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      ‘I relied on hard work’: Brittney Griner on coping with Russian detention

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      Brittney Griner got emotional quickly.Speaking to reporters for the first time since a nearly 10-month detainment in Russia on drug-related charges, the WNBA star had to take a moment to compose herself after being asked about her resiliency through the ordeal.“I’m no stranger to hard times,” Griner said Thursday from the lobby of the Footprint Center, home of her new team the Phoenix Mercury and the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. “Just digging deep. You’re going to be faced with adversities in life. This was a pretty big one. I just relied on my hard work to get through it.”Griner’s first news conference drew more than 100 people, including Arizona governor Katie Hobbs, members of the Mercury organization and her wife, Cherelle.Griner was arrested in February 2022 at a Moscow airport after Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. She later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison.She said her abilities as an athlete helped her cope. “I know this sounds so small but dying in practice and just hard workouts, you find a way to just grind it out, just put your head down and keep going and keep moving forward,” she said.“You can never stand still and that was my thing; just never be still, never get too focused on the now and looking forward to what’s to come.”After nearly 10 months of strained negotiations between Washington and Moscow, Griner was exchanged in the United Arab Emirates for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout on 8 December.Griner kept a low profile following her return to the US while adjusting to life back at home, outside of appearances at the Super Bowl, the PGA Tour’s Phoenix Open and an MLK Day event in Phoenix.But she said she never doubted she would be back playing professionally again.“I believe in me,” Griner said. “I believe in what I can do. I know if I put my mind to it I can achieve any goal.She added: “I’m not trying to sound big-headed, but I bet on me. I have all the resources here to help me get to that point where I can play, and it was no question to be back in the WNBA, back in Phoenix playing.”Griner also said her management team has been in touch with the family of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia who has become a symbol of attacks on the press in Russia.“No one should be in those conditions,” she said.She added: “You’re in foreign territory and you’re in unknown waters. So there’s a lot that we might know that they didn’t know so there’s been a lot of communication between both teams.”
      Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Griner release is cause for relief but Viktor Bout transfer tough to stomach

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      AnalysisGriner release is cause for relief but Viktor Bout transfer tough to stomachDavid Smith in WashingtonCritics label Biden’s decision to release Russian arms dealer ‘deeply disturbing’ – even if Brittney Griner’s freedom is excellent news Last month, the Russian parliament mounted an unusual art exhibition with subjects ranging from the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to a sentimental image of a kitten. They had been produced in prison by Viktor Bout, serving 25 years in America.Brittney Griner freed from Russian prison in exchange for Viktor BoutRead moreHistory has shown that a sideline as an amateur artist is not much guarantee of moral integrity. Bout, known as “the merchant of death”, was the world’s most notorious arms dealer, selling weapons to rogue states, rebel groups and murderous warlords in Africa, Asia and South America.That, for many, was what made his release on Thursday in a prisoner swap for US basketball star Brittney Griner difficult to stomach. Joe Biden has done a deal with the devil. But he may also have saved a woman’s life. As the president found in Afghanistan, the big decisions are seldom morally clearcut.On the credit side, Griner’s release is spectacularly good news. She was arrested in February after vape canisters containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage. Against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, her nine-year prison sentence was wildly disproportionate. Her transfer to a penal colony, with its promise of sexism, racism and homophobia in medieval conditions, raised fears for her survival.But on the debit side, despite Vladimir Putin’s effort to portray Bout as painter and classical music lover with a sensitive soul, the arms dealer has blood on his hands. He armed militias in Sierra Leone, the Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor and the Taliban in Afghanistan. His life helped inspire the 2005 Hollywood film Lord of War, starring Nicholas Cage.Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, captured the ambivalence in a statement on Thursday. The Democrat welcomed Griner’s release as a “moment of profound relief” but warned that “releasing Bout back into the world is a deeply disturbing decision”.He added: “We must stop inviting dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans overseas as bargaining chips, and we must try do better at encouraging American citizens against traveling to places like Russia where they are primary targets for this type of unlawful detention.”Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, also expressed relief but warned that “trading Viktor Bout – a dangerous convicted arms dealer who was in prison for conspiring to kill Americans – will only embolden Vladimir Putin to continue his evil practice of taking innocent Americans hostage for use as political pawns”.Predictably, there was a less measured response from Donald Trump’s wing of the Republican party. Some cried foul over the fact that while Griner was coming home, the former US marine Paul Whelan, convicted in 2020 of spying, will remain in a penal colony.Cory Mills, an Afghanistan and Iraq war veteran and congressman-elect from Florida, tweeted: “Biden clearly showed his priority is celebrities over veterans. I guess Brittany’s basketball career in WNBA was more important than Paul Whelan’s service to our nation as a marine.”Family of US man held in Russia lament ‘catastrophe for Paul’ after Griner swapRead moreIn a phone interview from his penal colony, Whelan told CNN he was glad Griner had been released but “greatly disappointed” that the Biden administration has not done more to secure his own freedom. According to the White House, Russia is treating Whelan’s case differently because of his espionage conviction and was not willing to include him in the deal.Not even Republicans, however, were accusing Biden of being “soft on Russia”, given his success in rallying the west against Putin in Ukraine – a vivid contrast from Trump’s embrace of the autocrat. The war has been unusual in its lack of ambiguity between right and wrong.After meeting Griner’s wife, Cherelle, in the Oval Office, it was clear Biden had no doubt he had done the right thing despite the understandable ethical qualms.“It’s my job as president of the United States to make the hard calls,” he said. “And I’m proud that, today, we have made one more family whole again.”TopicsJoe BidenUS foreign policyUS politicsRussiaViktor BoutBrittney GrineranalysisReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Qatar’s World Cup of woe: inside the 18 November Guardian Weekly

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      Qatar’s World Cup of woe: inside the 18 November Guardian WeeklyGeopolitical football. Plus: a world beyond 8 billion people
      Get the Guardian Weekly magazine delivered to your home address Ordinarily a football World Cup would be a moment for celebration, a time to savour sport’s power to unite nations and a glorious distraction from the problems of the day. Not this time: the 2022 tournament has been mired in controversy since it was awarded to Qatar 12 years ago. The small but ultra-wealthy Middle Eastern state thought that hosting the world’s most-watched sporting event would showcase it as a major player on the global stage. But instead Qatar has come in for severe criticism on a number of fronts, in particular for its treatment of migrant workers, anti LGBTQ+ laws, and restrictions on freedom of speech.“A deflated football in the desert seemed like a perfect metaphor to capture the controversy,” says illustrator Barry Downard of his cover artwork for this week’s Guardian Weekly magazine.In a special report, Patrick Wintour asks whether Qatar has lost at geopolitical football before the action has even begun. The cartoonist David Squires brilliantly brings to life the plight of a migrant worker turned whistleblower and, in the final reckoning, sports writer Jonathan Liew tries to salvage some actual football from the diplomatic wreckage.On that theme, further back in the features section there’s a reminder of what the game should be about as we meet some of the young people who will be cheering on their teams from afar.Another dubious global milestone was reached this week as the world’s population passed 8 billion, according to UN estimates. In a the first of a series of dispatches from the frontline of population growth, Hannah Ellis-Petersen reports from India, which next year will overtake China as the planet’s most populous nation, on what the shift means for the world.The US midterm elections saw the Democrats fare better than expected, retaining control of the Senate despite looking likely to lose control of the House by a small margin to the Republicans. The more consequential outcome may be for Donald Trump: Chris McGreal and David Smith ask if the former president’s grip on the GOP is weakening, and if his rival Ron DeSantis’s time may be coming.If your settlement is at existential risk from climate change, is the answer to move it? Guardian Australia’s Pacific editor Kate Lyons visits Fiji’s vulnerable Pacific islands, where communities have started to do just that – discovering that it is not nearly as simple as it sounds.Get the Guardian Weekly magazine delivered to your home addressTopicsQatarInside Guardian WeeklyWorld CupWorld Cup 2022Middle East and north AfricaPopulationIndiaChinaReuse this content More

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      Tommy Tuberville made $25m off Black men. God forbid they get anything back

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      Tommy Tuberville made $25m off Black men. God forbid they get anything backAndrew LawrenceThe former Auburn football coach earned a small fortune thanks to Black athletes. As a US senator he has shown them little but contempt Tommy Tuberville wasn’t the best available football coach in Alabama when Republicans tapped him for a US Senate run in 2020. He wasn’t, in fact, even the best available former Auburn coach. What he was was a silver fox with name recognition who had pledged allegiance to Donald Trump and to toe the party line. A useful idiot, in other words.After trouncing former US attorney general Jeff Sessions in the Republican primary and winning election to the Senate by double digits, Tuberville has proven as much a far-right team player as advertised; not surprisingly, he believed the Big Lie and was one of the dozen Republican senators who were prepared to vote against certifying Joe Biden as US president. And yet the 68-year-old really didn’t distinguish himself in his new career as a Trump surrogate until this month.Speaking at a Trump rally in western Nevada on Saturday, Tuberville blasted Democrats as crime enablers who risked destroying the republic by engaging with Black Americans in an overdue conversation about reparations. “[Democrats] want crime because they want to take over what you got,” Tuberville crowed to the blindingly white crowd. “They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit! They are not owed that.”’I signed my life to rich white guys’: athletes on the racial dynamics of college sportsRead moreThe offensive play, though met with thunderous applause on the stump, ran swiftly out of that arena and smack bang into a wall of backlash. NAACP president Derrick Johnson pronounced Tuberville’s rant “flat out racist” and of a piece with “a centuries-old lie about Black people that throughout history has resulted in the most dangerous policies and violent attacks on our community.” Former South Carolina state representative Bakari Sellers was more blunt, saying Tuberville “can go to hell.”Doug Jones, Tuberville’s Democratic predecessor, scorned the senator’s comments as “deplorable.” Jones added: “He made millions of dollars as a coach supposedly trying to mentor Black men. He should know better.”Should he, though?If the past half-century of college football has taught us anything, it’s that the system, rather than helping Black players, exploits them to enrich old white coaches. And like those coaches, the bulk of them decidedly mediocre, Tuberville mastered the hokey art of ingratiating himself with Black families and promising their sons a better life – as long as they did precisely as he said. While that bargain notionally worked out for some signees, not least the 29 Auburn players who reached the NFL during Tuberville’s time in charge of the Tigers, scores more got very little.The NCAA’s freshman success rate (FSR) charts graduation rates for college athletes. During Tuberville’s decade-long tenure at Auburn, from 1998 through 2008, his teams posted an average FSR of just 53%, well below the national average. In a country where having a college degree is a requisite for a vast array of jobs, Tuberville was far more interested in upholding his one-percenter status than setting up his charges for a bright future.Also, like a lot of fringe former players turned big-time football coaches, Tuberville is a shameless climber. After helping the Miami Hurricanes to the 1993 national championship as defensive coordinator, he left for the same job at Texas A&M, where the team went undefeated in 1994. As coach of Ole Miss in 1998 he famously vowed to die in the job, declaring that he’d have to be carried out of Oxford, Mississippi, “in a pine box”. Two days later he took the Auburn job reportedly without so much as saying goodbye to his Ole Miss players.At Auburn, Tuberville guided the program out of the doldrums to a 13-0 record in 2004 with a backfield that included three Black stars – quarterback Jason Campbell and tailbacks Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown. That success earned Tuberville a seven-year extension that paid $2m a year. But no sooner had the trio of Black stars who had helped secure him a lucrative contract headed to the NFL, Tuberville’s hot streak cooled. In 2008, the Tigers fell to a woeful 5-7 – a record that included losses to conference cellar-dweller Vanderbilt and shutout to blood rival Alabama. At the end of that season, with three years still to serve on his contract, Tuberville tendered his resignation in a two-paragraph letter to the school – along with an invoice for $5m, thanks to a well-buried early termination clause.Moving on to Texas Tech in 2010, Tuberville logged three seasons in Lubbock before skulking out of a 2012 dinner with recruits to accept a job at Cincinnati, outraging the student guests. Tuberville hung in that job for four seasons before resigning again, telling fans disenchanted with his 29-22 record to “go to hell” and “get a job.” In between those coaching gigs, he started a hedge fund with a former Lehman Brothers broker who’d wind up serving a 10-year federal prison for fraud. Tuberville, meanwhile, was not prosecuted, casting himself as an unwitting victim.Football primed Tuberville for the politics of hypocrisy. Where he once effectively kicked off the era of megamillions reparations for college football coaches, now he scolds society’s most vulnerable for “leaning on this country for a handout.” (Never mind that Auburn’s $26m in football and basketball coaching severances paid over 15 years, including his, ranked second in the NCAA, according to a 2020 study.) While at Ole Miss, he called on fans to stop brandishing the Confederate flag at football games. As a rookie senator, Tuberville has not only embraced Maga Republicanism; he was seen fraternizing with members of the 6 January mob at Trump International Hotel the night before they stormed the Capitol. And even Tuberville’s early civil rights stand was self-serving. “In the state of Mississippi, all the best players are Black,” one state spin doctor recalled Tuberville saying in 1997. “With the flags on campus, we’re not getting our share of Black players that are going to other schools.”Tuberville, yet to apologize for his comments, has always been a salesman first; he’s been calling himself as much for years, all the while pocketing north of $25m during his time as a football coach. And like a true American huckster who’s simply hustling to survive, Tuberville will do whatever it takes to close the deal: Take credit for the careers of Baker Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes (despite them being recruited by Texas Tech successor Kliff Kingsbury, now head coach of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals). Start a foundation to build homes for veterans (while reportedly withholding two-thirds of the donations). Dog whistle to appeal to adherents of white power. Whatever it takes to win. So what if he doesn’t exactly know how the federal government actually works? “That’s where he stands right now,” Karlos Dansby, who played under Tuberville at Auburn, told AL.com. “I guess it’s a game within the game that’s being played. He just took it to the extreme.”Alabamians should have known better than to elect a football coach to the country’s highest legislative body. As much as they preach God and family and respecting the tenants of the game, big-time football coaches aren’t programmed for compromise. They measure success by how often they get their way, 10 yards at a time. It hardly matters who gets run over in the process.TopicsCollege footballCollege sportsUS sportsUS politicsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      US congressman accuses LIV CEO Greg Norman of pushing Saudi ‘propaganda’

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      US congressman accuses LIV CEO Greg Norman of pushing Saudi ‘propaganda’ Australian visits Capitol Hill in attempt to promote rebel tourLIV’s role questioned by Democrats and Republicans Greg Norman faced accusations of promoting Saudi “propaganda” following meetings with Washington lawmakers, in which the Australian golfer sought to garner support for the Saudi-backed LIV Series in its bitter dispute with the PGA Tour.Norman, who serves as LIV’s CEO and has been the public face of the breakaway tour, ostensibly came to the US capital this week to criticise what he has called the PGA’s “anti-competitive efforts” to stifle LIV.But – apart from some lawmakers who allegedly sought to take their picture with Norman – the Saudi tour has instead faced a considerable backlash from both Democrats and Republicans, who have defended the PGA and accused LIV of being little more than a sportswashing vehicle for the kingdom.Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, left a meeting of the Republican Study Committee on Wednesday at which dozens of his party colleagues had met with Norman, expressing dismay that members of Congress were discussing a golf league backed by Saudi funds. He also called Norman’s LIV pitch “propaganda”.‘I hate it. I really do’: McIlroy opens up on golf’s civil war after FedEx Cup winRead more“We need to get out of bed with these people. They are bad actors. We need to keep them at arm’s length,” Burchett told the Guardian. He cited the September 11 attacks on the US, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the kingdom’s treatment of gay people and women, which he called “just unacceptable”.While Burchett is a conservative Republican, LIV has also come under fire from the left. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said earlier this month on Twitter that the LIV tour was using a “golf glove [to] try and cover a blood-stained hand” of the Saudi government. He added that the series was part of a “continued, desperate attempt to clean up [Saudi Arabia’s] image”.Durbin added in a second tweet: “Money shouldn’t be allowed to cover up the murder and dismemberment of a journalist or the imprisonment and harassment of activists like Raif Badawi, Waleed Abu Ak-Khair, and Salma al-Shehab.”The LIV spokesperson Jonathan Grella said: “Greg Norman had a very productive day on Capitol Hill today in front of some 60 members of Congress. His message about the benefits of competition was very well received, even if a couple members of Congress say otherwise.”Even as LIV and the PGA are engaged in litigation in the US involving allegations that the PGA has engaged in anti-competitive practices, some lawmakers have asked whether proponents of the Saudi-backed tour, which is owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, ought to be filing as foreign agents of the kingdom.Department of Justice rules require agents of “foreign principals” who are engaged in “political activities” to disclose their relationship with the foreign principal – in this case, Saudi Arabia – as well as receipts, contracts, and payments in support of those activities. The justice department has notably stepped up its enforcement of such rules – known as the Foreign Agent Registration Act (Fara) – over the last 12 months, and has charged individuals who the department has deemed have acted as foreign agents without disclosing their activities.Chip Roy, a conservative Republican congressman from Texas, in a letter in July called on the DOJ to investigate “potential violations” of the Fara rules.“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is funneling money through its Public Investment Fund (PIF) to stand up LIV Golf as an exercise in public relations. In other words, a foreign government’s dollars are being used to enhance that government’s brand and positioning here in the United States,” Roy wrote.One legal expert interviewed by the Guardian said that business ventures that are owned by foreign governments do sometimes escape scrutiny, but not when they are owned by a nation’s sovereign wealth fund, and not when there are legitimate questions about whether the business also has public relations goals involving the country’s image abroad.“I think there are a lot of signs that LIV is not a typical business interest. I think there are a lot of reasons for the DoJ to potentially kick tires on this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did,” said Matt Sanderson, a lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale who specialises in Fara cases. Sanderson said it was also unclear whether LIV intended to make a profit in the long run, raising further questions about its intentions.He added that while he did not think the golfers who have signed up with LIV would personally have to file under Fara, he said any individuals who talk to government officials or engage in PR activities would most likely come under scrutiny if they had not disclosed their activity.Asked whether LIV officials would file under Fara, Grella said: “Our lawyers have informed us that it is not applicable.”TopicsLIV Golf SeriesGolfUS politicsUS political lobbyingSaudi ArabiaMiddle East and north AfricaUS sportsnewsReuse this content More

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      NBA to pause on election day to encourage US fans to vote

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      NBA to pause on election day to encourage US fans to voteLeague wants to encourage civic engagement in NovemberNBA players have been involved in voter registration in past The NBA will be off on election day. The league’s schedule for the coming season will have all 30 teams playing on 7 November, the night before the US midterm elections. The NBA is hoping teams use that night as an opportunity to encourage fans to vote, as well as amplifying the need for civic engagement.But on 8 November, which is election day in the US, no NBA teams have games scheduled. Teams are being encouraged to share election information – such as registration deadlines – with their fanbases in the weeks leading up to 8 November.’How do we fix this?’: LeBron James takes fight to black voter suppressionRead more“The scheduling decision came out of the NBA family’s focus on promoting nonpartisan civic engagement and encouraging fans to make a plan to vote during midterm elections,” the league said on Tuesday.All 435 US House seats will be up for grabs on 8 November, along with more than 30 US Senate seats and gubernatorial races. The Senate is currently split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. The move is a rarity for the league, which typically plays no games on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and tries to avoid scheduling games on the day of the NCAA men’s basketball championship game. It also has a few days off built around the All-Star Game, which takes place in February.The NBA and its players were openly involved in several election-related pushes in 2020, largely after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor reignited the quest to eliminate racial inequality and police brutality.Many players, including LeBron James, were involved in voting registration drives and other get-out-the-vote initiatives. Some teams turned their arenas into registration or voting centers.The NBA’s full schedule for the season will be released at 3pm ET on Wednesday.TopicsNBABasketballUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022US sportsnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Megan Rapinoe: US supreme court ruling on abortion is 'sad and cruel' – video

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      US women’s national team forward Megan Rapinoe described the supreme court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade as “sad and cruel”. The Supreme Court has ruled there is no constitutional right to abortion in the United States, upending the landmark Roe v Wade case from nearly 50 years ago. 
      ‘It will completely exacerbate so many of the existing inequalities that we have in our country. It doesn’t keep not one single person safer,’ she said

      US supreme court overturns abortion rights, upending Roe v Wade
      ‘It’s important to fight’: US cities erupt in protest as Roe v Wade falls
      The supreme court just overturned Roe v Wade – what happens next? More

    • 225 Shares149 Views

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      'Sad and cruel': Megan Rapinoe holds back tears as she speaks on Roe v Wade ruling – video

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      US women’s national team forward Megan Rapinoe described the supreme court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade as “sad and cruel”. The Supreme Court has ruled there is no constitutional right to abortion in the United States, upending the landmark Roe v Wade case from nearly 50 years ago. 
      ‘It will completely exacerbate so many of the existing inequalities that we have in our country. It doesn’t keep not one single person safer,’ she said

      US supreme court overturns abortion rights, upending Roe v Wade
      ‘It’s important to fight’: US cities erupt in protest as Roe v Wade falls
      The supreme court just overturned Roe v Wade – what happens next? More