Yahoo Finance Russia frees Brittney Griner, Theranos COO Balwani sentenced to 13 years, Indiana sues TikTok
Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman breaks down leading headlines as WNBA star Brittney Griner is freed from Russia in a prisoner swap, Theranos's Sunny Balwani is sentenced to 13 years in prison, Indiana sues TikTok over security concerns, and tech giants like Apple and Alphabet land a Pentagon deal.
Video transcript
JULIE HYMAN: Some other headlines we're watching right now, Russia has freed WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russia's penal colony. That's part of a prisoner swap with former arms dealer, Viktor Bout, also known as the Merchant of Death, being released. President Biden had comments on the exchange earlier.
JOE BIDEN: She wrote to me back in July. She didn't ask for special treatment, even though we've been working on a release from day one. She requested a simple, quote, "please don't forget about me and the other American detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home."
JULIE HYMAN: And you saw there Griner's wife, Cherelle, along with the president. Griner is expected to arrive back in the US in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, American Paul Whelan, who has been serving a 16-year sentence in Russia after he was accused of espionage, he does remain detained. Biden said that Russia is, quote, "illegitimately treating Whalen's case differently" and that his release was not an option at this time.
Theranos's former chief operating officer Ramesh Sunny Balwani was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison by California's federal court yesterday for defrauding investors and patients. He was, of course, also a mentor and ex-boyfriend to CEO Elizabeth Holmes, who received over 11 years in prison.
Prosecutors were looking for a 15-year sentence for Balwani, given his significant oversight of the company. During the sentencing, attorneys for Balwani tried to pin the blame on Holmes, telling the court judge she made the decisions. That conflicted with an earlier message to Holmes where he said, I am responsible for everything at Theranos.
The state of Indiana is suing TikTok. There are two lawsuits. The first accuses TikTok of targeting young teens with adult content and cites a study linking heavy use of the platform to mental disorders. A second suit alleges that China has the ability to spy on and blackmail users to serve its national security and economic interests. Texas and other states have already moved to ban the app on government devices.
TikTok has not commented on the litigation, but said the safety of its community is a top priority. And it said it's confident that it will satisfy all reasonable US national security concerns as part of its ongoing negotiations.
Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle all received cloud computing contracts from the Pentagon yesterday. Those contracts for the four companies could reach a combined total of $9 billion through 2028. Last year, the Pentagon asked all of the companies for bids, but decided that only Amazon and Microsoft could meet its cloud needs.
This time around, all of the players received deals in line with the US Defense Department's efforts to rely on multiple cloud providers. The decision was a win in particular for Oracle, which analysts don't see necessarily in the top tier of cloud service providers.
