WNBA All-Star and Houston native Brittney Griner lands Time Magazine cover

HOUSTON, Texas -- The embattled, Houston-born basketball star who is the center of an ongoing international controversy is now on the cover of Time Magazine.

Brittney Griner, currently jailed in a Russian prison for bringing hashish oil into the country in February, lands on the new cover the same week that the Biden administration offered a prisoner exchange deal to Russia. The proposal would send Viktor Bout, the convicted Russian arms trafficker serving a 25-year prison sentence in the U.S., home in exchange for Griner and fellow detained American Paul Whelan.

Time selected photographer and multimedia artist Lorna Simpson - whose photo collage work focuses primarily on race, gender, and identity - to create the cover imagery. Simpson, who has never met Griner, tells Time that as a fellow Black woman, she relates to the fear of incarceration.

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