Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from a U.S. prison where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer, has died, her daughter and the Cuban government said.
Shakur, who went by Joanne Deborah Chesimard before changing her name, died Thursday in the capital city of Havana due to “health conditions and advanced age,” Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Shakur’s daughter, Kakuya Shakur, confirmed her mother’s death in a Facebook post.
Officials in New Jersey, where Shakur had been arrested, convicted and imprisoned, said she was 78.
A member of Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Shakur’s case had long been emblematic of the fraught relations between the U.S. and Cuba. American authorities, including President Donald Trump during his first term, demanded her return from the communist nation for decades.
International Glance
As uncertainty simmers in Venezuela, interim President Delcy Rodríguez has taken the place of her ally President Nicolás Maduro, captured by the United States in a nighttime military operation.
The Kremlin is preparing to massacre civilians then use fake news messaging in state-run and co-opted international media to pin blame for the mass casualty event on Ukraine, Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (SZRU) said on Friday in a rare public statement.
The Department of Homeland Security is pausing the immigration applications from an additional 20 countries after an expansion of travel restrictions took effect Jan. 1.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Saturday condemned the Trump administration over the U.S. military operation in Venezuela that led to the capture of its president, calling it an “act of war.”
Russian forces on Jan. 2 launched a missile attack on a residential neighborhood in the city of Kharkiv, killing a child and injuring at least 19 people, including a six-month-old baby, regional authorities said.





























