Earvin Magic Johnson

Former California State Treasurer Phil Angelides has joined forces with ex-basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson and a Beverly Hills investment firm to buy and improve more than $2 billion worth of urban apartment complexes across the country. Angelides said Monday that he was chairman of the newly created Canyon-Johnson Urban Communities Fund, which will focus on acquiring and upgrading apartments in inner-city neighborhoods to create more "workforce" housing.

Magic still seems to have his touch. At a time when many sources of financing for real estate projects are drying up, a fund co-founded by former Lakers guard Earvin "Magic" Johnson has banked $1 billion for commercial developments in urban neighborhoods.

Some star power was added Thursday to Bernard C. Parks' campaign for county supervisor, when former basketball phenomenon turned respected businessman Earvin "Magic" Johnson endorsed the Los Angeles city councilman. At the long-troubled Marlton Square Center at the foot of the Baldwin Hills, Johnson, flanked by several other City Council members, said Parks was the clear choice to turn around blighted corridors, such as Marlton.

Earvin "Magic" Johnson announced his arrival as a businessman 13 years ago, when he took part in an unusual meeting with gang leaders from the Bloods and the Crips. At the time, Johnson was building a movie theater in Baldwin Hills. Would the gang members, Johnson asked, be kind enough not to shoot it up? "I just laid it out to them that I'm building this theater for the community," Johnson, the former Lakers basketball standout, recalled from his seventh-floor office in Beverly Hills.

Expressions of outrage and regret were issued Friday after a pair of Minneapolis talk-show hosts said that Lakers Hall of Famer Magic Johnson "faked AIDS." Johnson revealed in 1991 that he had contracted the HIV virus, but it has never turned into AIDS.

The busy Arizona doctor was idly rummaging through photos of a recent Los Angeles visit when one snapshot made him stop. It had been the most apprehensive click of the trip. It had been a dreaded intrusion into the life of a famous man on a famous street. The doctor was scared to ask for it, scared to snap it, and even more scared when the camera stuck and he couldn't snap it. Yet, look, here it was. And, oh my. Do you see the smiling giant swathed in white?

Magic Johnson stopped by the Crenshaw High School basketball court Monday night to tell the teens there that ditching school is not a game. "No more excuses," Johnson told the students. "We just got to get on top of it." The NBA superstar-turned-businessman addressed ninth- and 10th-grade students and parents as part of the Los Angeles Unified School District's Diploma Project, which is focused on preventing students from dropping out and intervening when they do.

Food preparation company Sodexho Inc. announced a joint venture with retired basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson to seek out new food service deals. Johnson will own 51% of the new company, which will be called SodexhoMagic and will be based at Sodexho's headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md. Financial details of the 10-year agreement were not disclosed. Sodexho provides meals, housekeeping and grounds services for schools, colleges, hospitals and corporate cafeterias.

Nov. 7, 1991: "With an announcement that stunned the nation, Earvin 'Magic' Johnson, the brilliant guard who was the marquee name for the Lakers and the National Basketball Assn. for 12 years, retired ... saying he had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS," The Times reported. "Johnson, 32, was characteristically upbeat when he made the announcement at a packed news conference at the Forum in Inglewood.

Retired Los Angeles Lakers star Earvin "Magic" Johnson and two developers announced a $1-billion development in Atlanta's Midtown area. The project at Peachtree and 12th streets will have 1.2 million square feet of office space, more than 500 hotel rooms and more than 600 condominiums. It also will have 150,000 square feet of retail space, according to a statement issued by Johnson and partners Daniel Corp. and Selig Enterprises Inc.