VIKTOR BOUT

Viktor Bout, whose wild exploits once inspired a Hollywood film starring Nicolas Cage, is serving a 25-year sentence in a U.S. prison.

WNBA star Brittney Griner has gone on trial in a Russian court on charges of possessing cannabis oil.

WNBA star Brittney Griner appeared in a court near Moscow that ordered her trial on cannabis possession charges to begin Friday, about 4 1/2 months after she was arrested at an airport while returning to play for a Russian team.

U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner will remain in Russian custody through at least July 2 after her detention was extended for a third time, Russian state-run media has reported.

WNBA star Brittney Griner is easily the most prominent American locked up by a foreign country.

UMM AL-QUWAIN, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The hulking, Soviet-era cargo plane has sat for decades under the blazing sun in a remote corner of the United Arab Emirates, its four jet engines silent after years in the employ of a Russian gunrunner known as the “Merchant of Death.” The emirate of Umm al-Quwain plans a $675 million development on a island just across a lagoon from the deactivated airport where Bout's plane sits.

Families of American hostages and detainees say they're frustrated with the Justice Department over what they see as the agency's refusal to consider prisoner exchanges that could get their loved ones home.

Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin of Russia spent more than three hours discussing issues Wednesday at their summit in Geneva.

Accused of leading and helping to finance the horrific 1994 genocide in Rwanda, he topped the list of the worlds most wanted fugitives. In April 2012, an international Special Court convicted former President Charles Taylor of Liberia of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was the last remaining accused Balkans war criminal not yet taken into custody following the brutal fighting in that region during the 1990s. If this brief brutal list indicates such practices are removed from the United States, think again. Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of After the Cold War (NYU Press and Macmillan).