Nigeria police: Hyundai paid $187K to free workers

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. paid about $187,000 to free four abducted South Korean workers and their local colleague, a lucrative ransom showing the continuing allure of kidnapping in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta, police said Friday.
South Korean officials declined to say whether they paid a ransom when announcing the hostages' release on Dec. 22, following the pattern of other foreign governments and companies operating in the Niger Delta when dealing with abductions. However, cash payments often represent the only safe way of getting back expatriate workers in the region since militants began attacks there in 2006.
Police learned of the kidnapping payment after arresting one of three suspected kidnappers, Bayelsa state police spokesman Fidelis Odunna told The Associated Press on Friday. The man claimed that several gangs involved in the kidnapping received 30 million naira ($187,500), Odunna said.
"The real reason for the kidnapping is for financial interest," the spokesman said. "The company didn't want to endanger the lives of the workers and paid secretly."
While the workers were safely released, Odunna said the cash payment likely would further embolden the criminal gangs and militant groups — some often one in the same — that operate in the delta, a region of mangroves and swamps about the size of Portugal.
On Dec. 17, gunmen ambushed workers for the Korea-based company at a construction site in the Brass region of Bayelsa state. Six people were initially taken, though kidnappers let one Nigerian go an hour after the attack, likely because he came from the area, authorities had said.
Foreign companies have pumped oil out of the Niger Delta for more than 50 years, making Nigeria one of the top crude suppliers to the U.S. Despite the billions of dollars flowing into Nigeria's government, many in the delta remain desperately poor, living amid polluted waters without access to proper medical care, education or jobs. The poor conditions sparked an uprising in 2006 by militants and opportunistic criminals who blew up oil pipelines and kidnapped foreign workers.
That violence ebbed in 2009 with a government-sponsored amnesty program that offered ex-fighters monthly payments and job training. However, few in the delta have seen the promised benefits and sporadic kidnappings and attacks continue. Pirates operating in the region also routinely kidnap foreign sailors off vessels in the Gulf of Guinea.
Middle- and upper-class Nigerians now routinely find themselves and their family members targeted by kidnap gangs. The end of the year in Nigeria usually sees an uptick in criminal activity as well, as criminal gangs target the wealthy returning to the country to celebrate the holidays.
Most workers taken hostages are released after a few weeks when their employers pay a ransom, typically around a $100,000 or higher, depending on negotiations, experts say

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BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — An Islamist group in northern Mali says it's suspending its pledge to halt hostilities less than a month after it agreed to do so. The group Ansar Dine said negotiations with the Malian government are ultimately aimed at a military intervention to oust the Islamists from the West African nation and are not true peace talks. Still, the group said it remains committed to a dialogue with the Malian government in Bamako even though it is keeping its military options open. The original offer had drawn skepticism from some observers, who noted the group's links to al-Qaida's North Africa branch. Ansar Dine, which says it seeks autonomy for northern Mali, has been behind public executions, amputations and whippings in the aDifferent challenges in Central African Rep., Mali rea that it seized last year.

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Two land-locked, desperately poor African countries are gripped by rebellions in the north that have left huge chunks of both nations outside of government control. Neighboring countries are rushing troops into Central African Republic only a few weeks after rebels started taking towns but Mali's government is still awaiting foreign military help nearly one year after the situation there began unraveling. Here's a look at why there's been quick action in one country, and not in the other.
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THE INSURGENTS
The simple answer lies in the vastly different challenges faced by intervention forces. Northern Mali is home to al-Qaida-linked militants who are stocking weapons and possess stores of Russian-made arms from former Malian army bases as well as from the arsenal of toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The local and foreign jihadists there are digging in and training forces in preparation for jihad and to repel an invasion. Central African Republic, by contrast, is dealing with home-grown rebels who are far less organized and have less sophisticated weapons.
The numbers of troops being sent to Central African Republic are relatively small — Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Gabon are each sending about 120 soldiers. The rebels stopped their advances toward the capital on Dec. 29, perhaps at least in part because of the presence of the foreign troops who have threatened to counterattack if the rebels move closer to Bangui, the capital. In Mali, it will take far more than the 3,000 African troops initially proposed for a military operation to be successful in ousting the militants, analysts say.
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THE MISSION
The military objectives are also a stark contrast. In Central African Republic, neighboring nations have a mandate to help stabilize the region between rebel-held towns and the part of the country that is under government control. The intervention force will fire back if fired upon, but so far are not being asked to retake the towns already in rebel hands.
The mission in Mali that foreign forces are slowly gearing up for is far more ambitious. It involves trying to take back a piece of land larger than Texas or France where militants are imposing strict Islamic law, or Shariah. Making things even more complicated there: A military coup last year that created chaos and enabled the rebels to more easily take territory has left the country with a weak federal government and the country's military with a broken command-and-control structure, and with its leaders reluctant to give real power to the civilians.
"In Mali you have a very undefined mission. What does it mean to retake the country and give it back to government forces that were not able to hold it in the first place?" noted Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Central African Republic's situation "is a more limited, defined and frankly somewhat easier mission in the military sense," she said.
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THE TERRAIN
Northern Mali is a scorching desert that is unfamiliar to many of the troops who would be coming from the West African regional bloc of countries known as ECOWAS. By contrast, Central African Republic's neighbors already have been pulled into past rebellions in the country.
Chadian forces helped propel President Francois Bozize into power in 2003 and they have assisted him in putting down past rebellions here.
"These forces — particularly the Chadians — have been there before," Cooke said. "They know the players, they have an interlocutor in Bozize however fragile he is. This is familiar territory to them."
The Economic Community of Central African States, or ECCAS, also already had established a peacekeeping force in Central African Republic known as MICOPAX.
"From the beginning, they knew that they needed to have troops on the ground. MICOPAX was already there, had already been deployed there. There was already a structure in place," said Thierry Vircoulon, project director for Central Africa at the International Crisis Group.
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DIFFERING MOTIVATIONS
The rebels in Central African Republic are made up of four separate groups all known by their French acronyms — UFDR, CPJP, FDPC and CPSK. They are collectively known as Seleka, which means alliance in the local Sango language, but have previously fought one another. For instance, in September 2011 fighting between the CPJP and the UFDR left at least 50 people dead and more than 700 homes destroyed. Insurgent leaders say a 2007 peace accord allowing them to join the regular army wasn't fully implemented and are demanding payments to former combatants among other things. Rebel groups also feel the government has neglected their home areas in the north and particularly the northeast, said Filip Hilgert, a researcher with Belgium-based International Peace Information Service.
In northern Mali, the Islamist rebels are motivated in large part by religion. Al-Qaida fighters chant Quranic verses under the Sahara sun , displaying deep, ideological commitment. They consider north Mali as "Islamic territory" and say they will fight to the death to defend it. They also want to use the territory to expand the reach of al-Qaida-linked groups to other countries. This would seem to make other countries more motivated to intervene in Mali than in Central African Republic, but the challenges are so steep and convoluted that an intervention mission is still on the drawing board.

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Mali's Islamists withdraw cease-fire pledge

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — An Islamist group in northern Mali says it's suspending its pledge to halt hostilities less than a month after it agreed to do so.
The group Ansar Dine said negotiations with the Malian government are ultimately aimed at a military intervention to oust the Islamists from the West African nation and are not true peace talks. Still, the group said it remains committed to a dialogue with the Malian government in Bamako even though it is keeping its military options open.
The original offer had drawn skepticism from some observers, who noted the group's links to al-Qaida's North Africa branch.
Ansar Dine, which says it seeks autonomy for northern Mali, has been behind public executions, amputations and whippings in the area that it seized last year.

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Low prices boost SF home sales to 5-year Jan. high

Home sales in the San Francisco Bay area reached a five-year high for January, as prices and mortgage rates plunged, a real estate tracking firm reported Thursday.
However, many of those purchases involved properties that were subject to foreclosures or short sales, indicating the housing market is far from recovered.
The survey by San Diego-based DataQuick also showed the median sales price in the region fell nearly 3 percent last month from December to $326,000 — less than half the peak price of $665,000 reached in 2007 but up from the low of $290,000 recorded in 2009.
A total of 5,479 new and existing homes were sold in the nine-county area, according to DataQuick. The figure was down nearly 27 percent from December but marked a 10.3-percent improvement over January 2011.
The December-to-January drop was normal for the season, while the January-to-January jump showed real improvement, DataQuick said.
The year-over-year increase in January marked the seventh annual jump in a row, the firm said.
Home sales were buoyed by "lower prices, ultra-low mortgage rates, a modestly improved economy and a record level of investor purchases," DataQuick said in a statement.
The lower median price in January was "a reflection of how skewed the market has become toward distressed, lower-cost properties," DataQuick President John Walsh said in the statement. "The higher-end sales have slowed in recent months as many struggle to qualify for loans and others just sit tight."
Distressed property sales — the combination of foreclosure and short sales — made up more than half of all sales of existing homes. Absentee buyers, who mostly are investors, bought more than a quarter of all homes sold, DataQuick reported

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Why the Slowest Investors Win the Race

Anyone who attended kindergarten remembers Aesop's fable about the tortoise and the hare. The story's moral has implications for investors: Slow but steady wins the race.
Hare investors try to sprint to the finish line of a comfortable retirement without girding their portfolios against the perils of volatility — frequent ups and downs in asset value. So they tend to lag far behind tortoise investors, who take these precautions, which I'll explain in a moment.
Volatility reflects uncertainty, and markets tend to punish uncertainty with lower prices. Yet just because an investment is volatile doesn't mean it has no place in your portfolio. Because they may be less likely to go down with other assets in the portfolio, volatile investments may add highly beneficial variety, known as diversification.
Let's say you own tech stocks like Apple and IBM. Adding more tech stocks to your portfolio doesn't decrease overall risk, so you add a gold-mining stock instead. Though highly volatile in itself, the gold-mining stock is less likely to go up or down with tech stocks, so it increases the portfolio's diversification.
Because there's little correlation between gold-mining stocks' price movements with those of tech stocks, these categories are said to have a low correlation. That sounds complicated, but you can easily look up the differences in price movements between different types of investments to see whether they're correlated, and if so, how closely.
Aware of the downsides of volatility, tortoises avoid it by assembling highly diversified portfolios. That means traditional investments such as U.S. stocks and bonds, mixed with a dash of non-traditional (alternative) assets. These may include emerging market stocks, Treasury bonds and real estate securities. The price movements of these investments have a history of not being highly correlated with U.S. stocks or bonds.
Tortoises are like a savvy retailer on a tropical resort island who wisely sells umbrellas as well as sunscreen to help cover losses during rainy periods. Every once in while, the rain falls on everything -- which is what happened in late 2008, much to the dismay of investors. In the financial meltdown, stocks, bonds and real estate both in the US and abroad swooned, leaving little quarter for investors.
Tortoise-style investors add a touch of alternative investments, knowing this may cut their overall returns some years, but they'll sleep more peacefully with the knowledge that it can counter-balance heavy losses in traditional investments.
Hares aren't focused on this balanced approach. Instead, they assemble highly aggressive portfolios of assets that tend to rise or fall in lockstep. They're not concerned with cutting their losses because, compelled by greed, they're not planning to have any losses ior they believe they can defy gravity. This was not unlike the employees who loaded up on their company's shares before the recession, only to see their investment go south along with their job.
Like the Aesop's hare, hare investors are overconfident and turn a blind eye to the ravages of volatility, which take a long time to recover from. Tortoises, having sustained less damage, continue their slow but steady progress.
The math of recovering from hits may astonish you. Let's say your portfolio loses 33 percent of its value, leaving you with two thirds of what you had. Many believe they'd be back where they started if they gain 33 percent. But this gain wouldn't restore their losses. They would actually need to make a 50 percent gain to get back to where they started. The reason is that the gain is based on a lower value than what you started with.
Heavy gains followed by just a large losses from volatile investments is comparable to the hare in Aesop's fable sprinting for periods and then, winded, lying down to take a nap. Like the tortoise, investors with adequately diversified portfolios don't tend to need as much recovery time.
Such losses are even more damaging than they appear at first blush. Not only do hare portfolios lose time that could be used to make progress toward the goal, but they also miss out on the benefits of compounding from reinvested gains . Though tortoises' gains may be far lower than those made by hares during their sprints, they're more likely to enjoy the benefits of compounding.
These awkward reptiles plod steadily toward the finish line while the halting progress of hares leaves them far behind.

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US rate on 30-year mortgage hits record 3.83 pct.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Average U.S. rates for 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages fell to fresh record lows this week. Cheap mortgage rates have made home-buying and refinancing more affordable than ever for those who can qualify.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year loan ticked down to 3.83 percent. That's the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s. And it's below the previous record rate of 3.84 percent reached last week.
The 15-year mortgage, a popular option for refinancing, dropped to 3.05 percent, also a record. That's down from last week's previous record of 3.07 percent.
Low mortgage rates haven't done much to boost home sales. Rates have been below 4 percent for all but one week since early December. Yet sales of both previously occupied homes and new homes fell in March.
There have been some positive signs in recent months. January and February made up the best winter for sales of previously occupied homes in five years. And builders are laying plans to construct more homes in 2012 than at any other point in past 3 1/2 years. That suggests some see the housing market slowly starting to turn around.
Still, many would-be buyers can't qualify for loans or afford higher down payments required by banks. Home prices in many cities continue to fall. That has made those who can afford to buy uneasy about entering the market. And for those who are willing to brave the troubled market, many have already taken advantage of lower rates — mortgage rates have been below 5 percent for more than a year now.
Mortgage rates are lower because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. Slower U.S. job growth and uncertainty about how Europe will resolve its debt crisis have led investors to buy more Treasurys, which are considered safe investments. As demand for Treasurys increases, the yield falls.
To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week.
The average rage does not include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for 30-year loans was 0.7 last week, down from 0.8 the previous week. The fee on 15-year loans also was 0.7, unchanged from the previous week.
The average on one-year adjustable rate was 2.73 percent last week, down from 2.7 percent the previous week. The fee on one-year adjustable rate mortgages was 0.5, down from 0.6.

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Governor sues NCAA over Penn State sex scandal

 Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett filed a lawsuit on Wednesday demanding that sanctions imposed on Penn State University over the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal be thrown out, saying they threatened to devastate the state's economy.
Corbett called the sanctions imposed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, which include an unprecedented $60 million fine, "overreaching and unlawful."
"I cannot and will not stand by and let it happen without a fight," the Republican governor, who was accused of dragging his feet on the Penn State scandal when he was state attorney general, told a news conference.
A lawsuit Corbett filed with U.S. District Court in Harrisburg called for all Sandusky-related sanctions imposed on Penn State to be thrown out.
Sandusky, Penn State's former defensive coordinator, was convicted in June of 45 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years, some in the football team's showers. The scandal implicated top university officials in a cover-up, including the late Joe Paterno, its longtime head football coach.
The NCAA, the governing body of U.S. collegiate sports, fined Penn State $60 million for failing to stop abuse by Sandusky. It also voided its football victories for the past 14 seasons and banned its football team from bowl games for four years.
Corbett's suit charged the NCAA and "competing colleges and universities represented on its governing boards" had "cynically and hypocritically exploited" the case "to impose crippling and unprecedented sanctions on an already weakened competitor."
The suit said stigma from the case would diminish recruitment of students and student athletes and the value of a Penn State education for decades.
According to Corbett's office, Penn State football was the second most profitable collegiate athletic program in the United States in 2010-11, when it brought in $50 million, generating more than $5 million in tax revenue.
Corbett, who spoke at State College, where Penn State University is located, said the NCAA had overstepped its bounds and the case was "a criminal matter, not a violation of NCAA rules."
Penn State University released a statement saying it was not party to Corbett's lawsuit and reiterated its commitment to comply with the NCAA sanctions. The university recently made the first payment of $12 million of the fine to a national fund to support victims of child abuse.
'WEAK CASE'
A Philadelphia-based attorney who has followed the case closely questioned its chances of success and said it was unclear if Corbett had the legal authority to file such a suit.
"It's not a frivolous lawsuit - there are real arguments to make - but, boy is it weak," said Max Kennerly, adding that courts had generally sided with the NCAA on sanctions issues.
James Schultz, general counsel for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, said the governor had a legal right to sue, as he was acting on behalf of residents and businesses "collaterally damaged" by the NCAA sanctions.
He said the sanctions harmed the state's tax revenue base and those relying on revenue from Penn State's football program.
NCAA General Counsel Donald Remy said the lawsuit appeared to be without merit and was "an affront to all of the victims" whose lives were destroyed by Sandusky.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a group that takes aim at sex abuse in the Catholic Church, but has also been vocal in other cases, criticized Corbett's action.
"At best, his lawsuit is frivolous," the group said in a statement. "At worst, it threatens to delay or derail millions of dollars that would otherwise be devoted to protecting children."
The Sandusky scandal was revealed by a grand jury Corbett convened in 2009 when he was Pennsylvania's attorney general.
State Attorney General-elect Kathleen Kane, a Democrat, has pledged to probe Corbett's handling of the case. She said last year that by convening the grand jury, Corbett failed to protect children by delaying prosecution for more than two years.
Corbett has said he would welcome an investigation.
Pennsylvania voters have also expressed dissatisfaction with Corbett's handling of the case. A Franklin & Marshall College survey of registered voters in September found that nearly two-thirds thought he had done a fair or poor job.
But Terry Madonna, a professor of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall and director of the poll, said the lawsuit would be popular among Pennsylvanians, even though Corbett might be accused of trying to further his own political ends.
The Franklin & Marshall poll found more than half of the Pennsylvania residents surveyed considered the sanctions unfair.
On Wednesday, Corbett denied any political motivation.
Kathy Punt, manager of a State College motel used by football fans, said her business had dropped 30 to 40 percent this past autumn as fewer people attended games. "We didn't get the Penn State fans who usually come in," she said.

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India may suspend lawmakers accused of sex crimes

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian lawmakers facing sexual assault charges could be suspended from office if the country's top court rules in favor of a petition submitted after a gang-rape and murder that shocked the country.
Six state lawmakers are facing rape prosecutions and two national parliamentarians are facing charges of crimes against women that fall short of rape, said Jagdeep S. Chhokar, an official with the Association for Democratic Reforms, which tracks political candidate's criminal records.
The petition will be heard Thursday, the same day police plan to formally charge six suspects in the attack on a 23-year-old university student in New Delhi two weeks ago.
The rape triggered outrage and sparked demands for stronger laws, tougher police action against sexual assault suspect and a sustained campaign to change society's views on women.
As part of that campaign, Chief Justice Altamas Kabir agreed to hear a petition from retired government administrator Promilla Shanker asking the Supreme Court to suspend all national and state lawmakers who are facing prosecution for crimes against women.
She also asked the court to force the national government to fast-track thousands of rape cases languishing in India's notoriously sluggish court system.
In the past five years, political parties across India nominated 260 candidates awaiting trial on charges of crimes against women, Chhokar said. Parties ran six candidates for the national parliamentary elections facing such charges, he said.
"We need to decriminalize politics and surely a serious effort has to be made to stop people who have serious charges of sexual assault against them from contesting elections," said Zoya Hasan, a political analyst.
On Wednesday morning, several thousand women held a silent march to Gandhi's memorial in the capital in memory of the victim, holding placards demanding "Respect" and "Justice." Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit joined the women for a prayer session for the victim. The Gandhi memorial is a common protest site.
On Tuesday, the government set up a task force to monitor women's safety in New Delhi and to review whether police were properly protecting women. Two task forces already are examining the handling of the rape case and possible changes in rape laws.
The rape of the unidentified woman on a bus in the capital has horrified many and brought unprecedented attention to the daily suffering of women here, who face everything from catcalls and groping to rapes.
Six men arrested in the case were to be formally charged Thursday with kidnapping, rape and murder, said Rajan Bhagat, the New Delhi police spokesman. Police have said they would push for the death penalty. Another suspect underwent medical testing to determine his age since juveniles cannot be charged with murder in India.
The Bar Association of lawyers last week decided against defending the six suspects because of the nature of the crime, although the court is expected to appoint attorneys to defend them.
Media reports say 30 witnesses have been gathered, and the charges have been detailed in a document running more than 1,000 pages. Police also have detained the owner of the bus used in the crime on accusation he used false documents to obtain permits to run the private bus service.
The family of the victim — who died Saturday at a hospital in Singapore — is struggling to come to grips with the tragedy.
"She was a very, very, very cheerful little girl and she was peace loving and she was never embroiled in any controversies like this. I don't know why this happened to her," her uncle, Suresh Singh, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The family of the victim, whose name was not revealed, called for stronger rape laws to prevent such attacks from happening again and demanded swift — and harsh — justice for woman's assailants, Singh said.
"If the government can't punish them, give the rapists to the people. The people will settle the scores with them," he said.

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After ‘fiscal cliff’ drama, Republicans take it easy at closed-door meeting

WASHINGTON--Finally, a night of calm on Capitol Hill.
Beleaguered House Republicans held a closed-door meeting on the Hill Wednesday for what turned out to be a mundane gathering that followed weeks of battles over how to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. The members, many who just seemed relieved that the fiscal cliff ordeal was, for now, finished, discussed amendments to a series of procedural rules for the 113th Congress.
"It was kinda dull," said Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey as he left the meeting after it was over. (Some members, who just seemed bored and tired by the process, had left early.)
For more than two hours, caucus members discussed 32 proposals that hardly a soul outside of Washington will ever hear about, or would likely care to hear about.
One discussion addressed the current House rule that bars lawmakers' children older than the age of 12 from joining their parent on the House floor. The proposal would allow "all children of Members of the House of Representatives, no matter what age, to accompany Members on the House floor." It failed. But the prospect that House Speaker John Boehner would publicly expel a 13-year-old from the House floor seems unlikely.
After so many emotional weeks of work on the fiscal cliff package, a dull gathering may well have been just what these lawmakers needed.
At least half a dozen members arrived at the meeting wearing open-collared shirts tucked into blue jeans, a sort of sartorial rebellion against the late nights of fierce and serious debate. Call it post-fiscal cliff chic.  Even South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who had traversed the Capitol to the House side, sported an orange baseball cap on his head and a casual green wind breaker.
The caucus-wide meeting--the first such gathering since Boehner angered many conservatives by supporting a bill that allowed taxes to increase--could have gone much differently given the intense events of the past 48 hours.  Boehner, for one, could have addressed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's very public rant against him for not holding a vote to offer federal relief aid to victims of Superstorm Sandy.
Instead, the discussion focused on the amendments, and Boehner did not bring up the fiscal cliff drama, several lawmakers said.
But while members harboring ill feelings toward party leadership remained silent, not all wounds are healed. For instance, unconfirmed rumors prior to the meeting had hinted at a battle to unseat Boehner as speaker. And while most members said they hadn't heard anything of the sort and the speaker's office officially denies any such efforts, Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, who voted against the fiscal cliff deal, did leave the meeting saying he didn't plan to support Boehner for the position.
"I haven't made a decision on what to do yet, but as of now, I still haven't seen the changes I want to see," Amash told reporters when he left the meeting. "He's got until tomorrow."
The body will vote Thursday on Boehner's future.

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Son of LA Clippers owner found dead in Malibu

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The son of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was found dead of an apparent drug overdose at his Malibu home, authorities said Wednesday.
The body of 32-year-old Scott Ashley Sterling was found shortly after 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Los Angeles County coroner's Lt. Larry Dietz said.
The 77-year-old Donald Sterling, a billionaire real estate mogul who purchased the team in 1981, and wife Shelley released a statement thanking friends for sympathy, asking for privacy and saying their son was diabetic, but did not indicate what role, if any, that may have played in his death.
"Our son Scott has fought a long and valiant battle against Type 1 Diabetes," the statement said. "His death is a terrible tragedy, the effects of which will be felt forever by our family and all those who knew and loved him."
The death cast a pall on what has been a joyous season for the Clippers, normally an NBA doormat but now among the league's best teams. The team is in first place in its division and had a franchise-record 17-game winning streak that was snapped Tuesday night.
The Clippers were at Golden State on Wednesday night.
"All our thoughts and prayers go out to the Sterling family," coach Vinny Del Negro said. "Tough day for everybody in the Clippers' organization, but just thinking about Mr. and Mrs. Sterling with their loss. That's first and foremost on everybody's mind today when we had our meeting this morning. Not an easy situation. I just hope they know that we're thinking about them and that the team is, and we'll be back soon. Things like this put things in perspective real quick. I know a lot of good thoughts and prayers are in that locker room with them tonight. That's the first and foremost thing."
Team President Andy Roeser issued a statement saying "Scott was a friend to many in the Clippers' family and he will be greatly missed."
NBA Commissioner David Stern also expressed sympathies to the Sterlings.
"On behalf of the NBA family, we extend our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to Donald and Shelly Sterling on the loss of their son, Scott," Stern said.
The death at a beachfront apartment building on Pacific Coast Highway was discovered after a friend of Scott Sterling called police after not hearing from him for several days, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Deputies found the body and paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.
"Sheriff's homicide and Los Angeles County coroner's personnel at this time believe that Sterling died of an apparent drug overdose," the statement said.
Dietz said the death appeared to be accidental, but an autopsy was planned to determine the exact cause of death.
In 1999, the then-19-year-old Sterling was arrested for shooting his friend with a shotgun. Beverly Hills police said Philip Scheid was shot in the legs during an argument at Donald Sterling's mansion.
Scheid said he was shot from behind while running away. Sterling said he fired in self-defense after Scheid approached him with a knife. The county district attorney's office declined to file criminal charges, citing credibility problems with the victim.

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