Basketball star Griner back in Russian court amid release efforts
KHIMKI, Russia — American basketball star Brittney Griner was back in court near Moscow on Tuesday for her trial for cannabis possession amid U.S. diplomatic efforts to secure her release.
During the hearing, prosecutors called a state narcotics expert who analyzed cannabis found in Griner’s luggage. Her defense fielded a specialist who challenged the analysis, charging it was flawed and didn’t conform to official rules.
If convicted, the WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist could face 10 years in prison. As her trial has progressed, the Biden administration has faced growing public pressure to get her released.
In an extraordinary move, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week spoke to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, urging him to accept a deal under which Griner and Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia on an espionage conviction, would go free.
Griner has acknowledged there were vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage when she was arrested at a Moscow airport in February. But she insisted there was no criminal intent and the canisters ended up in her luggage because she was packing hastily. Griner played for a Russian women’s basketball team in the WNBA offseason.
To bolster her case, her defense lawyers have presented testimony from doctors that she was prescribed cannabis as a treatment for pain. Medical marijuana treatment is not legal in Russia.
“There are a lot of factors that will taken by the court into account,” Griner’s attorney Maria Blagovolina said Tuesday.
While judges have leeway to consider mitigating factors under Russian law, acquittals are rare and account for less than 1% of cases in Russian criminal prosecutions.
Biden’s condition: President Joe Biden’s “loose cough” has returned as he faces a rebound case of COVID19, his doctor said Tuesday, though he “continues to feel well.”
White House physician Kevin O’Connor provided the update as the president continues to test positive for the virus. He said Biden “remains fever-free,” and that his temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation “remain entirely normal.”
Biden must remain in isolation through at least Thursday under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines — and perhaps longer under White House protocols if he continues to test positive.
During his first bout with the virus, Biden, 79, was treated with the antiviral drug Paxlovid, and his primary symptoms were a runny nose, fatigue and a loose cough, his doctor said at the time.
Gunmaker subpoenaed:
A House oversight panel on Tuesday subpoenaed gunmaker Smith & Wesson for documents on the manufacture and sale of AR-15style semi-automatic rifles after its CEO refused to appear for a hearing on the firearms frequently used in mass shootings.
The House probe found five major gunmakers took in a combined total of $1 billion in revenue from the weapons over the last decade, and they were at times marketed as a way for young men to prove their masculinity even as they became a “weapon of choice” for mass shooters.
CEO Mark Smith originally agreed to testify last week before the Committee on Oversight and Reform along with the heads of two other companies, but pulled out five days before, Democratic Chair Carolyn Maloney of New York said in a statement. The company also hasn’t provided all the information and documents, including data about the sales of its AR-15-style firearms, asked for in its investigation into gun manufacturers, she said.
The company didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Smuggler arrests: Police and federal agents with cover from helicopters flying overhead raided a large ranch nestled among the mountains of northern Guatemala. It was there they found a still drunk Felipe Diego Alonso, the alleged leader of a smuggling ring that moved migrants from Guatemala to the United States.
The raid was part of several carried out Tuesday in four Guatemalan provinces against a migrant smuggling ring. Authorities say they’ve documented $2 million in revenue for the group since 2019.
Alonzo and three others arrested Tuesday were targets of U.S. prosecutors, wanted in connection with the death of a Guatemalan migrant in Texas last year. In total, authorities nabbed 19 alleged members of the smuggling ring.
The arrests came a month after 53 migrants, including 21 Guatemalans, died in a failed smuggling attempt when they were abandoned inside a sweltering trailer in Texas. There was no indication those arrested Tuesday were involved in the tragedy.
Life-support battle: Britain’s Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to prevent a hospital withdrawing life support from a 12-year-old boy with catastrophic brain damage, rejecting a bid by his parents to extend his treatment.
The parents of Archie Battersbee asked Supreme Court justices to block a lower court’s ruling that the Royal London Hospital can turn off the boy’s ventilator and stop other interventions that are keeping him alive.
Archie’s treatment had been due to end at noon Tuesday, but the hospital said it would await the decision of the Supreme Court.
Justices at the U.K.’s top court said Archie had “no prospect of any meaningful recovery,” and even with continued treatment would die in the next few weeks from organ and heart failure. The judges agreed with a lower court that continuing treatment “serves only to protract his death.”
Archie’s mother, Hollie Dance, said the family would “fight until the end,” but it was unclear what legal options they have left.
Archie was found unconscious at home with a ligature over his head on April 7. His parents believe he may have been taking part in an online challenge.
Western wildfires: Two more bodies were found within the burn zone of a huge Northern California wildfire, raising the death toll to four in the state’s largest blaze of the year, authorities said Tuesday.
Search teams discovered the additional bodies Monday at separate residences along State Route 96, one of the only roads in and out of the remote region near the state line with Oregon, the Siskiyou County Sheriff ’s Office said in a statement.
Two bodies were also found Sunday inside a charred vehicle in the driveway of a home near the tiny unincorporated community of Klamath River, which sustained major damage in the McKinney Fire, sheriff ’s officials said.
More than 100 homes, sheds and other buildings have burned in the McKinney Fire since it erupted last Friday.