The Brief

Five Americans who have been held in Iran for years are on their way to the United States in return for Iranians released from U.S. custody and Tehran's access to $6 billion in frozen oil revenues, according to a senior U.S. official.

The Americans include Siamak Namazi, 51, who was held in Iran since 2015 — nearly all the time in prison — making him the longest-held American at least since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979. In January, he sent a letter from jail to President Biden pleading for help in winning his freedom and announcing a short hunger strike.

The others are Murad Tahbaz, an environmental activist, detained in 2018, Emad Shargi, arrested while visiting Iran in 2018, and two other U.S. citizens not publicly named. Tahbaz's wife and Namazi's mother — who had not been allowed to leave Iran — were also flown out, according to U.S. officials.

The deal to free the Americans has been outlined since Aug. 10, when four of them were moved from Iran's Evin prison, known for its harsh treatment of foreigners and political prisoners, to house arrest in a Tehran hotel. U.S. officials say efforts to free the U.S. citizens had been in negotiations through third parties for years.

"I am grateful to our partners at home and abroad for their tireless efforts to help us achieve this outcome, including the Governments of Qatar, Oman, Switzerland, and South Korea," President Biden said in a statement. "As we celebrate the return of these Americans, we also remember those who did not return."

Namazi said in a statement: "As a hostage, 2,898 days of what should have been the best days of my life were stolen from me and supplanted with torment. What I want more than anything is assurance that no one else will know the interminable anguish that my family and I experienced. But sadly, many are suffering those miseries right now."

He said Iran "has mastered the nasty game of caging innocent Americans and other foreign nationals, and commercializing their freedom."

As part of the deal, Iran gets access to nearly $6 billion of its oil revenues that have been frozen in a South Korean bank. That money was transferred to accounts in Qatar, and U.S. officials say it will be monitored to make sure it's used just for humanitarian needs — food, agricultural products, medicine and medical devises — that are not subject to U.S. sanctions.

The U.S. is also granting clemency to five Iranians or Iranian Americans, most of whom were charged with — or were convicted on charges of — violating sanctions laws. According to previous reporting by the Associated Press, one, Mehrdad Ansari, is an Iranian sentenced to 63 months in prison for obtaining equipment that could be used in missiles or nuclear weapons. Another, Kambiz Attar Kashani, is an Iranian American sentenced in February to 30 months in prison for buying high-tech electronic gear. Some of them also have U.S. citizenship and may be allowed to stay in the U.S.

Critics of the deal in the U.S. have said it sends a message that Iran can benefit by capturing Americans and holding them for ransom. On Aug. 22, three House Republican leaders — Michael McCaul of Texas, Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Elise Stefanik of New York — wrote Biden, saying, "Our citizens deserve answers about why your administration is rewarding an Iranian regime that is targeting Americans overseas and at home."

But the administration says the money already belongs to Iran — paid by South Korea for Iranian fuel — and its use will be monitored and limited to items not under U.S. sanctions. The White House says the funds, held in Qatar, can be cut off again at any time.

Meanwhile, the administration has stressed the importance of getting unlawfully detained Americans back home and says it has not lifted any sanctions on Iran as part of the agreement.

In his statement, President Biden specifically noted the case of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent kidnapped and held in Iran for the past 16 years.

The president also announced new sanctions on Iran's former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence for "involvement in wrongful detentions."

"And," he said, "we will continue to impose costs on Iran for their provocative actions in the region."

There have been a number of prisoner deals between the two countries going back to 1981, when Iran released 52 hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in return for the U.S. lifting economic sanctions and unfreezing Iranian accounts.

Both the Obama and Trump administrations made prisoner deals. In 2016, during the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, Iran released Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and four other Americans. The U.S. released seven Iranians from U.S. custody and dropped charges or Interpol red notices for 14 others.

Siamak Namazi was left out of that deal — something he and his family decried.

In 2019, the Trump administration released an Iranian scientist, Massoud Soleimani, who was accused of violating trade sanctions, to get the release of Xiyue Wang, a Princeton University graduate student held in Iran for three years. The following year, Trump also released an Iranian American accused of violating sanctions, coinciding with Iran's release of U.S. Navy veteran Michael White, held in Iran for two years.

The new prisoner swap takes place as there have been contradictory signs about the U.S.-Iran relationship. On one hand, Iran released Siamak Namazi's father, Baquer, in October. He had been held since 2016, when he went to try to help his imprisoned son.

And Iran has reportedly slowed its production of nuclear fuel — which had accelerated since the Trump White House pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

But the U.S. maintains Iran has continued harassing ships with U.S. ties as they pass through the Persian Gulf and the Pentagon recently sent 3,000 sailors and Marines to help protect shipping. In a background briefing Sunday night, a senior U.S. official said the prisoner agreement was not an opening for new indirect talks with Iran but removes an obstacle to eventually resuming talks.

Geffen Playhouse Artistic Director Tarell Alvin McCraney won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the movie Moonlight, but don't expect to see him at this year's Oscars ceremony.

"I tend to stay away from the awards show," McCraney said. " I think I might have PTSD."

McCraney is referring to the viral moment from the 2017 Oscars ceremony, where La La Land was mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner instead of Moonlight.

McCraney isn't new to theater. In fact, you could consider it his original home before his play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue launched him into the Hollywood spotlight. But when the Geffen Playhouse asked him to be their artistic director two years ago, it called him back to the stage in a different way. Tapping a screenwriter for the position was a first for the theater, but McCraney said the roles actually overlap in more ways than one.

 "The job of the screenwriter most times is to make sure that everybody is understanding where the story is going and what the 'action' of the piece is," McCraney said. "So it's not that much different than being an artistic director.  My job here is to set the artistic goal for the organization. [To] point out its virtues and pitfalls, the dangers and the obstacles, and then move collectively as a single storyteller towards that goal."

McCraney said one of the great things about living in Los Angeles is its nuanced racial and ethnic communities, and he rides his bike around the city to better experience them.

"The landscape is constantly shifting and changing," McCraney said. "For example, Westwood has drastically changed over the past 15 years and will change irrevocably with the coming of the new train station down on Wilshire. It will change again with LA28 happening."

Just like Los Angeles, the Geffen Playhouse has had multiple transformations over its more than 30 year existence. Their world premier show, Silvia Silvia Silvia, is playing until March 8. Dragon Mama, starring Sarah Porkalob, begins March 4.

"Sarah is an incredible singer and writer and has created this incredible arc through a family that is both powerful and witty, but also deeply nuanced," McCraney said. "She's sharing that family with us, and family is our first community. They are the people we learn the most from. We learn unconditional love. We learn collective bargaining. Investigating family, investigating why we stay together and how we stay together through dire circumstances is a critical investigation for us right now."

When it comes to this year's Oscars ceremony, McCraney said he's rooting for all the nominees.

"It's been an incredible season," he said. "But Sinners is an incredible film that I've seen three or four times, so I'm really excited to see how it does."

The Long Beach Community College District has agreed to pay $18 million to more than 1,450 part-time professors to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged they were forced to work unpaid hours outside the classroom, grading papers and tests, meeting with students, preparing lessons and other duties.

The settlement, which the district board quietly approved last month, still needs the judge overseeing the case to sign off. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 1 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. It’s likely that Judge Stuart Rice will approve the deal. Last year, he ruled that the part-timers, commonly called adjuncts, were entitled to the pay they sought, writing he found “a myriad of problems” with the district’s claims that its practices did not violate state law.

The case has made “a major impact throughout the state already,” as some districts have begun negotiating contract terms to give adjuncts what they’ve long sought — pay for time they spend prepping and grading, not just for class time, said the plaintiffs’ lawyer Eileen B. Goldsmith, in an interview. (EdSource published an investigative series in the issue, Gig By Gig At California’s Community Colleges, in 2022.)

The Long Beach district recently set aside $20 million for the settlement and associated costs, its spokesperson, Stacey Toda, told the Long Beach Post in an email. “Resolving this matter allows the District to avoid prolonged litigation and manage risk responsibly, consistent with standard practices across public higher education,” Toda wrote.

The settlement “is a big deal, it is tremendous,” said John Martin, chair of the California Part-Time Faculty Association, and a community college adjunct professor in Shasta and Butte counties.

Martin, a long-time advocate for better pay for adjuncts, is also the plaintiff in similar ongoing lawsuits, including one against the state Community College system.

In legal papers filed in the Superior Court, Goldsmith wrote that the proposed settlement, if approved, will result in 1,456 class members receiving more than “$11,000 — a very meaningful result for these class members, particularly given the novel issues in this litigation.”

The Long Beach Post contributed to this story.