National Obituaries

Shawn Barber, the Canadian pole vault record holder and 2015 world champion, has died from medical complications. He was 29. Barber died Wednesday at home in Kingwood, Texas, his agent, Paul Doyle, confirmed to The Associated Press.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican writer José Agustín, who chronicled rock and roll and social change in Mexico in the 1960s and 70s, has died, Mexico’s Culture Department announced on Tuesday. He was 79.

BANGKOK (AP) — Shih Ming-teh, a democracy activist who helped lead Taiwan from authoritarianism to democracy and a former chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, died on Monday, his family said. He was 83.

NEW YORK (AP) — Joyce Randolph, a veteran stage and television actor whose role as the savvy Trixie Norton on “The Honeymooners” provided the perfect foil to her dimwitted TV husband, has died. She was 99.

Norm Snead, an NFL quarterback for 16 seasons in the 1960s and '70s who was a four-time Pro Bowl selection, has died. He was 84. Snead died Sunday in Naples, Florida, his brother, Danny, told The Associated Press on Monday.

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) — Ruth Ashton Taylor, a trailblazing journalist who was the first female newscaster to work in television on the West Coast, has died. She was 101.

MONTREAL — Former Le Devoir director Bernard Descôteaux died Saturday at the age of 77 after battling cancer, the Quebec newspaper has announced.

Leon Wildes, a prominent immigration lawyer best known for his landmark, yearslong fight in the 1970s to prevent John Lennon from being deported and enable the former Beatle to receive permanent residency in the U.S., has died at age 90.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Elmore Nickleberry, a longtime Memphis sanitation worker who participated in the pivotal 1968 strike that brought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city where the civil rights leader was killed, has died at age 92.

PRAGUE (AP) — František Janouch, a Czech nuclear physicist who set up a foundation in Sweden while in exile to support the dissident movement in his communist homeland at the time, has died. He was 92.