{"id":1767308,"date":"2022-12-08T09:02:58","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T14:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1767308"},"modified":"2022-12-08T10:02:42","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T15:02:42","slug":"breaking-wnba-star-brittney-griner-freed-from-russian-prison-in-swap-for-arms-dealer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/breaking-wnba-star-brittney-griner-freed-from-russian-prison-in-swap-for-arms-dealer\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: WNBA Star Brittney Griner Freed From Russian Prison In Swap For Arms Dealer"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbreaking-wnba-star-brittney-griner-freed-from-russian-prison-in-swap-for-arms-dealer%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1767308&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>WNBA star Brittney Griner was freed from Russian captivity Thursday in a prisoner exchange for a notorious Russian arms dealer, White House <a href=\"https:\/\/www.khou.com\/article\/news\/local\/brittney-griner-freed\/285-8a0e863c-bb6a-44d0-9286-baa6453f8345\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sources told The Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Griner, who was arrested in February at a Moscow airport after being caught with marijuana vaping materials, was sentenced in August to nine years in prison. The 6-foot, 9-inch athlete plays for the WNBA\u2019s Phoenix Mercury, and had flown to Russia to finish her season for UMMC Ekaterinburg when she was arrested.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. diplomats had been scrambling to win her release, but the efforts were complicated by Russia\u2019s international isolation as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. agreed to the swap for arms dealer Viktor Bout, an international criminal known as the \u201cMerchant of Death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. had hoped to win the release of Paul Whelan, a Michigan man jailed in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that the U.S. government said are baseless. But the deal set to be announced on Thursday was a one-for-one, sources said.<\/p>\n<p>Griner was arrested February 17 after landing in Moscow to begin play for a Russian team. WNBA players can make far bigger salaries playing in Europe and Asia during the league\u2019s off-season than they can earn in the United States, where interest in women\u2019s basketball is limited.<\/p>\n<p>Griner, who was a three-time All-American at Baylor University, has starred for the WNBA\u2019s Phoenix Mercury as well as UMMC Ekaterinburg, a team based in Yekaterinburg, Russia, since 2015. The team competes in the Russian Premier League and FIBA Europe\u2019s EuroLeague. Griner helped the U.S. Olympic women\u2019s basketball team win gold medals at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympic Games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WNBA star Brittney Griner was freed from Russian captivity Thursday in a prisoner exchange for a notorious Russian arms dealer, White House sources told The Associated Press. Griner, who was arrested in February at a Moscow airport after being caught with marijuana vaping materials, was sentenced in August to nine years in prison. The 6-foot, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":729,"featured_media":1890637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"BREAKING: WNBA Star Brittney Griner Freed From Russian Prison In Swap For Arms Dealer","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1767308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"BREAKING: WNBA Star Brittney Griner Freed From Russian Prison In Swap For Arms Dealer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/729"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1767308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1890637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1767308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1767308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1767308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}