Going Once, Going Twice …

McMinnville, Oregon—famed UFO hotbed and Spruce Goose roost—will host a unique foreclosure auction. The property in question is neither a house, nor an automobile, nor even a collection of Richard Nixon campaign buttons; rather it’s a derelict Boeing 747 that’s been parked in front of the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum for eight years. McMinnville Properties, an outfit controlled by wine entrepreneur Bill Stoller—who also owns the museum—seeks to acquire the airplane. The company filed suit last October against the 747’s owner, a Kansas City aircraft parts and leasing operation called Jet Midwest, which bought the aircraft in 2014 after Evergreen International Aviati

Row Over Expelled Diplomats Intensifies

The American side continues to systematically destroy bilateral relations that are already in a lamentable state.” So states Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry. In February, the United States expelled 12 diplomats from Russia’s New York-based mission to the UN, accusing the staff of engaging in espionage activities. Moscow condemned the move as hostile and—in the wake of the Biden administration’s subsequent refusal to allow a Russian aircraft to pick up the expelled diplomats and their families and return them to Russia—threatened counter-measures, possibly asymmetrical ones.