Leila Shahid, first female Palestinian ambassador, dies in France at 76

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Leila Shahid, the first female Palestinian diplomat, who held prominent posts in Europe during some of the most tumultuous years of the Mideast conflict, has died in France at the age of 76.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas praised her as a “model of diplomacy committed to the values of freedom, justice and peace," saying "she remained faithful to her people’s message until her final days,” according to the official WAFA news agency.

Shahid was born in Beirut in 1949, a year after the war surrounding Israel's establishment, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes. Her parents were from Jerusalem and what is now northern Israel.

After working in Palestinian refugee camps, she traveled to Paris in the 1970s to pursue a Ph.D. in anthropology. In 1976, she was elected head of the Palestinian student union in France.

She returned to Beirut at the time of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982, when Israeli-backed Lebanese Christian militiamen killed hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children in two refugee camps.

The Palestine Liberation Organization posted her to Ireland in 1989, making her the first female Palestinian ambassador. She was posted to the Netherlands the following year.

From 1993 until 2005, she served as the Palestinian envoy to France.

Her tenure coincided with the height of the peace process and the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in 2000. She was with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his final days before he died in a French military hospital in 2004.

From 2006 to 2014 she served as Palestinian envoy to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg.

She was also the longtime director of “The Review of Palestinian Studies,” a French language periodical on the history of the conflict.

FILE - Palestinian envoy to the European Union, Leila Shahid, addresses the public during an international meeting in support of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in Brussels on June 28, 2011. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe, File)

FILE - Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, holds a folder with a Palestinian flag on the cover as she looks at chief military doctor Christian Estripeau, right, during a press conference after visiting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the military hospital of Clamart, France, outside of Paris on Oct. 31, 2004. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler, File)

FILE - Benoit Aubenas, left, the father of French journalist Florence Aubenas, who has been missing in Iraq since Jan. 5, 2005, is comforted by Palestinian envoy to France, Leila Shahid, during a gathering ceremony as part the Eid Al Adha at the Paris Mosque on Jan. 20, 2005. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)

SURPRISE, Ariz. (AP) — Bruce Meyer was promoted to interim executive director of the baseball players’ association on Wednesday, a day after Tony Clark’s forced resignation, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the move had not yet been announced.

Matt Nussbaum was promoted to interim deputy executive director from general counsel.

The decisions by the Major League Baseball Players Association executive board during an online meeting was a move for continuity ahead of the likely start in April of what figures to be contentious collective bargaining.

Meyer, a 64-year-old veteran labor lawyer, joined the union staff in 2018 and led negotiations through a 99-day lockout that led to a five-year agreement in March 2022. The deal barely avoided what would have been the first loss of regular-season games since 1995.

Meyer spent 30 years at Weil, Gotshal & Manges before joining the NHL Players Association in 2016 as senior director of collective bargaining, policy and legal.

Three members of the union’s eight-man executive subcommittee, Jack Flaherty, Lucas Giolito and Ian Happ, were among the players who in March 2024 advocated for the ouster of Meyer in an effort led by former union lawyer Harry Marino. Clark backed Meyer, the effort failed and those three players were dropped off the subcommittee that December.

The subcommittee voted 8-0 against approving the 2022 labor contract and Meyer had advocated pushing management for a deal more favorable to the union. Team player representatives, the overall group supervising negotiations, voted 26-4 in favor, leaving the overall ballot at 26-12 for ratification.

The current subcommittee includes Chris Bassitt, Jake Cronenworth, Pete Fairbanks, Cedric Mullins, Marcus Semien, Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal and Brent Suter.

Blum reported from New York.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

FILE - Major League Baseball Players Association Senior Director, Collective Bargaining & Legal, Bruce Meyer answers a question at a news conference in their offices in New York, March 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE - Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark answers a question during a news conference in New York on March 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)