US Business

One of America’s leading soccer reporters, who made headlines when he was detained at the Qatar World Cup for wearing a rainbow shirt, died Friday while covering the quarter finals in Doha, according to his wife and the US Soccer federation.

Grant Wahl, 48, helped build soccer’s popularity in the United States through decades of vivid reporting at Sports Illustrated, then with CBS Sports.

According to NPR, Wahl collapsed in the press tribune as Friday’s Argentina-Netherlands match was winding down. Paramedics performed CPR at the scene before taking him away on a stretcher. The Wall Street Journal said Wahl apparently suffered a heart attack.

“Grant made soccer his life’s work, and we are devastated that he and his brilliant writing will no longer be with us,” US Soccer said in a statement.

It said the “entire US Soccer family is heartbroken.” 

Wahl’s wife Celine Gounder, a renowned epidemiologist and expert on infectious diseases, tweeted: “I’m in complete shock.” 

Wahl was detained in Qatar on November 21 by security staff after he wore a rainbow shirt to the opening match between the US and Wales teams, showing support for LGBTQ rights in a country where same sex relations are outlawed.

Wahl said on his subscription newsletter earlier this week that he’d gone to a clinic at the media center in Qatar, “and they said I probably have bronchitis.”

“My body finally broke down on me. Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and lots of work can do that to you… I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort,” he wrote.

With some antibiotics and “some heavy duty cough syrup” Wahl said he was “feeling a bit better just a few hours later. But still: No bueno.”

Wahl in 1996 joined Sports Illustrated, at the time the premiere US sports publication, to report on soccer. He remained at the magazine until 2020, joining CBS Sports a year later.

He also had launched a subscription email newsletter platform, and was posting to that during the World Cup.

State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Grant Wahl” and added that US authorities have been “in close communication” with his family.

“We are engaged with senior Qatari officials to see to it that his family’s wishes are fulfilled as expeditiously as possible,” Price wrote.

News of Wahl’s death triggered an outpouring of emotion from the soccer world, a sign of his role in promoting the sport — both amateur and professional — in the United States.

“Fans of soccer and journalism of the highest quality knew we could count on Grant to deliver insightful and entertaining stories about our game, and its major protagonists: teams, players, coaches and that many personalities that make soccer unlike any sport,” US Soccer said.

Under perfect California skies, Liv Stone elegantly flips her board into the hollow of a wave, perfectly executing the kind of move this disabled surfer would love to replicate at the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics.

Participating in the four-yearly festival of global sport would be a “dream come true,” the 19-year-old says on the sidelines of the World Para Surfing Championship, where this week she is chasing a third title.

Born with truncated arms and under-developed hands, Stone says she fell in love with surfing in 2017, and thinks others would get to know the beauty of the sport if it were added into the Paralympics roster for 2028.

“I feel like I’m like a part of something bigger, and I don’t feel discriminated against out there in the water,” she tells AFP.

“That’s what me and everyone else here that’s competing have in common is we all have disabilities… and we feel one in the ocean, and it makes us feel at home.”

Surfing burst onto the Olympic calendar at the last Games in Tokyo in 2021. 

It will also feature when Paris hosts in 2024 — though the competition will take place 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) away in Tahiti.

The Los Angeles edition is the first time it could feature in the Paralympics, with a decision by the International Paralympic Committee expected next year.

The deadline is on the minds of all 180 competitors who gathered in Pismo Beach this week.

South African Similo Dlamini, who was born without a right leg, was taking part in her first world championship, and was supported by a big — and noisy — contingent who huddled around her chanting and singing after she battled the foam for 20 minutes.

– ‘New audience’ – 

Surfing allows “people like me who are differently abled to experience the ocean in ways that we have never thought we could,” the 39-year-old accountant says.

“We need to come out here and just show the Olympic Committee how well we’re doing and why we should actually be considered for the Paralympics.”

Divided into nine categories, the championship allows people with similar disabilities to compete on a level playing field.

One-legged surfers take to their boards with a prosthesis or using a knee or a hand to stabilize themselves.

Paraplegics slide on their stomachs and go back out to sea with the help of their teammates.

Blind athletes are guided by a partner to launch themselves into the surf, feeling the movement of the waves to determine which lines to take.

Participants at Pismo Beach hail from 28 countries as far apart as Costa Rica, Japan and Norway — the kind of eclectic gathering that the International Surfing Association (ISA) thinks will allow the sport to bag one of the 22 spots available for inclusion in 2028.

“Surfing represents something truly unique and different for the Paralympic program,” says ISA executive director Robert Fasulo.

“The timing is right for us to propose para surfing,” he says, pointing to the popularity among young people of the able-bodied competition in Tokyo last year.

The fact that 2028 will happen in a setting as perfectly suited to surfing as Southern California is the icing on the cake.

“It is one of the epicenters, if not the center, of surfing in the world. So it’s natural that the organizers and the locations would favor the inclusion of para surfing.” 

 – Therapeutic benefits – 

Since the first para surfing world championship in 2015, the number of participants has almost tripled, including a large number of women.

Studies have shown mental health benefits to surfing, something the US Navy has long known — it has been offering “surf therapy” programs for some soldiers with amputations or suffering from post-traumatic stress and depression for almost 15 years. 

Similar initiatives are under way in other coastal countries. 

In Peru, Pancho Arbulu, who lost the use of his arms and legs in a car accident in 2008, is part of an association that works to spread surfing to other disabled people. 

For him, there is simply nothing better.

“The ocean gives you vitality,” the 50-year-old ex-airline pilot says. 

“Every time I get in the water, I forget about the wheelchair, I feel like a normal person, a free person.” 

Pop megastar Taylor Swift is set to direct a feature-length film, US media reported Friday.

The singer-songwriter behind hits like “Shake It Off” has written a script that will be produced by Searchlight Pictures, Variety and others reported.

“Taylor is a once in a generation artist and storyteller,” Searchlight presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield said.

“It is a genuine joy and privilege to collaborate with her as she embarks on this exciting and new creative journey.”

Details about the feature, including its plot and casting, were not made available.

The American superstar last year wrote and directed the 15-minute-long short film “All Too Well,” which served as the music video for the re-recorded and expanded version of her 2012 song, and has behind-the-scenes credits on several other of her music videos.

Swift is one of the most successful artists of the last few decades.

Demand for her upcoming “Eras” tour was so strong that Ticketmaster’s systems crashed last month when tickets went on sale.

Multi-Grammy-winning Swift — she has 11 — is the only solo artist to win two best direction awards at the MTV Music Video Awards.

Her 10th studio album, “Midnights,” was released to critical acclaim in October.

A previously unreleased album by disgraced US R&B singer R. Kelly, who is serving a 30-year sentence for sex offenses, dropped Friday on the Spotify and Apple Music platforms, a recording that the music press described as a bootleg. 

The release of the album, called “I Admit It,” was first reported by the celebrity entertainment site TMZ. It featured 13 tracks, including the 19-minute title song, which had been published on SoundCloud in 2018 before Kelly was convicted of sex crimes against teenage girls and producing child pornography. 

Spotify did not respond to an AFP request for comment and a few hours after the initial reports by TMZ and the Hollywood Reporter, the disc was no longer available on either music platform. 

Questioned by Variety, a representative for Sony Music, which owns Kelly’s musical rights, said the album had been briefly and unofficially made public, which, according to Variety, meant it had been a bootleg copy. 

A lawyer for Kelly, Jennifer Bonjean, told Variety the singer and his entourage were not behind this release and that her client “is having intellectual property stolen from him.” 

The singer, known worldwide for his hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and who sold 75 million records, was found guilty in September 2021 in a New York court of having masterminded a “system” of sexual exploitation of young women for three decades, including teenage girls. 

For these sexual crimes, the federal court in Brooklyn sentenced him to 30 years in prison. 

Last September, a court in Chicago, Illinois, found him guilty of production of child pornography and embezzlement from a minor. 

He could face a sentence of 10 to 90 years in prison, according to federal prosecutors in Illinois. 

The lawsuits against Kelly were seen as a major milestone in the #MeToo movement, as the majority of plaintiffs in the case were Black women. 

For decades, Kelly’s stellar career had been dogged by rumors and suspicions of sexual violence. He had long managed to silence them with financial agreements that included confidentiality clauses.

American basketball star Brittney Griner was taken to a US Army base in Texas for a medical checkup on Friday after being released from a Russian prison in exchange for a notorious arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.”

Griner, who was arrested in Russia in February on drug charges, arrived overnight in San Antonio from Abu Dhabi, where the prisoner swap took place, and did not make any public statements.

Robert Whetstone, a spokesman for the Brooke Army Medical Center at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, said the 32-year-old Griner, who is from Texas, was taken to the facility “as is standard protocol.”

“The US government is focused on ensuring that Brittney Griner and her family’s well-being are prioritized and that all assistance available be offered in an appropriate manner,” Whetstone said.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told NBC that Griner was in “very good spirits when she got off the plane and appeared to be obviously in good health.”

Kirby said she would be given “all the access she needs to health care workers just to make sure that she is OK.”

Griner was exchanged in Abu Dhabi on Thursday for Viktor Bout, a 55-year-old Russian national who was serving a 25-year sentence in a US prison.

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

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

– Putin says ‘compromises’ found –

Griner was accused of possessing 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, sent to the United States and sentenced in 2012 to 25 years behind bars.

Bout told Kremlin-run media on Friday that Western countries were seeking to “destroy” Russia.

“The West believes that they did not finish us off in 1990, when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate,” Bout told state-run channel RT. “They think that they can just destroy us again and divide Russia.”

While Griner’s family and friends celebrated her release, another American held in Russia, former US Marine Paul Whelan, detained since 2018 and accused of spying, expressed disappointment he was not part of the swap.

The Griner family expressed solidarity with Whelan, saying in a statement: “We pray for Paul and for the swift and safe return of all wrongfully-detained Americans.” 

Russia President Vladimir Putin said Friday that other prisoner swaps with Washington were possible.

“This is the result of negotiations and the search for compromises,” Putin said. “In this case, compromises were found and we aren’t refusing to continue this work in the future.”

– ‘Joy and relief’ –

President Joe Biden announced Griner’s release on Thursday flanked by her wife, Cherelle Griner, and thanked the UAE for helping “facilitate” it.

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

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 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.

Speaking to MSNBC, Kirby acknowledged concerns Bout could return to criminal activity.

“We’re going to make sure now that he’s a free man that we’re looking after our national security interests and we’re as vigilant as we can be,” he said.

The United States said Friday it was pressing the United Nations not to update a blacklist of companies doing business in Israeli settlements, despite Washington’s calls on its ally to stop expansion in occupied Palestinian territory.

The State Department confirmed that it had approached the UN human rights office with concerns about the list, whose first publication in 2020 infuriated Israel.

The United States “continues to oppose any work to update it” and has raised concerns “directly with the Office of the High Commissioner” for rights, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.

“Our view is that this database only serves to reinforce an anti-Israel bias that too often finds traction in UN venues,” he said.

“Also, this database poses a genuine threat to companies doing business or considering business operations in the region.”

The initial publication — which listed US companies including Airbnb, Expedia and TripAdvisor — was denounced by the then administration of Donald Trump, which had reversed longstanding US opposition to settlements in the West Bank.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a speech Sunday warned the incoming right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States would oppose settlement expansion as well as any bid to annex the West Bank.

Axios, quoting Israeli sources, said that the new UN rights chief, Volker Turk, faced an upcoming choice on whether to update the list and may do quietly without announcing it.

The UN report comes in response to a 2016 UN Human Rights Council resolution calling for a “database for all businesses engaged in specific activities related to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

After the list’s publication, Airbnb said it would stop advertising in settlements but it backtracked after a backlash in the United States and Israel.

In Norway, the list led the sovereign wealth fund to dump companies involved in settlements, citing concern over human rights violations.