Russia

Often film sequels are slam dunks at the box office, a seamless continuation from where a previous hit left off. But as the new installment of the 15-year-old franchise "Men in Black" proves, getting to the big screen isn't always a cakewalk. One of the most troubled productions in recent Hollywood memory, Sony Pictures' latest movie in the Will Smith-Tommy Lee Jones sci-fi-comedy franchise encountered multiple script rewrites, a discontented star and a three-month production shutdown as writers and studio executives scrambled to fix a project that nearly fell apart . By the time it was over, the studio had run up a tab of nearly $250 million - making "Men in Black 3" one of the most expensive releases of the summer.

MOSCOW - Stiff new penalties aimed at opposition protesters were given preliminary approval Tuesday by Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin, the target of mass rallies and demonstrations before his March election victory. The bill, which opposition parliament members termed draconian and protested by threatening to file out of a legislative session, calls for fines of up to $50,000 and up to 200 hours of community service for organizers of rallies and demonstrations that grow violent or exceed the approved number of participants.

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

An American woman who set off an international furor when she sent a Russian child whom she had adopted back to Moscow, has been ordered to pay $1,000 a month in child support and $150,000 in various fees.

Foreign ministers from major powers scrapped talks in New York this week on more sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program after Moscow opposed the move, U.S. and Russian officials said. Russia has been angered by U.S. calls for Moscow to be penalized over its war with Georgia. The U.S. had balked at holding a high-level meeting of industrialized nations that would have included Russia.

The most enduring and romantic legend of the Russian Revolution -- that two children of Czar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, survived the slaughter that killed the rest of their family -- may finally be put to rest with the positive identification of bone fragments from a lonely Russian grave.

For as long as anyone can remember, White Lake had been the local swimming and fishing hole. Deep, cold, fed by underwater springs, the lake regularly gave up carp as fat as birch trees. A kid could cannonball into its depths from the overhanging willows and never hit bottom. And then one recent morning, the lake was simply gone. Fyodor Dobryakov was the first to see it -- or not see it, as it were.

Who can say which is better? In Russia they are financially bankrupt and in America we are morally bankrupt. BARBARA D. MAYER Encino

The young man named Anton is a member of Russia's "lost generation." He's the son of middle-class, college-educated engineers; he studied at a good university and became a truck sales manager in Moscow. He's also a 28-year-old heroin addict. In the years since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan triggered a sharp increase in poppy cultivation, Russia has been flooded with heroin. The dope has crept along a drug trail stretching from Afghanistan through Tajikistan and other Central Asian nations and over the Russian border, turning this country into the world's top consumer of heroin, the government says.

The last time Patimat Magomedova saw her daughter, she was puttering around the house, manicuring her nails and using henna to dye her hair bright red. It's high time we take care of the garden, the mother remembers Mariyam Sharipova saying that Friday. Let's plant raspberries, cucumbers, greens. And we have to do something about the kitchen, maybe get some pretty new dishes. By evening, the young woman had vanished from the house in this remote mountain village in the Russian republic of Dagestan.

MOSCOW - Russia may consider a preemptive strike on a missile defense system in Europe if the U.S.-led NATO project continues as planned, a top official said Thursday. Russian Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov, in a sign of the tension between Russia and the United States over the missile defense plans, said during an international conference that a strike by his country might be possible. "A decision to use destructive force preemptively will be taken if the situation worsens," Makarov said.

MOSCOW - President-elect Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that he would resign as chairman of the United Russia party after his inauguration in early May and indicated that outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev should serve as both prime minister and leader of the party. Medvedev stepped down after one term as president to allow Putin, who was serving as prime minister, to again seek the presidency, which he held for two terms before Medvedev's tenure. Putin was elected last month after a lengthy series of demonstrations in which tens of thousands of opponents took to the streets to demand an end to Putin's rule and to call United Russia "the party of swindlers and thieves.

BEIRUT - As the cease-fire in Syria appeared to be unraveling, the U.N. Security Council on Saturday unanimously approved sending as many as 30 unarmed monitors to try to help maintain the fragile truce. Activists reported almost 30 deaths across Syria on a day when the international community sent a rare message of unity that the violence must come to an end. The bloodshed has been intensifying as rebels have increasingly taken up arms in the face of a yearlong crackdown by the government of President Bashar Assad.

Tourism is already a booming industry in Los Angeles and may soon be even bigger. The city is gearing up to host one of the nation's largest trade shows for the travel industry, an April 21-25 gathering at the Los Angeles Convention Center that is expected to attract more than 1,500 travel business operators and generate at least $10 million in spending during the event. Known as the 2012 International Pow Wow, the trade show expects dozens of tour operators from China, Mexico, Russia, Italy, the Netherlands and other countries who specialize in bringing tourists to the United States.

MOSCOW — Josef Stalin ruled the Soviet Union for three decades, turning it from a backward agrarian country into a nuclear superpower — and a land of mass murder, political repression and gulags. After his communist successors acknowledged the brutality of his reign, Stalin's body was removed from its place of honor in a Red Square mausoleum and buried under the cover of darkness beneath the walls of the Kremlin. The harsher details of that history lesson might be lost on some Russian students, however, now that Stalin's face graces the covers of school notebooks that recently went on sale in Moscow and have become an immediate bestseller.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art finally has fulfilled the vision it had for its biggest foray into Islamic art - a goal thwarted until now by the government of the Russian Federation. The only problem is that Angelenos would have to travel more than 8,000 miles to see it. In "Gifts of the Sultan: the Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts," now on view in Doha, the capital of Qatar, art that Islamic rulers had sent long ago to the czarist courts are finally on display - courtesy of the State Hermitage Museum and National Library of Russia inSt.

There's a museum in Budapest called the House of Terror. It has a metal awning with the word "terror" carved out of it, and when the sun is high, the people below step on terror, pass through terror, because the shadow of the word hangs in the air before it hits the ground. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the end of Soviet dominance in Hungary, Russia's ghosts linger in a fledgling political system, and its oil and gas muscle spooks the Hungarian government.

MOSCOW - In a sign that Russia's ruling party will face greater challenges when Vladimir Putin begins his third term as president, an independent candidate supported by the opposition won a landslide victory in a weekend mayoral election. The preliminary results announced Monday in the runoff election gave Yevgeny Urlashov, a charismatic 44-year-old lawyer, about 70% of the vote in the city of Yaroslavl, about 150 miles northeast of Moscow. He defeated a local tycoon from Putin's United Russia party.

MOSCOW — Russia's parliament on Wednesday approved legislation intended to simplify the registration of political parties, a move influenced by massive protests after a December election widely viewed as tainted by fraud. The legislation, which outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to sign into law next week, was welcomed by those who believe it could help loosen the tight grip held by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the president-elect, and the governing United Russia party.