We’re covering Chinese military drills around Taiwan and the sentencing of the American basketball star Brittney Griner.

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Brittney Griner sentenced to 9 years in Russia

A Russian court sentenced Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star who has been detained in Moscow since February, to nine years in a penal colony on drug charges.

The guilty verdict, which most experts considered preordained in a legal system in which defendants are rarely acquitted, leaves Griner’s fate subject to diplomatic wrangling between Russia and the U.S. The countries have been discussing the possibility of a prisoner swap that would bring Griner home in exchange for one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers.

U.S. officials maintain that Griner was wrongly detained and held as a political bargaining chip. President Biden, who called the sentence “unacceptable,” now faces a difficult choice between standing firm on his proposal to trade the arms merchant Viktor Bout for Griner and another American, Paul Whelan, or sweetening the offer.