Dwight Howard had 24 points and 12 rebounds to help the Los Angeles Lakers to an emotional 113-99 victory over the Boston Celtics on Wednesday in their first game since the death of owner Jerry Buss.

Kobe Bryant added 16 points, Steve Nash and Earl Clark had 14 each, and Metta World Peace 12 in a game that surely would have delighted Buss, who always loved to win but especially liked beating the Celtics.

Schalke remained unbeaten in the Champions League with a 1-1 draw at Galatasaray on Wednesday.

But Schalke scorer, midfielder Jermaine Jones, will miss the second leg of their last-16 tie on March 12 through suspension after picking up his third yellow card of the competition — 10 minutes before scoring.

The prosecution case against Oscar Pistorius began to unravel Wednesday with revelations of a series of police blunders and the lead investigator's admission that authorities have no evidence challenging the double-amputee Olympian's claim he killed his girlfriend accidentally.

Detective Hilton Botha's often confused testimony left prosecutors rubbing their heads in frustration as he misjudged distances and said testosterone — banned for professional athletes in some cases — was found at the scene, only to be later contradicted by the prosecutor's office.

For his first starring role since before serving as California's governor for seven years, Arnold Schwarzenegger says he was looking for a film with universal appeal.

In "The Last Stand," Schwarzenegger plays the sheriff of an Arizona town tasked with stopping a Mexican cartel boss from returning to Mexico. It's the 65-year-old's first leading role since "Terminator 3" a decade ago.

Alessandro Del Piero has committed to play another A-League season with Sydney FC.

The 38-year-old former Juventus and Italy star finalized the contract with the club late Wednesday and announced his decision Thursday.

A Kenyan official says gunmen have opened fire at a mosque in Kenya's east, killing seven people.

Maalim Mohammed, the county commissioner of Kenya's Garissa county, said Thursday that about eight gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles shot at a mosque in the village of Malele near the Kenyan-Somali border.

A powerful car bomb exploded Thursday close to ruling party offices in Damascus, killing over 50 people and causing widespread destruction in the Syrian capital's deadliest attack for more than nine months.

The bombing, which rocked the city centre and sent thick smoke scudding across the skyline, was followed soon after by a mortar attack on a nearby military headquarters.

World stock markets tumbled Thursday after U.S. Federal Reserve minutes gave investors an unwelcome reminder that super-easy monetary policy has an expiration date.

Transcripts from the Fed's latest meeting, released Wednesday, showed some policymakers are worried that the bank's $85 billion in bond purchases each month, which are designed to boost the sluggish U.S. economic recovery, could eventually unsettle financial markets or cause the central bank to take losses.

Iraqi officials said Thursday that gunmen have attacked an army checkpoint north of Baghdad, killing four soldiers and wounding four others.

Police officials said gunmen in two cars sprayed the checkpoint with bullets in the town of in Duluiayah. The town is about 75 kilometers north of the Iraqi capital.

A small boat with four cases of California wine has left South Carolina and will submerge the wine in the ocean for three months to age it.

California-based Mira Winery is experimenting to see how the motion, temperature and light in the ocean may affect the aging of the wine.