■ United States
Rock star dies
Arthur Lee, the eccentric singer/guitarist with influential 1960s rock band Love, died in a Memphis hospital on Thursday after a battle with leukemia, according to a Web posting by his manager. He was 61. Lee, a Memphis native who referred to himself as "the first so-called black hippie," formed Love in Los Angeles in 1965, emerging from the same scene as groups like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Doors and the Mamas and Papas. The first multiracial rock band of the psychedelic era, Love recorded three groundbreaking albums fusing traditional folk rock and blues with symphonic suites and early punk.
■ United States
Child abuser charged
A single mother living with her family in a lakeside cabin in northwestern New Jersey has been arrested and charged with starving four of her five children so badly that one of them, an eight-year-old girl, weighed only 16kg, the authorities said on Thursday. The woman, Estelle Walker, 47, was charged on Wednesday with child endangerment and is being held in the Sussex County jail on US$200,000 bail, said William Fitzgibbons, the first assistant county prosecutor. Last week, the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services received a tip that Walker was abusing her children.
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