In Ukraine, relief on U S. aid vote, fear of angry Russia's next moves Los Angeles Times

Table Of Content

• Review/Film; Sean Connery in 'The Russia House'
• People who liked The Russia House also liked
• Russia attacks Ukrainian psychiatric hospital, energy facilities; Kyiv launches drones at Russia
• These 112 House Republicans voted against Ukraine aid
• More From the Los Angeles Times
• Despite high prices, the typical Russian buyer pays for their home in cash.
• Russia’s upper house rescinds ratification of nuclear test ban treaty
• Biden signs $95-billion military aid measure that includes path to ban TikTok

The Senate is expected to pass the legislation as early as Tuesday and send it to President Biden’s desk, capping its tortured journey through Congress. Most Russian buyers in the US purchased their properties for use as a primary residence, while 36% purchased properties to use for vacation or to rent, NAR said. In comparison, 40% of all US foreign buyers purchased their properties as vacation homes.

Review/Film; Sean Connery in 'The Russia House'

The House vote “will make the United States of America richer, further ruin Ukraine and result in the deaths of even more Ukrainians, the fault of the Kyiv regime,” Peskov said, according to official Russian media. Russia, predictably, hammered on what has become a key talking point — that U.S. assistance would do little more than prolong a bloody confrontation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also suggested that the main idea behind the package was to funnel money to U.S. weapons manufacturers. Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was confident the U.S. would be able to resume shipments of equipment by the end of the week.

People who liked The Russia House also liked

The top-level spies in this film are apparently hooked into some kind of high-tech electronics network that allows them to know at all times what their people in the field are doing. But the people are often not doing very much, and so my mind wandered, speculating what it would be like to sit for hours in cynical world-weariness, drinking coffee or sherry in book-lined rooms, waiting for something to happen so you can make a suitably jaundiced comment about it. It takes a lot of patience to watch "The Russia House," but it takes even more patience to be a character in the movie.

Russia attacks Ukrainian psychiatric hospital, energy facilities; Kyiv launches drones at Russia

You see, the Russian notion of “suburbia” is slightly different to that of the West. As a country that was transformed into an urban society in a matter of decades, the Soviet Union housed its upwardly mobile peasants as cheaply as possible in communal apartments. As a result, the only fenced-off, gardened house the average Russian city-dweller stays in is the family dacha (unless he/she is a multi-millionaire with a suburban mansion). For most, a three-room apartment in a block of flats is deemed a perfectly acceptable place to settle down and raise a family. We can see how practicing espionage has coalesced his disparate temperaments. Barley seemed miscast as a book publisher--he’s too out-sized and physical and unruminative.

These 112 House Republicans voted against Ukraine aid

The manuscript is intercepted by British intelligence, which pays a visit to Barley in the Lisbon flat where he often repairs for drinking bouts, and they quiz him about the book and the girl until in exasperation he agrees to go to Moscow and follow up on the transaction. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are supportive of the bill’s inclusion in the aid package, their offices confirmed. The two lawmakers had previously led separate legislative efforts to tackle concerns over the app.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Since lawmakers introduced their latest proposal targeting the app last month, the company has launched a major counteroffensive against the effort, enlisting scores of users through pop-up notifications to bombard lawmakers with calls voicing opposition to the legislation. TikTok has blasted lawmakers’ efforts to potentially ban the app as an affront on free speech and disputes lawmakers’ suggestions that it is beholden to China or any government. TikTok is “a spy balloon in Americans’ phones” used to “surveil and exploit America’s personal information,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said Saturday as he introduced the measure for debate.

Despite high prices, the typical Russian buyer pays for their home in cash.

Yakov feels betrayed, but Barley convinces him that the manuscript can still be published, and is given another volume of the manuscript after assuring Yakov he is sympathetic to the scientist's cause. Some U.S. lawmakers said coming to Ukraine’s aid now had helped avert sending a dangerous signal of U.S. weakness to Moscow. U.S. and Ukrainian officials said resupply efforts could take place relatively quickly, because of supply chains and logistical networks established early in the more than two-year-old conflict. As President Joe Biden targets Russia's elite and their families with sanctions that aim to minimize their financial footprint, pockets of Georgia and New York may also be worried about their assets. A tiny beach town north of Miami is home to a large concentration of Russians, but Little Moscow isn't the only place this wealthy set calls home.

Russia’s upper house rescinds ratification of nuclear test ban treaty

NATO allies that feel more directly threatened by Russia, including the Baltic states and Poland, have long viewed the conflict with a sense of crisis and urgency, and were at times incredulous as U.S. support appeared to flag. Even so, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, noted that “Ukrainian forces may suffer additional setbacks in the coming weeks” while waiting for the arrival of weaponry that will allow them to stabilize the front lines. Just as important in that initial reaction was what Zelensky did not say. House of Representatives approved a long-sought $61 billion in aid, breaking a legislative logjam that had deepened hardships on the war’s front lines, and made it difficult for Ukrainian forces to fend off Russian attacks on civilian neighborhoods and critical infrastructure. After months of delay at the hands of a bloc of ultraconservative Republicans, the package drew overwhelming bipartisan support, reflecting broad consensus.

The philosophical Barley reasons that governments are not the only ones who can manipulate and betray, and some things are more important than the games that spies play with others' lives. So all is in place for an effective movie, except for a screenplay in which anything happens. The director, Fred Schepisi, has obtained the playwright Tom Stoppard to make le Carre's novel into a film, but what it has been made into is sort of a filmed dramatic reading, with endless variations of shots in which middle-aged men stand around saying le Carre's dialogue. Michelle Pfeiffer makes a splendid Katya, with her hair pulled back to accentuate her vaguely Slavic cheekbones. Klaus Maria Brandauer of course gets all substantial male Russian and Eastern European roles these days, with his sleek and slightly sinister intelligence. And James Fox, as Ned, the Brit master spy, provides that precise note of cold British analytical reserve that is required.

We’ve become so jangled by the punch-and-grab of conventional thrillers that I fear “The Russia House,” with its kicky combination of slow, tricky plotting and fervent emotionalism, may be left in the lurch this season. Watching this film about conspirators requires an almost conspiratorial participation on the part of its audience; we’re made to understand that our patience and our attentions will pay off. A middle-aged, boozy publisher is enlisted as a spy by British Intelligence after he receives a manuscript, authored by a leading Russian physicist, purporting to lay out the true details about Soviet nuclear capabilities. It appears to be a highly technical work calling into question the quality of the Soviet Union's defense weaponry.

Principal photography included scenes in and around Moscow and Leningrad (now St Petersburg). In 1987, Bartholomew "Barley" Scott Blair, a British publisher, is at a book fair in Moscow. With business friends he goes on a drunken retreat to a secluded dacha in the forest near Peredelkino. When their talk turns to politics, Barley finds himself talking boldly of patriotism and courage, of a new world order, and an end to Cold War tensions.

"The fact that Russian foreign buyers are purchasing properties at the high end of the market or in more expensive locations indicates that Russian foreign buyers tend to be wealthier than other foreign buyers, so they have the capacity to make all-cash purchases," Cororaton said. "This indicates that Russian foreign buyers tend to purchase more expensive properties — not necessarily high-end, but because they are purchasing in areas where properties are more expensive, like New York," Cororaton said. Sprinkled throughout the US, Russians account for 0.8% of all foreign buyers who purchased US residential property from April 2015 through March 2021, the National Association of Realtors said. Although small in number, they spend more on their home purchases than any other foreign demographic, and most already hold US visas. There’s an almost total absence in “The Russia House” of gunplay and chase scenes and torrid sex and all the other accouterments of the thriller. (The R rating is for occasional violence and strong language.) It’s not that Schepisi can’t do this stuff; he’s just interested in a different set of machinations.

Ironically, you usually need a car to access the recycling services currently available in Russia. In Russia, heating is centralized via a few immense power plants – this means that an administrator will set the temperature in your flat. They usually put it at a sweltering temperature too, creating a discrepancy between indoors and out that takes quite some getting used to. It also means there are a couple of periods during the year (usually mid-October and early May) when it’s either chilly out, and the radiators aren’t on yet, or it’s balmy outdoors and the heating is still on.

White House preps new sanctions package against Russia after Navalny death • Colorado Newsline - Colorado Newsline

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The film was re-released on Blu-Ray by Sandpiper Pictures on June 14, 2022.[19] Their release included the trailer. It was also a single-layer Blu-Ray, where the previous release had contained a larger file size, on a dual-layer Blu-Ray. The sequence at the safe house was shot on Bowen Island, near Vancouver, British Columbia. Impressed by the additional volume, Russell's boss Brady and U.S. military officer Quinn interrogate Barley to be certain of his loyalties.

In the two years since Russia's invasion, opposition to aiding Ukraine has grown from a fringe position to a majority view among House GOP lawmakers. Many argue the money should be spent domestically or that policy changes at the US-Mexico border should take precedence. The House of Representatives on Saturday passed a more than $60 billion bill to provide military and economic aid to Ukraine.

To judge by this film, the life of a Cold War spy consists of sitting for endless hours in soundproof rooms with people you do not particularly like, waiting for something to happen. President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a statement of appreciation moments after the vote, which occurred late Saturday evening Ukraine time. He thanked by name House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who had been heavily lobbied by Ukraine’s supporters to bring the measure to a vote despite bitter opposition from his party’s far-right flank. It also contained a measure to help pave the way to selling off frozen Russian sovereign assets to help fund the Ukrainian war effort, and a new round of sanctions on Iran.