founding the Prime Ticket network in 1985, 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 poverty in Wyoming before improving his life through education. He attended USC for graduate school, eventually becoming a chemistry professor and working as a chemist for the Bureau of Mines before his life took a 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 and co-worker.
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 sophistication.
Riley, the former broadcaster who fit the L.A. image perfectly with his slick-backed hair and 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' six children all have worked for the Lakers organization in various capacities for several years. Jim Buss, the Lakers' executive vice president of player personnel and the second-oldest child, has taken over much of the club's primary decision-making responsibilities in the last few years, while daughter Jeanie runs the franchise's business side.
Jerry Buss still 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.
Troubled country singer Mindy McCready was "devastated" after the January death of her boyfriend and "fearful of stigma and ridicule," according to Dr. Drew Pinsky, who treated her in 2009 on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew."
McCready died Sunday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at her Arkansas home, police said. She was 37.
The country singer who soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," struggled with substance abuse, served time in jail and fought a lengthy battle with her mother over custody of her son.
The singer appeared on the third season of Dr. Drew's VH1 show. She is the fifth person who has appeared on the show to die.
"I am deeply saddened by this awful news," Dr. Drew said in a statement posted in a VH1 blog. "My heart goes out to Mindy's family and children. She is a lovely woman who will be missed by many."
Dr. Drew said that he had not treated McCready for a few years, but "reached out to her recently" after her boyfriend and father of one of her two children David Wilson, died in January of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"She was devastated. Although she was fearful of stigma and ridicule she agreed with me that she needed to make her health and safety a priority," Dr. Drew said. "Unfortunately it seems that Mindy did not sustain her treatment."
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"Mental health issues can be life threatening and need to be treated with the same intensity and resources as any other dangerous potentially life threatening medical condition," the doctor's statement said. "Treatment is effective. If someone you know is suffering please be sure he or she gets help and maintains treatment."
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Country Singer Mindy McCready Dead at Age 37 Watch Video
Mindy McCready Details Moment Cops Found Her, Son Watch Video
Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a report of gun shots fired at McCready's Heber Springs, Ark., home at around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.
There they found McCready on the front porch. She was pronounced dead at the scene from what appeared to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.
Cleburne County Sheriff Marty Moss told the Associated Press that it appears that McCready killed Wilson's dog before apparently shooting herself. The dog's body was found next to McCready's body when authorities arrived, the AP reported.
Sheriff: McCready shot late boyfriend's dog before turning the gun on herself
When reached by phone today, the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office said the sheriff would be responding to questions later in the day.
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McCready was ordered to enter rehab shortly after Wilson's death, and her two children, Zander, 6, and 9-month-old Zayne were taken from her. She was released after one day to undergo outpatient care.
McCready scored a number-one Billboard country hit in 1996 with "Guys Do It All the Time," but in recent years, the country crooner has received more media attention for her troubled personal life than her music.
McCready reportedly had a decade-long affair with baseball star Roger Clemens that began when she was a teen, the New York Daily News reported in 2008. Clemens' attorney at the time denied any improper relationship, but McCready discussed details of the relationship on television.
"This is sad news," Clemens said in a statement today, posted on the Houston Astros website. "I had heard over time that she was trying to get peace and direction in her life. The few times that I had met her and her manager/agent they were extremely nice."
She has been arrested multiple times on drug charges and probation violations and has been hospitalized for overdoses several times, including in 2010, when she was found unconscious at her mother's home after taking a painkiller and muscle relaxant.
