Cubs to improve seventh-inning stretch, modernize music at Wrigley

MESA, Ariz. – The seventh-inning stretch has been a polarizing part of Chicago Cubs games since the introduction of guest conductors in 1998, the year Harry Caray died.

Some fans love it, while others wish the tradition would end and the celebrities there to promote themselves would just go away.

Cubs in-game programming director Jim Oboikowitch said Tuesday there will be some changes to the stretch this year after listening to what fans had to say.

“I think we definitely want to focus on former Cubs players, people that are Chicago natives, people who know baseball and who are Cubs fans,” he said. “I do think we want to get ‘A-listers,’ so if there is that celebrity in a movie ...  But we want them to understand what they’re coming to do -- not just come into the booth and say, ‘My movie hits theaters tonight,’ or ‘My book is in stores.’

“They should know something about the Cubs. They should know the background of Harry Caray and what we are doing, and I think it will be a little more teaching them and exposing them. We do want the best guests, so we might come across that situation. But I think it’s all about preparing them so they’re not on with (broadcasters Len Kasper and Jim Deshaies) and talking about stuff while a big home run is being hit in the bottom of the seventh.”

One guest conductor came into the TV booth last year and bragged that he hated baseball. Not every guest will be invited into the booth this year.

“People really like the stretch guest,” Oboikowitch said. “It’s the interview that’s always been a little dicey, and I think people always remember the bad ones -- when a guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about or always interrupting the (broadcasters).”

The Cubs also will play more taped music before games and actually try to move into the new millennium instead of playing the best rock songs of the 1980s.

“We will try to upgrade the music a little,” he said. “(Organist) Gary Pressy is not going anywhere. That will stay the same, but some more updated music at different times.  We talked about cutting down some of the pregame (advertising announcements), so I think there will be more music playing pregame, adding a little more life in the stadium.

“It’s tough after a year when you lost 101 games. The year were won 51 home games (in 2008) it was the same music, but it felt a little better and seemed louder. We’ll play what fans want to hear, though we won’t have ‘Call Me Maybe’ on the list.”

New senior director of marketing Alison Miller said they are exploring whether to play the same song at the start of every game, as they did with Van Halen’s “Jump” in the '80s and '90s. They want something that says “Chicago,” though not it also has to get the crowd psyched for the game.

The Cubs played several different songs last year,  and there may be no real consensus on what the perfect introductory song should be at Wrigley Field.  If Cubs fans have any ideas, they’re free to send their suggestions to Miller or Oboikowitch at Wrigley Field.

psullivan@tribune.com

Twitter @PWSullivan

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Exclusive: Apple, Macs hit by hackers who targeted Facebook

BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc was recently attacked by hackers who infected the Macintosh computers of some employees, the company said on Tuesday in an unprecedented disclosure that described the widest known cyber attacks against Apple-made computers to date.

Unknown hackers infected the computers of some Apple workers when they visited a website for software developers that had been infected with malicious software. The malware had been designed to attack Mac computers, the company said in a statement provided to Reuters.

The same software, which infected Macs by exploiting a flaw in a version of Oracle Corp's Java software used as a plug-in on Web browsers, was used to launch attacks against Facebook, which the social network disclosed on Friday.

The malware was also employed in attacks against Mac computers used by "other companies," Apple said, without elaborating on the scale of the assault.

But a person briefed on the investigation into the attacks said that hundreds of companies, including defense contractors, had been infected with the same malicious software, or malware.

The attacks mark the highest-profile cyber attacks to date on businesses running Mac computers. Hackers have traditionally focused on attacking machines running the Windows operating system, though they have gradually turned their attention to Apple products over the past couple of years as the company gained market share over Microsoft Corp.

"This is the first really big attack on Macs," said the source, who declined to be identified because the person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. "Apple has more on its hands than the attack on itself."

Charlie Miller, a prominent expert on Apple security who is co-author of the Mac Hacker's Handbook, said the attacks show that criminal hackers are investing more time studying the Mac OS X operating system so they can attack Apple computers.

For example, he noted, hackers recently figured out a fairly sophisticated way to attack Macs by exploiting a flaw in Adobe Systems Inc's Flash software.

"The only thing that was making it safe before is that nobody bothered to attack it. That goes away if somebody bothers to attack it," Miller said.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Cyber-security attacks have been on the rise. In last week's State of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order seeking better protection of the country's critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.

Over the weekend, cyber-security specialists Mandiant reported that a secretive Chinese military unit was believed to have orchestrated a series of attacks on U.S. companies, which Beijing has strongly denied.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Tuesday that the Obama administration has repeatedly taken up its concerns about Chinese cyber-theft with Beijing, including the country's military. There was no indication as to whether the group described by Mandiant was involved in the attacks described by Apple and Facebook.

An Apple spokesman declined to specify how many companies had been breached in the campaign targeting Macs, saying he could not elaborate further on the statement it provided.

"Apple has identified malware which infected a limited number of Mac systems through a vulnerability in the Java plug-in for browsers. The malware was employed in an attack against Apple and other companies, and was spread through a website for software developers," the statement said.

"We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network. There is no evidence that any data left Apple," it continued.

The statement said Apple was working closely with law enforcement to find the culprits, but the spokesman would not elaborate. The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment.

Apple said it plans to release a piece of software on Tuesday, which it said customers can use to identify and repair Macs infected with the malware used in the attacks.

(Editing by Andre Grenon, Edwin Chan and Richard Chang)

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Pistorius: Thought lover an intruder in shooting

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius wept Tuesday as his defense lawyer read the athlete's account of how he shot his girlfriend to death on Valentine's Day, claiming he had mistaken her for an intruder.

Prosecutors, however, told a packed courtroom that the double-amputee known as the Blade Runner intentionally and mercilessly shot and killed 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp as she cowered inside a locked bathroom.

Pistorius told the Pretoria Magistrate's Court at a bail hearing he felt vulnerable in the presence of an intruder inside the bathroom because he did not have his prosthetic legs on, and fired into the bathroom door.

The Valentine's Day shooting in Pistorius' home in Pretoria shocked South Africans and many around the world who idolized him for overcoming adversity to become a sports champion, competing in the London Olympics last year in track besides being a Paralympian. Steenkamp was a model and law graduate who made her debut on a South African reality TV program that was broadcast on Saturday, two days after her death.

In a major point of contention emerged even during Tuesday bail hearing, prosecutor Gerrie Nel said Pistorius took the time to put on his prostheses, walked seven meters (yards) from the bed to the enclosed toilet inside his bathroom and only then opened fire. Three of the bullets hit Steenkamp of the four that were fired into the door, Nel said.

Pistorius said in his sworn statement that after opening fire, he realized that Steenkamp was not in his bed.

"It filled me with horror and fear," Pistorius said. The 26-year-old Olympian said he put on his prosthetic legs and tried to kick down the door before finally bashing it in with a cricket bat. Inside, he said he found Steenkamp, slumped over. He said he lifted her bloodied body into his arms and tried to carry her downstairs to seek medical help.

But by then, it was too late.

"She died in my arms," the athlete said.

Nel charged Pistorius with premeditated murder and said the athlete opened fire after the couple engaged in a shouting match and she fled to the bathroom.

"She couldn't go anywhere. You can run nowhere," Nel said. "It must have been horrific."

A conviction of premeditated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in jail.

Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair ruled that Pistorius must face the harshest bail requirements available in South African law. That means Pistorius' lawyers must offer "exceptional" reasons for the athlete to be free before trial, besides simply giving up his two South African passports and posting a cash bond.

Pistorius sobbed softly as his lawyer, Barry Roux, insisted the shooting was an accident and that there was no evidence to substantiate a murder charge.

"We submit it is not even murder," he said. "There is no concession this is a murder."

Pistorius' emotional outbursts again played a part in how the hearing progessed, as it did during an initial hearing Friday. At one point, Nair stopped the hearing after Pistorius wept as Roux read a portion of the athlete's statement describing how Steenkamp bought him a Valentine's Day present, but wouldn't let him open it the night before.

"Maintain your composure," the magistrate said. "You need to apply your mind here."

Pistorius' voice quivered when he answered: "Yes, my lordship."

Affidavits from friends of Pistorius and Steenkamp described the two as a charming, happy couple. The night before the killing, they said, Pistorius and Steenkamp had canceled separate plans in order to spend the night before Valentine's Day together at his home, in a gated neighborhood.

Outside the court, several dozen singing women protested against domestic violence and waved placards urging that Pistorius be refused bail. "Pistorius must rot in jail," one placard said.

As details emerged at the dramatic court hearing in the capital, Steenkamp's body was being cremated Tuesday at a memorial service in the south-coast port city of Port Elizabeth. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service.

South Africa has some of the world's worst rates of violence against females and the highest rate in the world of women killed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the Medical Research Council. Professor Rachel Jewkes of the council said at least three women are killed by a partner every day in this country of 50 million.

Steenkamp campaigned actively against domestic violence and had tweeted on Twitter that she planned to join a "Black Friday" protest by wearing black in honor of a 17-year-old girl who was gang-raped and mutilated two weeks ago.

What "she stood for, and the abuse against women, unfortunately it's gone right around and I think the Lord knows that statement is more powerful now," her uncle Mike Steenkamp, the family's spokesman, said after her memorial.

He said the family had planned a big get-together at Christmas but that had not been possible. "But we are here today as a family and the only one who's missing is Reeva," he said, breaking down and weeping.

Pistorius has lost several valuable sponsorships estimated to be worth more than $1 million a year.

On Tuesday, the athlete was ousted from a pro-gay campaign being launched in Cape Town, organizers said. In a video axed from the campaign, Pistorius says: "You don't have to worry. You don't have to change. Take a deep breath and remember, 'It will get better.'"

And Clarins Group, which owns Thierry Mugler Perfumes, said in an email that "out of respect and compassion for the families involved in this tragedy, Thierry Mugler Perfumes have taken the decision to withdraw all of their advertising campaigns featuring Oscar Pistorius."

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UK patient dies from SARS-like coronavirus

LONDON (AP) — A patient being treated for a mysterious SARS-like virus has died, a British hospital said Tuesday.

Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, said the coronavirus victim was also being treated for "a long-term, complex unrelated health problem" and already had a compromised immune system.

A total of 12 people worldwide have been diagnosed with the disease, six of whom have died.

The virus was first identified last year in the Middle East. Most of those infected had traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Pakistan, but the person who just died is believed to have caught it from a relative in Britain, where there have been four confirmed cases.

The new coronavirus is part of a family of viruses that cause ailments including the common cold and SARS. In 2003, a global outbreak of SARS killed about 800 people worldwide.

Health experts still aren't sure exactly how humans are being infected. The new coronavirus is most closely related to a bat virus and scientists are considering whether bats or other animals like goats or camels are a possible source of infection.

Britain's Health Protection Agency has said while it appears the virus can spread from person to person, "the risk of infection in contacts in most circumstances is still considered to be low."

Officials at the World Health Organization said the new virus has probably already spread between humans in some instances. In Saudi Arabia last year, four members of the same family fell ill and two died. And in a cluster of about a dozen people in Jordan, the virus may have spread at a hospital's intensive care unit.

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McCartney, Mumford top eclectic Bonnaroo lineup

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — There will be a British invasion of the main stage at Bonnaroo this year.

Paul McCartney and Mumford & Sons are among the headliners for the 2013 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn.

The four-day festival, held on a rural 700-acre farm, always features an eclectic roster, but the June 13-16 event is even more varied than usual.

Returnees Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers also hold down a headliner spot. Then things get a little crazy with R&B star R. Kelly, alternative queen Bjork and Wu-Tang Clan celebrating its 20th anniversary. Wilco, Pretty Lights, The Lumineers, The National, The xx, Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, Nas and ZZ Top also top the list announced Tuesday by "Weird Al" Yankovic via Bonnaroo's YouTube channel.

Tickets go on sale at noon EST on Saturday.

McCartney, the former Beatle and recent frontman of Sirvana, will be making his first appearance at the event.

Mumford & Sons, fresh off its album of the year win at the Grammy Awards, return to Bonnaroo after a memorable 2011 second-stage performance that stretched more than an hour, drew friends Old Crow Medicine Show and had fans hanging off fences to get a better view.

Other top-of-the-list performers include Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Animal Collective, Daniel Tosh, David Byrne & St. Vincent, Passion Pit and Grizzly Bear.

The festival hosts more than 120 acts. More will be announced later.

There are a few curiosities on the list. Glam-punk Billy Idol and Odd Future member and mystery man Earl Sweatshirt are scheduled to perform. Jim James will host a Soul SuperJam with John Oates, Zigaboo Modeliste of the Meters and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Fans of roots rock, Americana and folk-leaning acoustic music will have more than Mumford and The Lumineers to focus on. Also scheduled to perform are Dwight Yoakam, Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, John Fullbright, Of Monsters and Men, Calexico, JD McPherson, Father John Misty and The Tallest Man on Earth.

___

Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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Kraft acknowledges faults, unveils new path

From new products like Macaroni and Cheese crackers to Oscar Mayer pulled pork, Kraft Foods Group laid out the strategy on Tuesday that took the company's new products "from worst to first."

The Northfield-based maker of Macaroni & Cheese, Planters and Velveeta was spun off from Mondelez International in October.

In 2009, just 6.5 percent of company sales came from new products, whereas 13 percent of sales were attributable to new products in 2012, according to a company estimate.

It's going to be important for Kraft to keep up the pace as it makes its case for remaining an independent company. Competitor Heinz, which has also lagged in innovation, will be snapped up in a Berkshire Hathaway-led consortium of investors later this year.

Presenting at the Consumer Analysts Group of New York Conference in Boca Raton, Fla., Barry Calpino, vice president of breakthrough innovation at Kraft, delineated the company's changes to how it develops and supports new products.

In 2008, Calpino said, "we were the worst by almost any measure," in terms of its innovation. He added that 17 of the year's 19 new product launches were considered failures. Kraft launched products like Bagelfuls, frozen bagels stuffed with cream cheese; Oreo Cakesters, the iconic cookies made out of cake; and cheesy crackers shaped like and named after Macaroni & Cheese that year.

Among 2008 successes were Ritz Stackers and Starbucks discs for the Tassimo machine, a company spokesman said.

Kraft's 2009 new products performed similarly.

In mid-2010, Calpino said the company brought in an outside firm to study its innovation initiatives. They came back with a succinct statement, he said: "Kraft is where good ideas go to die."

Symptomatic of the problem, Calpino said, was a focus on small ideas, lack of rigor and focus, and little investment in product launches. At the time, he said, innovation was considered a "dead-end job," and employees just accepted that Kraft wasn't good at it.

As a result, he said, Kraft developed an innovation playbook that calls for more investment in fewer, bigger ideas that will receive a lot of support, rather than what he referred to as "Field of Dreams" innovation that amounted to a "build it and they will come" mentality.

Kraft now does more work with its sales team, bringing them into the product development so they could better explain each one's significance to retailers, and investing more heavily behind each launch.

In 2011, Calpino said the company focused its efforts on 13 "big bets," including its MiO brand of water flavoring, Velveeta Cheesy Skillet Dinners and Oscar Mayer Selects, a line of higher-quality meat without artificial preservatives.

In so doing, the company raised its average launch support roughly five-fold, from about $5 million to about $25 million for so-called "big bets." MiO got more than $50 million in support.

MiO, Velveeta Skillets, and Oscar Mayer Selects have become $100 million product platforms, which is an industry sales benchmark for successful product launches.

Calpino said that Kraft is also maintaining focus on its big launches for the first three years rather than moving on after the first year. Other initiatives include improving the level of talent within the organization and appealing more to Hispanics in product development and marketing.

Kraft's major 2013 launches include pulled pork under its Oscar Mayer Selects brand, Cool Whip frostings, and Recipe Makers, a pair of sauce packets to be sold in the pasta and sauce aisle. Consumers add vegetables or protein to the sauces to cook popular dishes like pot roast, sweet and sour chicken, or enchiladas.

As part of the presentation, Kraft CEO Tony Vernon said that Kraft has seen an increasing segment of the population shifting to value priced options. According to company data, 26.5 percent of the population was considered low income in 2009, and that number rose to 28.9 percent in 2012.

"We have an obligation to financially strapped low and middle income families - and I do mean families - that drive America's grocery business," Vernon said. He added that with consumers gravitating the high and low ends of the price spectrum, traditional grocers are getting hurt.

Indeed, local heavyweights like Jewel and Dominick's have been closing stores. Last month, Eden Prairie, Minn-based Supervalu said it had agreed to sell Jewel and four other grocery chains to Cerberus Capital Management, a private investment firm.

"It's critical to have the right price and product offering at every rung on this ladder," Vernon said.

In other words, he said, Kraft needs to have the right products for "a Latina mom who prefers Kool-Aid to Capri Sun," as well as a Baby Boomer who is "choosing Velveeta Skillets over Mac N' Cheese."

Kraft's presentation came on the heels of last week's announcement that fourth quarter sales would be lower than expected after Oscar Mayer cold cuts lost market share to a key competitor, presumably Chicago-based Hillshire Brands.

The company said it expects fourth-quarter net revenues to fall 10.7 percent to $4.5 billion. The final numbers will be reported before the end of March.

Kraft also raised 2013 earnings guidance by 15 cents to $2.75 per share.

The new Kraft Foods Group, which assumed all of the pension obligation for legacy Kraft Foods when it was spun off, also announced a change in the way it handles accounting for its pensions last week.

eyork@tribune.com | Twitter: @emilyyork

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Burger King Twitter account hacked

Burger King has apologized for today's hacking of its Twitter account in which someone changed the feed to look like that of McDonald's, adding that it does not yet have confirmation of who was behind the hack.

"We apologize to our fans and followers who have been receiving erroneous tweets about other members of our industry and additional inappropriate topics," Burger King said in a statement to the Tribune this afternoon, adding that it had worked with Twitter administrators to suspend the account after the bogus tweets were discovered.

The hackers substituted the McDonald's logo in place of the familiar one for Burger King and sent tweets promoting the music of controversial Chicago rapper Chief Keef, some vulgar tweets and other tweets making outrageous claims about Burger King employees and practices.

Around 11 a.m. today came the first apparently fake tweet on the @BurgerKing feed, announcing, "We just got sold to McDonalds! Look for McDonalds in a hood near you." Similarly, the account's description was changed to read, "We just got sold to McDonalds! Look for McDonalds in a hood near you."

The account sent more than a dozen tweets over the next hour, including a link to a video by Chief Keef.

"We caught one of our employees in the bathroom doing this …" read one of the tweets, accompanied with a photo of someone injecting himself with a syringe.

By 12:15 p.m., the account had been suspended.

"We have worked directly with administrators to suspend the account until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings," Burger King's statement said.

But not before jokes about the hack were racing across Twitter.

"Somebody needs to tell Burgerking that 'whopper123' isn't a secure password," Twitter user @flibblesan cracked.

McDonald's took to Twitter to assure its fast-food competitor that it was not behind the hack. "We empathize with our @BurgerKing counterparts," McDonald's said via the actual @McDonald's account. "Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking."

The McDonald's image used on the hacked @BurgerKing account was the same picture of the new Fish McBites used on the @McDonalds account.

We have worked directly with administrators to suspend the account until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings," Burger King's statement said.

No official news of a Burger King sale to McDonald's has been reported today, which is Presidents Day, a federal holiday and also a holiday for many businesses.

Twitter acknowledged earlier this month that some 250,000 user passwords had been compromised, though it was not clear today if the one belonging to @BurgerKing was among them.

rmanker@tribune.com

Twitter: @RobManker

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Huawei denies work in field linked to U.S. death in Singapore

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Chinese telecommunications company Huawei said on Monday it had not worked with an institute in Singapore on any projects in the specialist field of an American engineer who died mysteriously last year shortly after leaving the institute.

Britain's Financial Times said on Saturday that Shane Todd had been working on "what was apparently a joint project" between Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics, or IME, and Huawei shortly before he died last June.

His parents have said he was murdered because of his involvement in the project, which they say involved exporting sensitive military technology to China.

IME declined immediate comment.

Singapore police said they were still investigating the death of Todd, 31, and would submit their evidence to a coroner. Singaporean pathologists concluded in an autopsy last June that he died by hanging in his Singapore flat.

"IME approached Huawei on one occasion to cooperate with them in the GaN field, but we decided not to accept, and consequently do not have any cooperation with IME related to GaN," Huawei said in a statement.

Todd's area of expertise was Gallium Nitride (GaN), an advanced semiconductor material which has both commercial and military purposes. It is used in things from blue-ray disc players to military radars.

Huawei said that the development of GaN technology was commonplace across the telecommunications industry.

Reuters reviewed evidence the family presented supporting its theory a few weeks after his death, including emails, other documents and photographs.

Interviews with the family, colleagues and friends revealed conflicting views on Todd's state of mind before his death, the nature of his work and how he died.

Colleagues said that he was increasingly depressed in his last few months, but said that his concerns appeared to centre on a sense of failure about his work, and an ambivalence about returning to the United States.

Researchers in unrelated fields have also questioned how, if his work was so sensitive, he was able to take home computer files from his office. His family retrieved a hard drive which included work files in his flat.

IME is part of a network of research institutes managed by government-run Agency for Science, Technology and Research, or A*Star.

A former A*Star researcher now working in the United States pointed out that IME and other A*Star institutes were not military research organizations.

"AFRAID"

At the heart of the family's theory is that Todd was concerned for his safety because of a project with a Chinese company. They believed, through information from his colleagues and from his computer files, that the company was Huawei.

Reuters can't independently corroborate their views about the role of Huawei or the circumstances of Todd's death.

Huawei is one of the world's largest telecommunication equipment companies, but has been blocked from some projects in Australia and deemed a security risk by the U.S. congress on the grounds that its equipment could be used for spying.

Huawei has routinely denied such accusations and has said it is not linked to the Chinese government.

Todd's parents said in interviews in July that Singapore police and IME had failed to properly investigate his death after his body was found hanging from a door in his Singapore apartment on the evening of June 24, two days after he quit IME.

Singapore police say they have handled the case as they have handled other cases, and their procedures follow high international standards. They said in such cases of unnatural death, "no prior assumptions" were made about the cause.

The parents did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment on the Financial Times report but Todd's mother, Mary, said in a telephone interview with Reuters last July that he had been scared.

"I had been talking to him for months for at least an hour every week and he told us he was afraid of being murdered because of his contacts with the Chinese government," she said.

"He quit his job because of it."

Huawei declined to say whether they had been working on other projects with IME. Colleagues said shortly after Todd's death that he had told them at one point he had been working on a project with Huawei but that it was not sensitive or high-level in nature.

One described it as carrying out "measurement test reports" of semiconductors.

The Financial Times said that Todd had been involved in proposing a joint project with Huawei. While it did not say whether the project was approved, it quoted his parents as saying that subsequently he complained to them of being asked to do things with a Chinese company he did not identify that made him uncomfortable.

(Additional reporting by Kevin Lim; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Jerry Buss, Lakers' flamboyant owner, dies at 80

LOS ANGELES (AP) — 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.

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 worsening in recent weeks, several prominent former Lakers visited Buss to say goodbye.

"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, from Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and Dwight Howard.

"He was a great man and an incredible friend," Johnson tweeted.

Few owners in sports history can approach Buss' accomplishments with the Lakers, who made the NBA finals 16 times during his nearly 34 years in charge, winning 10 titles between 1980 and 2010. With 1,786 victories, 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.

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. Courtside seats, priced at $15 when he bought the Lakers, became the hottest tickets in Hollywood — and they still are, with fixture Jack Nicholson and many other celebrities attending every home game.

Worthy tweeted that Buss was "not only the greatest sports owner, but a true friend & just a really cool guy. Loved him dearly."

After a rough stretch of the 1990s for the Lakers, Jackson 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. The Lakers have struggled mightily during their current season despite adding Howard and Steve Nash, and could miss the playoffs for just the third time since Buss bought the franchise.

"Today is a very sad day for all the Lakers and basketball," Gasol tweeted. "All my support and condolences to the Buss family. Rest in peace Dr. Buss."

Although Buss gained fame and fortune with the Lakers, he also was a scholar, Renaissance man and bon vivant who epitomized California cool his entire public life.

Buss rarely appeared in public without at least one attractive, much younger woman on his arm at USC football games, high-stakes poker tournaments, hundreds of boxing matches promoted by Buss at the Forum — 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 also grew to love basketball, describing himself as an "overly competitive but underly endowed player."

After graduating from the University of Wyoming, Buss attended USC for graduate school. He became a chemistry professor and worked as a chemist for the Bureau of Mines before carving out a path to wealth and sports prominence.

The former mathematician's 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.

Heavily leveraging his fortune and various real-estate holdings, Buss purchased Cooke's entire Los Angeles sports empire in 1979, including a 13,000-acre ranch in Kern County. Buss cited his love of basketball as 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 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 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 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.

Buss is survived by six children: sons Johnny, Jim, Joey and Jesse, and daughters Jeanie Buss and Janie Drexel. He had eight grandchildren.

Arrangements are pending for a funeral and memorial services.

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Associated Press writer Andrew Dalton contributed to this report.

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Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior

SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.

The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.

"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.

The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.

The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.

Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.

At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.

By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.

"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.

The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.

Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.

Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.

"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.

Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.

During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.

Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.

"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

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Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship

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