Court in Fiji approves U.S. warrant to seize Russian-owned mega-yacht
CBSN
Fiji's High Court on Tuesday ruled that a massive Russian-owned yacht can be seized by U.S. authorities.
American and Fijian officials claim the Cayman Islands-flagged Amadea is the property of Suleiman Kerimov, an oligarch who built his fortune on gold mining. Kerimov was sanctioned in March by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But an attorney who represents Millemarin Investments, the company the $325 million ship is registered to, said it's not owned by Kerimov. Instead, he argued in court that corporate paperwork traces the ship's ownership to Eduard Khudainatov, a former executive at Russia's state-owned Rosneft oil company who has not been sanctioned.
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.