So there’s this new law in Russia – Federal Law 131-FZ – that requires, essentially, the establishment of many new cities where once there may have been villages and neighbordhoods.

But it turns out that Russians are not so familiar with the finer and more specific requirements of municipal governance.

Enter the U.S. Agency for Economic Development, the Foundation for Russian American Economic Cooperation and the City of University Place, all parties to the Municipal Partnership Program.

Beginning a week from Monday – July 28 – and lasting through Aug. 2, a delegation of six officials from the new city of Slavyanka will visit University Place to learn about what a city is and how it works. In 2009, a delegation of two officials will make a reverse trip to Slavyanka, an urban settlement of some 14,700 people. The city is located 112 miles from Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East near the borders of China and North Korea.

The agenda in U.P. calls for meetings and tours, as well as an appearance at the Volunteer Appreciation Dinner at Curtis High School on the 31st and a trip to the U.P. Festival on the 2nd.

And please, no jokes about how Slavyanka needs to recruit Crate & Barrel to its Towne Centre, or how one of its first priorities should be to get rid of the best Italian restaurant in town, or how, to be successful, the city should work toward hosting the U.S. Open golf tournament in, say, 2050.

The Russians were coming, the came and they have left Tacoma after a two-day conference at the Hotel Murano.

The conference, sponsored by the Russian American Pacific Partnership, featured presentations on such matters as trade and transportation and focused on building new relationships particularly between the Russian Far East and the U.S. West Coast.

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If I told you could have made a 96 percent return on your investment in just three days, you would probably dismiss me as a late night TV pitchman.

But I've got the proof, if you've got the nerve and you can afford to lose some money.

The magic phrase? Airline stocks. In the last two months they've not been a financial adventure for the faint of heart. Most U.S. airlines during that time have been on a black diamond run toward the bottom as they cancelled flights, raised fares and fees and complained about how they've suffered at the hands of the oil industry.

But in the last two days, they've started back up the mountain.

Consider United Airlines, that aviation underachiever that's seen its marriage proposals to two other airlines rejected this spring and summer.

As recently as Tuesday, you could have bought a share of United for $2.85. At midday today, those same shares were selling for $5.59, a 96 percent increase over Tuesday's price.

If you'd prefer a more local investment, take Alaska Air Group, the holding company that owns SeaTac's Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air. Tuesday's price was $10.12 a share. Today, ALK was selling for $16.24, a 60.4 percent increase.

Most other domestic airlines, with the exception of Southwest, have shown similar volatility.

That volatility goes both ways. United's 52-week high is $51.60 a share. Alaska's is $29.00.

Have airline shares finally fallen so low that they've gone from questionable investments to potential bargains? Some analysts seem to think so, upgrading airline stocks to "buy."

Of course, not much fundamentally has changed. While crude oil prices retreated in recent days, it seems unlikely they'll ever return to levels that fit with the airline industry's former business models.

Boeing is touting a militarized version of its civilian 737 airliner to replace aging Navy electronic eavesdropping aircraft.

Boeing is one of three finalists in the competition to replace the Navy's EP-3E aircraft. The EP-3E is based on the '60-era Lockheed Electra airliner.

The company wants to use a modified 737 equipped both with sensitive electronic data-gathering equipment and powerful radars to replace the Lockheed aircraft.

Boeing is already building 109 P-8A sub-hunting aircraft on a new assembly line at its Renton plant. The P-8A is a a 737 modified to carry sensors and weapons to locate and destroy submarines.

Modified 737

If Boeing wins the contract for the signal intelligence job, it would produce the 20 planes the Navy is seeking on that same production line.

Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are also proposing replacement aircraft. The Navy expects to cull the field to two by next summer.

The Farnborough Air Show is over and the order numbers are in. The winner: Well, it's Airbus.

The French airplane manufacturer claimed 60 percent of the total number of planes.

But Boeing defended its lower number saying that the company no longer holds on to order to announce at the air show, putting less weight on the final tally at the end of the event.

The world’s two largest airliner manufacturers announced $64 billion in orders, Bloomberg news reports. That fell short of the $69.7 billion in purchases at the most recent comparable event, November’s Dubai Air Show.

“There may have been a little less traffic through the show this year, but that helped those discussions go a little deeper, so all in all it’s been a week well-spent,” said Tom Downey, Boeing's senior vice president for communications to Bloomberg. “Our customers are clearly facing some difficult circumstances with high oil prices, but there’s still demand.”

As in Dubai, the biggest buyers were carriers and leasing companies from the Persian Gulf region, where governments are investing revenue from the same surge in oil prices that is eroding earnings at airlines across the globe, according to Bloomberg.