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☆ United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MOSCOW, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The United States has told its citizens to leave Russia immediately due to the war in Ukraine and the risk of arbitrary arrest or harassment by Russian law enforcement agencies. "U.S. citizens residing or travelling in Russia should depart immediately," the U.S. embassy in Moscow said. [1/6] Vehicles drive past the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia February 13, 2023. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina 1 2 3 4 5The Kremlin said it was not the first time U.S. citizens had been asked to leave Russia. The Federal Security Service(FSB) said in January that prosecutors had opened a criminal case against a United States citizen on suspicion of espionage.

☆ More Vape Incidents on Planes Add Risk to Annoyance
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Allison Pohle | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Passengers and crew members alike are keeping an eye out for vapes while flying. Federal officials have highlighted risks about fires caused by lithium-ion batteries in cellphones, laptops and e-cigarettes in recent years. These incidents are rare for airlines. But the number of lithium-battery air incidents that involve smoke, fire and extreme heat because of vapes or e-cigarettes has tripled since 2019, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database.

☆ Brittney Griner's return could be the unlikely catalyst that forces the WNBA to relent on its most contentious policy
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Meredith Cash | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

WNBA free agency is underway, with teams receiving the green light to recruit stars as of this weekend. Top free agent Breanna Stewart has reportedly made charter flights a key issue for teams wooing her. Private flights are not covered by the league's CBA, but Brittney Griner's return may force policy changes. The 2018 MVP took to Twitter to announce that she's prepared to help "subsidize charter travel for the entire WNBA" by offering her "NIL, posts + production hours." Several current WNBA players, including Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike, Elena Delle Donne, Napheesa Collier, Alysha Clark, Erica Wheeler, Kahleah Copper, and Natalie Achonwa, offered their support in the comments.

☆ Billy Packer, legendary voice of college basketball Final Fours, dies at 82
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Billy Packer, an Emmy award-winning college basketball broadcaster who covered 34 Final Fours for NBC and CBS, died Thursday. UCLA beat Kentucky in the title game that year in what was John Wooden’s final game as coach. “So sad to learn of the passing of Billy Packer who had such a passion for college basketball,” Vitale tweeted. May Billy RIP.”College basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla tweeted: “We fell in love (with) college basketball because of you. Your voice will remain in my head forever.”From left, announcers Billy Packer, Dick Enberg, and Al McGuire in 1980.

☆ Brittney Griner makes appearance at Phoenix MLK Day march
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Chantal Da Silva | Chantal Da Silva Is A Breaking News Editor For Nbc News Digital Based In London. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

Brittney Griner made a surprise appearance at an MLK Day march in Phoenix, Arizona, on Monday, just weeks after her release from a Russian penal colony. The WNBA star surprised a group who had gathered for the march on what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 94th birthday, attending the event with her wife, Cherelle Griner. Griner, 32, posed for photos with fans and was pictured riding on the back of a golf cart at the event. The Phoenix Mercury star said she was happy to be home after being detained in Russia for nearly a year, NBC affiliate KPNX, which is based in Phoenix, reported. The WNBA star was sentenced to nine years in prison for allegedly possessing the vape cartridges, which she said had been unintentional.

☆ Griner urges supporters to contact Whelan, help Americans detained abroad
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Amy Tennery | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"Thanks to the efforts of many, including you, I am home after nearly 10 months," Griner wrote in a letter posted on her Instagram account. Griner said the letters she received showed the "power of collective hands". "There remain too many families with loved ones wrongfully detained," wrote Griner, who left the Brooke Army Medical Center last week and said she intends to resume her career in the WNBA next season. "I hope you'll join me in writing to Paul Whelan and continuing to advocate for other Americans to be rescued and returned to their families," she added. Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York, editing by Ed OsmondOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[1/2] U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, is escorted before a court hearing in Khimki outside Moscow, Russia July 27, 2022. Griner arrived at the medical center last Friday after U.S. officials secured her freedom from Russia in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Griner, 32, was arrested on Feb. 17 at an airport outside Moscow for carrying vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. U.S. officials pressed for the release of both Griner and Whelan, who is being held on what Washington called "sham" espionage charges, a Biden administration official said. "(I) encourage everyone that played a part in bringing me home to continue their efforts to bring all Americans home," said Griner.

☆ Donald Trump's superhero trading cards timed the market all wrong
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Jon Sarlin | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Los Angeles CNN —Donald Trump’s entrance into the NFT world came at the worst possible moment. It bears noting, however, that despite the bad timing Trump’s NFT collection has shot to the top of NFT marketplace OpenSea’s ranking and has raked in more than $1.4 million since its launch. On the Trump Digital Trading Cards website, the Trump collection claims to be “sold out” and the floor price for a single card has risen to $177.99, according to analytics site CoinGecko. SPACs boomed in 2020 with celebrities and investors piling in, but rising interest rates and a troubled stock market has led to a dramatic fall in SPAC value. Trump’s entrance into the SPAC world came after the boom.

Black women played a critical role in securing Griner’s release, advocates say. “It was painful for so many, particularly Black women, to see another Black woman be in those harsh conditions, to just see the pain in her face,” Jotaka Eaddy, founder of Win With Black Women, told The Hill. The Win With Black Women collective received 1,200 signatures of women in a letter of support for Griner that they sent to the Biden administration in July. So the idea was to keep the awareness going and build a coalition.”Griner’s case has renewed conversations about the vulnerability of Black women in America, especially Black queer women. Monica Simpson, the executive director of SisterSong, highlighted this vulnerability, and Black women’s collective power, in a statement to NBC News.

☆ Following Griner's release, U.S. lawmakers want a "National Hostage" day
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Patricia Zengerle | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Days after the release of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner from imprisonment in Russia, Democratic and Republican U.S. lawmakers will introduce legislation on Tuesday to establish March 9 as an annual day to remember Americans detained abroad. The bill, according to text seen by Reuters, seeks to make March 9 "National Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day," to call increased attention to Americans unjustly held abroad and add urgency to the push to bring them home. "Brittney Griner's release and unjust imprisonment has only underscored the need for Congress to continue working to safeguard the lives of wrongfully detained Americans," said Democratic Senator Chris Coons, a lead sponsor of the bill, in a statement. The measure's sponsors also include Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Representatives Haley Stevens, a Democrat, and French Hill, a Republican. The administration has been unable to secure the release of former Marine Paul Whelan, who was jailed in Russia on 2020 on spying charges.

☆ ‘I want to talk’: Brittney Griner opened up during her long trip home
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON (AP) — WNBA star Brittney Griner didn’t want any alone time as soon as she boarded a U.S. government plane that would bring her home. I want to talk,” Griner said, according to Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, who helped secure the basketball star’s release and bring her back to the U.S. last week. “It was really amazing.”Ultimately, Griner spent about 12 hours of an 18-hour flight talking with others on the plane, Carstens said. The U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a charge that Russia has sharply rejected. But the U.S. was unable to secure the freedom of Paul Whelan, who has been held in Russia for nearly four years.

☆ Despite GOP criticism of the prisoner swap that freed Brittney Griner, Fiona Hill said Trump was 'not particularly interested' in freeing Paul Whelan
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Critics, including Trump, asked why Brittney Griner was freed while Paul Whelan remains jailed. Hill said Trump wasn't "particularly interested in Paul [Whelan]'s case" while in office. "If I made that deal the Dems would chant, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA!" "I also have to say here that President Trump wasn't especially interested in engaging in that swap for Paul Whelan," Hill said. However, she added, Whelan, Griner, and Reed were all caught up in what she called "political games" while doing things that "seemed completely ordinary."

☆ Russian arms dealer says he wished Griner good luck at prisoner exchange
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Dec 10 (Reuters) - Viktor Bout, the arms dealer freed in a prisoner swap for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, said he wished her good luck on the tarmac in Abu Dhabi where they were exchanged. "I wished her luck, she even sort of reached out her hand to me," Bout said on Saturday in an interview with Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT. You should wish everyone good fortune and happiness," he said, adding that he believed Griner "was positively inclined" towards him. Asked about Russia's military campaign in Ukraine, Bout said he wished that Moscow had been able to launch it sooner. "If I had the chance and the required skills, I'd join up as a volunteer," he said.

☆ Brittney Griner Goes Free
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner is seen on a plane ahead of departing for the United States on Dec. 8. The release of WNBA star Brittney Griner on Thursday from a Russian prison labor camp is welcome news. Yes, Ms. Griner was foolish to enter Russia in February with vape cartridges containing hashish amid rising U.S.-Russia tensions. But she was clearly treated harshly, and handed a nine-year sentence, because she is American. She was arrested shortly before Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion, and he viewed her as political leverage.

WNBA star Brittney Griner arrived back in the United States early Friday after being freed from Russian custody, bringing a nearly yearlong ordeal to an end. Eric Gay / APIn earlier video, Russian media had showed Griner crossing paths with Bout after walking off a Russian plane in Abu Dhabi, where she was met by a U.S. official during the exchange. President Joe Biden, who said he approved the deal that saw Griner freed, said Thursday that she had been "held under intolerable circumstances." In a written statement Thursday night, the Griner family thanked Biden, his administration and others for their efforts. Whelan’s family said they had been told by the Biden administration in advance that he would not be part of the prisoner swap Thursday that freed Griner.

Brittney Griner’s release from a Russian penal colony Thursday as part of a prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was met with widespread celebration. Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison after vape canisters and cannabis oil were discovered in her luggage at the airport. “I wonder if she will respect our flag and country now,” self-proclaimed Trump supporter Collin Rugg wrote in a tweet liked 21,000 times. Such outdated definitions of patriotism disgrace the national anthem and the flag more than any peaceful protest ever could. She is a Black LGBTQ American, a wife, a daughter, an advocate, an Olympian and a world-class basketball star.

☆ Senior officials argued that Viktor Bout's release in exchange for Brittney Griner would be a mistake, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Sophia Ankel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

WNBA star Brittney Griner was swapped for arms dealer Viktor Bout on Thursday. Her release marked the end of prolonged and agonizing negotiations for Biden, CNN reported. Some senior officials told Biden they thought Russia was getting the better deal, the outlet said. But some senior law enforcement officials told Biden prior to his decision that Bout was too notorious of a figure to release in exchange for Griner, whose offense was only minor, one official told CNN. Her release marked the end of prolonged and agonizing negotiations for Biden, CNN reported.

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Thursday's release of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in exchange for a convicted Russian arms dealer has resurfaced an old question: Do prisoner swaps do more harm than good? The details of Griner's release highlight the painful trade-offs confronting the Biden administration. In one such case in 2016, North Korea detained American college student Otto Warmbier during a dispute with the international community over that country's missile launches. Many of the families argue that the U.S. should be willing negotiate and discount the argument that prisoner swaps lead more countries to grab Americans. Those hard choices meant Washington could either leave Whelan in Russian custody or else return empty-handed after months of negotiations.

☆ Griner lands in U.S. as Russia's Bout greets family in Moscow
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Basketball star Brittney Griner landed in the United States on Friday after 10 months in Russian detention that ended with a prisoner swap with arms dealer Viktor Bout who flew home hours earlier to embrace his family on the airport tarmac in Moscow. The two countries had swapped prisoners in April when Russia released former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed and the United States released Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko. Griner, 32, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and star of the Women's National Basketball Association's Phoenix Mercury, flew in to San Antonio, Texas. She had been arrested on Feb. 17 at a Moscow airport after vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia, were found in her luggage. As Griner flew back home, Bout arrived in Moscow and hugged his mother and wife after stepping onto the tarmac, television images showed.

☆ Brittney Griner arrives in the U.S. after prisoner exchange with Russia
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 9 (Reuters) - A plane carrying basketball star Brittney Griner landed in the United States early on Friday, nearly 10 months after she was detained in Russia. Griner was released in a prisoner swap with Russia in exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout and was heading home on Thursday, ending what President Joe Biden called months of "hell" for her and her wife. [1/3] The plane carrying U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner arrives, following her release from prison in Russia, in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., December 9, 2022. The swap was a rare instance of cooperation between the United States and Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. The two countries also swapped prisoners in April when Russia released former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed and the United States released Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko.

Biden had been hopeful that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be more apt to free Griner once America’s midterm elections were done, a calculation that proved correct. Still detained in Russia is Paul Whelan, a businessman whom the White House has also been working to free without success. In a 2012 interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” when he was vice president, Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage, and he is expected to sign the measure into law. White House officials acknowledged the headwinds and worried that the midterm elections would be a repudiation of Biden’s record. “When I look at what the Biden White House has done, I think experience and patience really paid off,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as White House communications director during the Obama administration.

"Grateful for the long-overdue release of Brittney Griner today from Russian custody. "Thank you to every single person that kept Brittney Griner’s name alive #WEAREBG," tweeted one of her Phoenix Mercury teammates, Brianna Turner. The Biden administration wasn't able to secure Whelan's release because the Russian government is treating his case differently than Griner's, Biden said. “While we celebrate Brittney’s release, Paul Whelan and his family continue to suffer needlessly,” Blinken said. Share this -Link copiedWho is Viktor Bout, Russian arms dealer that the U.S. exchanged for Brittney Griner?

And a catastrophe for Paul," David Whelan said. The Whelan family was similarly frustrated in April, when another former Marine held in Russia, Trevor Reed, was released in a prisoner exchange. David Whelan said that at the time, they were not warned that his brother was not included in the swap. "Paul Whelan has been let down and left behind at least three times by 2 Presidents," the group said in a statement. David Whelan added that his parents are in their 80s, and it will be another Christmas without their son since he was detained four years ago.

☆ WNBA star Brittney Griner released from Russian custody in a high-profile prisoner swap between the U.S. and Moscow
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms | Andrea Mitchell | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

WASHINGTON — WNBA star Brittney Griner is free Thursday after the Biden administration negotiated her release from a Russian penal colony in exchange for an arms dealer, according to a senior administration official. People familiar with the negotiations for his release say the Russians refused to release Whelan without getting a Russian spy in return. The entrance to the Russian penal colony IK-2 on Nov. 19, 2022, where Griner began serving her sentence. The Biden administration has faced tremendous pressure to help bring home the 6-foot-9 Houston native. Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP fileGriner’s release is the second publicly known U.S. prisoner swap with Russia since the war in Ukraine started.

☆ Brittney Griner live updates: WNBA star released from Russia in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Tom_Winter_Nbc_News.Jpg | Zoë Richards | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

Biden criticized Russia for “treating Paul’s case differently” than Griner’s and said that negotiations are ongoing. Biden’s administration had sought the release of both Griner and Paul Whelan. Griner’s release also marks a stunning turn of events from last month, when she began serving a nine-year sentence at a Russian penal colony more than 200 miles east of Moscow. The Whalen family has publicly criticized the Biden administration for not doing more to secure his release. People familiar with the negotiations for his release say the Russians refused to release Whelan without getting a Russian spy in return.

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