Explain how the resolution of the plot indicates the author's purpose.

John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men follows George Milton and Lennie Small, two migrant field workers who are traveling through California with the ambition to one day settle down on their own parcel of land. Lennie, who is mentally disabled, wants nothing more than to care for pet rabbits on the land; he has a caring streak in spite of the fact that he is unable to deal effectively with boundaries, which resulted in him being accused of rape after touching a young woman's dress and refusing to let go back in Weed. George largely serves as Lennie's protector.
Lennie and George are hired at a farm, where the antagonistic Curley (son of The Boss) torments them. The pair deals with a myriad of other issues, including the fact that Curley's wife is quite persistent in flirting with Lennie. In spite of these issues, the prospect of owning land appears tantalizingly close when Candy, the elderly handyman, offers to pitch in the $350 he has saved in order to buy the land.
Lennie's uncontrolled strength is revealed through a series of violent events: he crushes Curley's fist after Curley attacks him, he accidentally kills the puppy he was given by Slim, and then he accidentally kills Curley's wife by breaking her neck while stroking her hair. 
In the tragic resolution of the novel, George must make the difficult choice to shoot Lennie at their old camping spot. He knows that Lennie cannot possibly escape from the men who are now pursuing him for Curley's wife's death, and he also knows that his dream of owning a farm is dead. 
This resolution emphasizes one the major themes/purposes of the book: to highlight the trials and tribulations of being a human. Throughout the book, Steinbeck uses the obstacles that Lennie and George face to indicate how difficult it is to pursue a dream. What is deeply ironic about the novel's resolution—in which George shoots Lennie—is that George is finally confronted with the truth that the very thing that made the pursuit of the farm worthwhile (his friendship with Lennie), is what stood in the way of the dream of the farm being actualized.

Based on Chapters 5-9 of Ian Haney López's Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class: From Chapter 8, according to Thomas Frank, what role does race play in 21st century politics? Why does Haney-Lopez disagree?

Thomas Frank contends that so-called "backlash politics" do not arise from racism. He states that blaming racism for white voting patterns involves "daft theories about 'crypto-racism'" (page 170). Frank believes that areas of the U.S. such as Kansas do engage in voting patterns that are opposed to their own self-interest but that they don't do so because they are racist.
However, Haney Lopez disagrees with Frank "because he [Frank] fatally misses how quickly and dramatically racism has evolved" (page 170). Frank views racism as involving overt statements about white supremacy, but, as Haney Lopez says, modern racism is more subtle. The author believes that "race contributes to broad-based support for regressive policies that wreck the middle class" (page 170). Haney Lopez believes that white voters are swayed by what he calls "racial commonsense," including their belief that they will benefit from the social status of being white. In addition, whites increasingly define their status by how much they have to associate with minorities. As the author writes, "while race previously obscured class divisions among white people, it now came to exaggerate[s] them" (page 172). Therefore, unlike Frank, the author feels that racism explains a great deal of working class whites' endorsement of what he feels are regressive policies. 

What are the key issues in U.S.-Russian relations? Is there more potential for conflict or cooperation in the future?

The relationship between American and Russia is the most important one in the world. The relationship is contentious, and improvement is not likely in the short term.
One area of conflict is with Russia's desire to maintain influence over former areas of the Soviet Union. Russia defeated Georgia in 2008, and it has threatened Ukraine since 2014. Russia regards these areas as its sphere of influence and it does not want them to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO).
Russia wants a weak NATO. It has welcomed President Trump's ambivalent posture toward the alliance.
Another problem is Syria. Russia has supported Bashar al-Assad, the country's dictator during its bloody civil war. It sent military forces to help him, and Russia's military prowess was a key factor in the military conflict.
Russia interfered in the election in the United States in 2016. It employed various means to influence the election and help Donald Trump win the presidency. Robert Mueller is leading an investigation into the Trump's campaign's relationship with Russia during the election campaign.
Another issue has been the Edward Snowden affair(2013-present). Snowden, a former CIA employee, revealed information about wide-ranging activities of the National Security Agency. The U.S. charged Snowden, a U.S. citizen, with espionage. He has been living in Russia for years.
Russia has been hit with punitive economic sanctions over Ukraine and its role in the U.S. election. Trump has tried to lift some of these sanctions, but the U.S. Congress wants to maintain them.
There is some cooperation between the two countries in a few spheres. One area is in joint space exploration. The two countries also have some limited cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
In summary, relations are not good, and there is not much hope for significant improvement in the near future.

There have been several contentious issues in the relationship between the United States and Russia in the past decade. Perhaps the most dramatic have been attempts by Russian entities to sway the 2016 United States presidential election, including using fake social media accounts to influence voters in favor of Donald Trump. Russia has also been responsible for cyber attacks against the Unites States and attempts to destabilize the U.S. public sphere.
In geopolitical terms, there are competing spheres of influence, with Russia supporting Assad's government in Syria and the United States being opposed to it and its abysmal human rights record. As the United States under President Trump and Russia under Putin move further away from a rules-based international system to trade wars and, in the case of Putin, hostile actions "short of war" which create great dilemmas for more law-abiding countries, it is likely that tensions will continue to increase.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/dysfunction-us-russia-relations

Explain this quote from Look Back In Anger: "Proper little Marchbanks, you are!" Who is Marchbanks? Why is the person compared to Marchbanks?

Marchbanks is a reference to a character for George Bernard Shaw's play Candida. In the book Looking Back in Anger, the characters are discussing Jimmy's romantic history, and he is called "Marchbanks" briefly. This is a reference to his romantic triste with an older woman. It is claimed, in the book, that Jimmy once dated a woman ten years his senior.
In Shaw's play, Marchbanks is a young man who ends up having an affair with an older woman, the wife of a clergyman, when he was just eighteen years old. Since Jimmy was that age when he was romantically involved with Madeleine, who, at the time, was twenty-eight years old, he is appropriately compared to the youthful Marchbanks having a relationship with an older woman.

It's a playful insult used by Cliff towards his friend Jimmy Porter. Eugene Marchbanks is the name of a character in Candida, a play by George Bernard Shaw. In the play, Marchbanks is a young, romantic poet who falls in love with an older woman, the wife of an Anglican clergyman.
In Look Back in Anger,everyone's having a discussion about Jimmy's former girlfriends. Alison brings up the name Madeline, which doesn't ring a bell to Cliff. Alison helpfully reminds Cliff that Madeline was Jimmy's mistress when he was fourteen. Jimmy quickly corrects her, saying that he was actually eighteen at the time of the affair. It is this interjection that prompts Cliff's little barb:

"CLIFF: I get mixed up with all your women. Was she the one all those years older than you? JIMMY: Ten years. CLIFF: Proper little Marchbanks, you are!"

In Candida, the character of Marchbanks is eighteen years old, just as Jimmy was when he became involved with Madeline. By comparing Jimmy to Marchbanks, Cliff is making a snide reference to his affair with an older woman.

Why is Pahom confident that he can get a better deal than he imagined?

Pahom has been so blinded by greed, so obsessed with the acquisition of land, that it's seriously clouded his judgement. When he encounters the Bashkirs, he sees a great opportunity to add to his already extensive landholdings. Pahom finds the Bashkirs to be the ideal people from whom to purchase land. They come across as incredibly naive; they don't seem to realize the potential value of the land beneath their feet. Their naivety—as Pahom sees it—is expressed in what the grasping Russian peasant sees as the unbeatable offer they make him: the Bashkirs will sell Pahom as much land as he can traverse by foot in a single day.
Pahom seriously underestimates the Bashkirs, and he pays for this with his life. As well as finding them naive, there's a suggestion that Pahom looks down on the Bashkirs as racially inferior. The Bashkirs were one of the numerous subject peoples of the Russian Empire, and as such they were regularly on the receiving end of Russian chauvinism. Despite coming from a humble peasant background, there's every reason to believe that Pahom regards himself as superior to the Bashkirs on account of his membership of the empire's dominant nationality.

How does Prince Prospero show his pride?

Prince Prospero demonstrates his pride by thinking that he can outwit death and avoid becoming a victim of the devastating contagion known as the Red Death. In an astonishing show of hubris, Prince Prospero invites a thousand aristocrats to stay in one of his castellated abbeys, which is securely locked to prevent people from entering or leaving. Inside the abbey, Prince Prospero has a massive amount of food and resources to survive for an extended period of time inside the walls of his abbey while the Red Death wreaks havoc upon the countryside and continues to devastate the population. Prince Prospero not only believes that he can outwit and survive imminent death but also engages in revelries inside his walls as a way to mock death. The prince even holds a masquerade ball, where there are seven colored rooms in his imperial suite, where his bizarre-looking guests dance and drink. When the Red Death enters the masquerade, the prince once again displays his pride by attempting to kill death itself as he brandishes a dagger. However, Prince Prospero becomes a victim of his own hubris and dies at the feet of the Red Death in the seventh room of his imperial suite.

Prince Prospero shows his pride by believing that he could, with all his money and vast resources, actually escape death.  He retires, with a thousand of his most hearty friends "to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys."  He and his courtiers believe they are safe behind the "lofty wall" that encircles the edifice and its iron gates (which they actually weld shut to make it even more secure).  He believes that there is no way in to the abbey and no way out, that not even death will be able to sneak into his presence from the outside.  His proud insistence that money and status will keep him safe from the plague that is decimating his kingdom, that he can drink and revel away from the world in which everyone else must succumb, seems like the ultimate in hubris: overweening pride.  Prince Prospero feels that he is a man apart, that he can decide to escape death.  In the end, he learns that he is wrong.

What are the yachts in the poem by William Carlos Williams? How does this fit with Williams's dictum "no ideas but in things"?

Williams's precept "No ideas but in things" is found in a line from the 1927 version of his poem "Paterson" and encapsulates his Imagist approach to poetry writing. Williams believed that poetry should focus on objects rather than concepts and that it should, essentially, move away from the abstract characterization of things. Objects or things create visual images and can be tangible or observable. The image that one has of a thing creates an idea about it and, therefore, gives it meaning. Thus, ideas exist in things.
In this poem, Williams describes the yachts in great detail. He provides the reader with carefully constructed images of their movements, what they look like, and those who man them. They are delicate objects, and the crews operating them seem almost insignificant; they are described as "ant-like." This confirms the fact that they (the yachts) are the central focus of the poem.
Smaller crafts follow in the yachts' wake, trailing behind and following a majestic object. They are like minions escorting a supreme leader or king. They follow in admiration, ready to do its bidding. 
The pleasant descriptions of these objects soon change, though, when the focus shifts from the yachts to the ocean. The last three stanzas convey a grim and bleak picture and personify the ocean as a mass of bodies despairingly clutching and reaching out to the yachts. The vessels, however, are not disturbed and "skillfully" continue their journey, ignoring the desperate cries of the sea, which has become "an entanglement of watery bodies."
It should be obvious that the objects in the poem depict specific ideas and are representations of more than what they seem. The yachts signify a great power or presence that is uncaring and reckless. It uses the ocean to meet a goal and does not consider the object (the ocean) it utilizes to further its end. Many interpretations suggest that the yachts symbolize the privileged elite who exploit the poor in order to enrich themselves and maintain their status.
It has also been suggested that the yachts are symbols for slave ships, on which the most horrifying atrocities were committed. The sea, becoming "an entanglement of watery bodies," represents slaves who were thrown overboard, either dead or alive, during the horrendous journeys undertaken by these vessels.