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Brittney Griner addressed the media for the first time since her return to the United States on Thursday. The seven-time WNBA All-Star spoke on her experience after being detained in a Russian penal colony for 10 months last year. She also made a very important announcement. Griner said that - barring playing for the United States in the Olympics - she would not go overseas to play basketball again, as she had done in Russia before being detained...... Brittney Griner on whether she plans to go overseas to play basketball in the future: “I’m never going overseas to play again...

Griner’s welcome home party on a military base outside San Antonio, Texas, included a barbecue and a Christmas tree. Her first move of freedom on the basketball court was a dunk. Griner has since announced her intentions to return to the Phoenix Mercury this season after the WNBA paid her entire 2022 salary while incarcerated. Griner’s welcome party in her collegiate town of Baylor, Texas, at a church minutes away from the campus on which she won a national championship, was only attended by 20 celebrators, according to an ESPN profile of the event. The church expected many more in...

WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced a barrage of questions Thursday about President Biden’s decision to release notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout as part of a prisoner swap for basketball star Brittney Griner — while leaving fellow Americans Paul Whelan and Marc Fogel behind. “It was either Brittney or no one at all and we’re not going to apologize for that,” Jean-Pierre said at her regular press briefing. Jean-Pierre added that the Kremlin was “not willing to negotiate in good faith” to release Whelan, who Russia convicted of spying, and side-stepped questions about Fogel — who, like...

MOSCOW, Russia — Houston native and WNBA star Brittney Griner has been freed as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia, according to the White House. Griner was exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, labeled the “Merchant of Death.” This was a one-for-one swap. American and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan was not part of the exchange. [Snip]

Antony Blinken released a statement following news of her transfer to a penal colony. Brittney Griner’s legal team said the WNBA star has been moved to a penal colony in Russia after the appeal of her nine-year prison sentence for drug possession was rejected. The move came Nov. 4, and her team doesn’t have any information “on her exact current location or her final destination,” the statement from her legal team read. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement Wednesday reiterating that the nation is working to secure Griner’s release and calling the move to a penal colony...

The sports world remains heartbroken over the developments with Brittney Griner. This week, the WNBA star's appeal was rejected by a Russian court, meaning she's set to serve her entire nine-year prison sentence, barring a trade with the United States. Life in a full-time Russian prison sounds pretty rough. "Brittney Griner will enter a system of isolation, grueling labor and psychological torment when she is transferred to a penal colony, the successor to the infamous Russian gulag, to fulfill a nine-year sentence, former prisoners and advocates say," NBC News reported this week. Earlier in her prison sentence, Griner was reportedly...

A Facebook post apparently published by a San Francisco Police Department investigator has renewed concerns about bias and the department’s role in weeding it out. The post, which appears to come from SFPD Investigator Ernie Ferrando’s personal Facebook account, includes a meme mocking Brittney Griner, a professional basketball player who was recently sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison after authorities there purportedly found marijuana vape canisters in her luggage. Griner, who is Black and a lesbian, reportedly has a medical prescription for cannabis and is appealing the sentence. In one half of the meme, labeled “How it started,”...

The detained American basketball star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges in a court near Moscow on Thursday, her lawyer said. “I’d like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn’t want to break the law,” Ms. Griner said in English, which was then translated into Russian, Reuters reported. Ms. Griner has been detained in Russia since Feb. 17, accused by the Russian authorities of having a vape cartridge with hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. Aleksandr Boikov, her lawyer, said cartridges appeared in Ms. Griner’s luggage “because of carelessness.”

With questions being asked about her parenting skills, and reports circulating that her husband has walked out on her, Britney Spears could definitely use a man about the house right now. So it is perhaps no surprise to find this newest staff member - a male nanny - on Miss Spears' payroll. The 24-year-old pop star has hired the male nanny, or "manny" as American showbusiness observers are calling him, to carry out such tasks as lugging around her eight-month-old baby Sean Preston, unload the shopping and wheeling the pram. He is also a trained bodyguard and more than capable...

TOMS RIVER, N.J. -- Authorities said Tuesday that they have found a body they believe is that of a 16-year-old Ocean County girl who disappeared more than two weeks ago. Brittney Gregory, of Brick Township, was last heard from on July 11. Authorities started searching for her one week later after they charged a family acquaintance with her murder. There is no word on a possible motive. Police have not yet announced where the body was found. Previous searches of acres of woods in Lakewood, Howell and Brick yielded nothing. Ocean County prosecutors have scheduled a 3 p.m. news conference...

<p>WHILE men the world over drooled over the latest cover of Esquire, which featured Britney Spears mimicking a famed 1966 Angie Dickinson photo, Spears herself was livid. Sources say the singer - who appears in less and less clothing with each successive magazine cover - was "humiliated" by her bottom-baring pose, which had her standing sideways in a skin-tight sweater and white stilettos. The photo was shot by James White for Esquire's "70 Years of Women We Love" issue. "Britney thinks the pictures are too naked and is really angry at Esquire," a magazine insider said. "But really, is she out of her mind? I mean, her brother was at the shoot. Exploited? Is she crazy? Look at the photos she has done for everyone else. The Rolling Stone cover was practically naked, too - but she wasn't exploited by them?" Relations between Esquire and Spears have been frosty ever since editor David Granger thought he had an exclusive on the pop tart - and then she posed for other magazines without telling him. A rep for Spears declined comment.</p>