An amazing thing: the Russians are optimistic about the prospects of our team's performance at Euro 2008. From the group, according to almost all the experts with whom Newsweek spoke, our team will definitely come out, and more is not needed. The same minimum task was set by RFU President and Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko - in a conversation with a Newsweek correspondent, he traditionally exuded optimism, not paying attention to details.

Competitive - the main - part of the program of the just completed Cannes 2008 caused conflicting opinions among observers and commentators. There were also those who wrinkled their noses. One of my colleague without hesitation titled his report "Festival of Disappointments", and ahead of schedule - in the very first days, having managed to watch three films by that time, no more. The most common opinion about the program: it was, as they say, strong, but did not contain true revelations.

Tomorrow for the champion An amazing thing: the Russians optimistically look at the prospects of the performance of our team at Euro 2008. From the group, according to almost all the experts with whom Newsweek spoke, our team will definitely come out, but more and no more.

A few months ago, 41-year-old single mother Simone Bracket from Texas and 41-year-old Tim Galliksen from San Francisco found each other on the Internet. Bracket was looking for a sperm donor, thanks to whom she gave birth to a son 10 years ago. Galliksen, an anonymous donor interested in his genealogy, was looking for his offspring. First there were emails and calls.

Jokes about the second coming of Dima Bilan to Eurovision went around the Russian Internet almost faster than the news about his victory. On Sunday night, Russian users learned that "the battle for Belgrade was won by the Stradivarius violin and the Olympic champion Plushenko, some Bilan was singing along." Further - more: on Monday the picture became clearer, they say, the action "Vote for Bilan, or he will come to Eurovision for the third time" was a success.

Last Tuesday, after the technical victory of Larisa Bazanova in the election of the mayor of Arkhangelsk, the regional political council of United Russia met at the Pur-Navolok Hotel. On instructions from Moscow, the political council reinstated Viktor Pavlenko, who had lost at that time, in the party - he was expelled when he went over to the side of the disgraced mayor Alexander Donskoy and called United Russia the party of uniform jeeps.