The 11-year-old Shannon Tavarez, who played the character of young Nala in one of Disney’s most popular production Lion King, has died from leukaemia.
Shannon gave voice to the lioness cub in the popular Broadway show in New York. Tavarez waged a six month long battle against the disease but could not be saved even after getting a cord-blood transplant in August, ABC News reported. “Shannon’s strength and her happy, positive spirit will live on in our hearts and minds each day. Shannon’s dream was to perform on stage, and that she did,” said her mother, Odiney Brown in a statement. More than 8000 people and artists including rapper 50 Cent volunteered to be bone marrow donors but no match could be found.
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Singer held with cocaine in stomach
Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic): An American singer suspected of trying to smuggle cocaine in his stomach was detained as he tried to board a US-bound flight at a Dominican airport, authorities said on Tuesday.
Ramon Alcides Rodriguez, spokesman of the country’s drug control agency, said that New York-born bachata singer Jimmy Bauer became sick at Santo Domingo’s international airport on Monday when a couple of pellets of cocaine he had swallowed apparently burst.
Bauer, whose real name is Jaime Vargas, was trying to board a flight to the United States when customs and drug authorities stopped him for “strange behaviour” and an X-ray examination of his abdomen allegedly showed dozens of pellets in his stomach, Rodriguez said. —AP