AFP

American basketball star Brittney Griner was headed back to the United States on Thursday after being released from a Russian prison in exchange for an arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.”

Griner, 32, who was arrested in Russia in February on drug charges, and Viktor Bout, 55, who was serving a 25-year sentence in a US prison, were exchanged at an airport in Abu Dhabi.

In footage released by Russian state media, Griner, shorn of her distinctive dreadlocks, and a relaxed and animated Bout could be seen crossing paths on the airport tarmac and heading towards the planes that would take them home.

President Joe Biden announced Griner’s release early Thursday in an address to the nation at the White House. “She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home,” he said.

The president said he had spoken to her and she was in “good spirits” after suffering “needless trauma.”

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, WNBA champion and LGBT trailblazer, was arrested at a Moscow airport nine months ago against a backdrop of soaring tensions over Ukraine.

She was accused of possession of vape cartridges with a small quantity of cannabis oil and sentenced in August to nine years in prison.

Bout, who was accused of arming rebels in some of the world’s bloodiest conflicts, was detained in a US sting operation in Thailand in 2008, extradited to the United States and sentenced in 2012 to 25 years behind bars.

He landed in Russia Thursday, state television said. “Don’t worry, everything is OK, I love you very much,” he told his mother Raisa.

While Griner’s family and friends celebrated her release, another American held in Russia, Paul Whelan, a former US Marine detained since 2018 and accused of spying, was not part of Thursday’s exchange and he told CNN he was “greatly disappointed.”

“I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here,” Whelan told the US television network in a phone call from the Russian penal colony where he is imprisoned.

Biden pledged to obtain Whelan’s freedom, saying “we will never give up.”

“Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case different than Brittney’s,” he said.

As for Griner’s release, Biden said “this is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time. It took painstaking and intense negotiations.”

– ‘Family is whole’ –

Biden made the announcement flanked by Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“I’m just standing here, overwhelmed with emotions,” Cherelle Griner said.

She acknowledged Whelan’s fate, saying: “Today my family is whole, but as you all are aware there’s so many other families who are not whole.”

In a statement late Thursday, the Griner family thanked President Biden and his administration again, and said they “pray for Paul and for the swift and safe return of all wrongfully-detained Americans.”

“We ask that you respect our privacy as we embark on this road to healing,” they added. 

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said there was a “collective wave of joy and relief” in the women’s professional league where the 6’9″ (2.06 meter) Griner has been a star for a decade with the Phoenix Mercury.

Biden thanked the United Arab Emirates for helping “facilitate” Griner’s release and the UAE issued a joint statement with Saudi Arabia saying it was the result of “mediation efforts” by leaders of the two Arab nations.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, however, there was “no mediation involved” and “the only countries that negotiated this deal were the United States and Russia.”

– ‘Rescue our compatriot’ –

At the time of her arrest, Griner had been playing for a professional team in Russia, as a number of WNBA players do in the off-season.

She pleaded guilty to the charges against her, but said she did not intend to break the law or use the banned substance in Russia.

Griner testified that she had permission from a US doctor to use medicinal cannabis to relieve pain from her many injuries.

The use of medical marijuana is not allowed in Russia.

The Russian foreign ministry said it had been negotiating with Washington to secure Bout’s release “for a long time” and that initially the United States had “refused dialogue” on including him in any swap.

“Nevertheless, the Russian Federation continued to actively work to rescue our compatriot,” it said. “The Russian citizen has been returned to his homeland.”

The 2005 film “Lord of War” starring Nicolas Cage was based in part on Bout’s arms trafficking exploits and he has been the subject of several books and TV shows.

Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, told Bout in a video message that he was aware that the arms dealer had been subjected to “powerful physical and moral pressure” while in prison, Russian news agency TASS reported.

“And you endured it with dignity,” the ambassador added, saying Moscow was “genuinely delighted by the fact that Russia’s efforts for your release have eventually succeeded.”

Asked about Bout’s release, a senior US defense official said “there is a concern that he would return to doing the same kind of work that he’s done in the past.”

A former activist from the US religious right told Congress Thursday how he took advantage of the US Supreme Court’s lack of a code of ethics to conduct an intense lobbying campaign aimed at its conservative judges.

Pastor Robert Schenck, 64, detailed his efforts — which included prayers, dinners and trips — during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee focused on the ethics rules, or lack thereof, for Supreme Court justices. 

Unlike their colleagues in federal courts, or elected members of Congress, the nine Supreme Court justices do not have to disclose gifts given to them nor any meetings with lobbyists, and are not legally required to recuse themselves in the event of a conflict of interest.

Pastor Schenck said he took advantage of this vacuum to run a 20-year influence campaign called “Operation Higher Court.”

The stealth campaign “involved my recruitment of wealthy donors, as stealth missionaries, who befriended justices that shared our conservative social and religious sensibilities,” Schenk said, mentioning conservative Justices Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia by name. 

The aim was “to shore up their resolve to render solid, unapologetic opinions, particularly against abortion.”

Some of his “stealth missionaries” prayed with the judges, others invited them to dinner with their wives, even to their homes, and were invited back in turn by the justices, he said. 

Unlike Congress, where the dollar value of gifts are limited, “we knew that there was a great deal of liberty and latitude there…it made our operation…much easier,” Schenck said.

He alleged that in 2014, during one of these dinners, Alito “leaked” to a couple the content of an upcoming decision on contraception.

Schenck had written over the summer to the court’s chief justice about the Alito incident, but the letter was not reported by US media until late November.

Alito and the dinner attendees have all denied the charge. During the hearing, Republican lawmakers accused Schenck of lying.

He insisted that he discovered late in life that politics corrupts religion, and now wanted to tell “the truth.”

Alito was the author of the June ruling that overturned the US nationwide right to abortion.

In a highly uncommon occurrence, that decision was leaked before its publication, causing shockwaves across the country.

A bill has passed a House committee that would increase the transparency requirements for US Supreme Court justices, but it is not expected to advance before Republicans take over control of the House in January, when it will likely be thrown out.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa announced Thursday eight crew members who will join him for a journey around the Moon planned for 2023 on a SpaceX rocket that is still under development.

The mission, known as dearMoon, was first announced in 2018. Maezawa initially said he would invite a crew of six-to-eight artists, but later changed the entry requirements to a competition which applicants could apply for online.

The eight people chosen were DJ and producer Steve Aoki of the United States; Tim Dodd, an American YouTuber; Czech artist Yemi AD; Rhiannon Adam, an Irish photographer; British photographer Karim Iliya; American filmmaker Brendan Hall; and Indian actor Dev Joshi, and K-pop musician TOP of South Korea.

There were also two backup crew members: snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington of the US and dancer Miyu of Japan.

“I hope each and every one will recognize the responsibility that comes with leaving the Earth, traveling to the Moon and back,” Maezawa said in an announcement video on YouTube.

“They will gain a lot from this experience, and I hope they will use that to contribute to the planet, to humanity.”

According to a mission profile graphic on the dearMoon website, the round trip would last almost six days and circumnavigate the Moon without landing.

When completed, SpaceX’s Starship will be the most powerful rocket ever built.

Although its upper stage has succeeded in test flights within the atmosphere and successfully landed, SpaceX has yet to carry out an orbital test flight — something founder Elon Musk has repeatedly promised will happen by the end of 2022.

Maezawa, the mega-rich founder of Japan’s largest online fashion mall, flew last year to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket, paying a reported 10 billion yen ($73 million on current conversion rates).

A recession in the US is “not inevitable,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday, adding that she believes the world’s biggest economy is on the right track in lowering inflation.

Her comments come on the heels of a forceful campaign by the US central bank to cool demand this year, walking a tightrope between lowering consumer costs while trying not to tip the economy into a downturn.

For now, many economists expect the US could experience a downturn next year.

On “whether or not we can avoid a recession, I believe the answer is yes,” she told reporters during a visit to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s currency facility in Fort Worth, Texas.

Supply chain bottlenecks are starting to ease and new apartment rents have “essentially peaked,” with the labor market cooling slightly as well, Yellen said.

“Without seeing significant net nationwide layoffs, I believe we’re on the right track in terms of lowering inflation and a recession’s not inevitable,” she added.

As businesses tone down their growth expectations and hiring plans, the number of people leaving their jobs has also dipped a little, she said.

Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell added it remains “very plausible” for the US to reach a soft landing, referring to a scenario where unemployment rises but the economy avoids a severe recession.

On Thursday, Yellen said that the United States has been “listening very carefully” to allies and trying to understand their concerns on Washington’s push to spur climate-friendly technologies in America.

“I think the objective that Congress had was to make sure we have supply chains that are secure, and to try to include our allies in them,” she said.

Asked if she had plans to visit China following President Joe Biden’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Yellen said she had no definite plans yet but was “certainly open to it.”

More than 1,000 New York Times employees went on strike Thursday in the first industrial action of its kind at the newspaper in more than 40 years.

Journalists and other workers at the storied media outlet, often referred to as America’s paper of record, walked out at midnight for 24 hours after failing to reach an agreement with the company on a new round of contract negotiations.

The NewsGuild of New York, a union representing the striking workers, had said that a key sticking point was the management’s refusal to raise wages in line with surging inflation.

Health and retirement benefits as well as return-to-work policies following the coronavirus pandemic were also an issue.

“Over 1,100 New York Times workers are now officially on work stoppage, the first of this scale at the company in 4 decades,” the union tweeted early Thursday morning.

New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha told US media in a statement that negotiations had not broken down and “it is disappointing that they are taking such an extreme action when we are not at an impasse.”

Phoebe Lett, a podcast producer at the media outlet, tweeted: “It is heartbreaking to have to stand with nearly 1,200 colleagues who sacrifice everything for the good of this place, hat in hand, asking @nytimes to show us they value us. But here we are.”

The union said its members were “willing to do what it takes to win a better newsroom for all.”

The Times said in an article about the strike that nonunion newsroom employees would produce news on Thursday.

More than 1,800 people work in The Times’s newsroom in total.

“We will produce a robust report on Thursday… But it will be harder than usual,” executive editor Joe Kahn said in an email to staff.

The contract between The Times and The New York Times Guild expired in March 2021, according to the article on the strike, which added that roughly 40 bargaining sessions have been held since.

The Times has offered union members a 5.5 percent raise upon ratifying the contract, 3 percent raises in 2023 and 2024, and a 4 percent retroactive bonus to compensate for a lack of raises since the contract expired.

The union has proposed a 10 percent raise upon ratification, 5.5 percent raises in 2023 and 2024, and an 8.5 percent retroactive bonus.

“The company is doing very well now on our work and the raises they are offering us and the contract are very low, well below inflation,” 34-year-old graphics editor Albert Sun told AFP during a protest by the striking workers outside the paper’s headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.