US R&B singer Teena Marie, whose hits in the 1980s included I Need Your Lovin and Lovergirl, has died at the age of 54, the police said.
Marie was found dead at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena on Sunday afternoon, according to a police spokesman. The paramedics were called after her daughter had found her unconscious.
The cause of the death was not immediately known. Although she was white, Marie grew up in a predominantly black Los Angeles neighbourhood and began singing professionally when she was eight.
After graduating from high school she signed with Motown Records, the label which was home to contemporaries such as Diana Ross and “The Jackson 5.”
Funk music pioneer Rick James, whom she met at the studio, would become her mentor, collaborator and lover. He produced her 1979 debut album, Wild and Peaceful, which featured her first hit single, a duet with James called I’m a Sucker for Your Love.
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Rare Saharan cheetah is photographed
London: Conservationists claim to have finally spotted in the Niger desert one of the world’s most elusive cats, the Saharan cheetah, after a year-long search.
A team at the Saharan Conservation Fund has captured the Saharan cheetah in a series of murky images taken by a night-time camera trap in the deserts of Termit, Niger, between July and August this year.
Less than 10 of the cats are thought to exist there and nothing is known about them except for their ability to survive without a permanent source of water in high temperatures, the Daily Mail reported.
“I think we were more happy than surprised when the images turned up, because we knew cheetahs were in the general area because we had seen their tracks on several occasions. However, the area is so vast that picking up an animal as rare as this always entails a lot of luck and good judgment on where to place the cameras,” Dr John Newby, CEO of the SCF project, said. The scientists concentrated their efforts on the wildlife refuges of Termit Massif and Tin Toumma desert. —PTI