The Agent From Iran

On November 29, 2004, Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan and her ex-husband, Mahmoud Seif, checked into Le Meridien Hotel in Vienna, Austria. The following morning, Gholikhan used Seif's cell phone to call the man they had flown there to meet. "Alex," a weapons dealer from Fort Lauderdale, told the couple to come to the InterContinental Hotel. His bodyguard would be waiting in the lobby.

Gholikhan, then just 26 years old, stood five feet tall, with brown eyes and olive skin; she could have passed for Greek or Italian. She dressed stylishly, in Western clothes, with makeup and jewelry. When... full story >>

Buzz Reviews the News of 2008: Yes. It Was All Bad.

Buzz's mother had three essential life lessons she attempted to impart to her son: 1) Shut up; 2) Show some respect; and 3) God help you if I ever catch you hanging around that pool hall. Despite her best efforts, delivered with the loving strokes of a left hook that would have done Joe Frazier proud, lessons one and two didn't take. But that's OK.We like this job.

Buzz never did learn to play pool, though. To this day, we just can't grasp all the angles.

That pool hall Mother Buzz warned us about was a seedy storefront on the main street of the small town where we grew... full story >>

Republicans weren't the only ones who took a beating in 2008

Colorado made news in 2008, and we're not talking about Barack Obama accepting the Democratic nomination for president. Nosirree. Even bigger news! John and Patsy Ramsey were officially cleared in the 1996 death of their daughter, JonBenét. Of course, you might have missed that if you were paying too much attention to the possibility, and eventual reality, of Sunday liquor sales, which riveted the city for months, or to "believer" Jeff Peckman's effort to create a UFO task force in Denver.

But if the Rocky Mountain News, which went up for sale in December, is shut down,... full story >>

Cancer Doctor Stanislaw Burzynski Sees Himself as a Crusading Researcher, Not a Quack

If you were writing the story of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, he'd probably want you to start with him leaving Poland for America with $15 and a dream. He'd want it to end with him curing cancer.

The events in between would describe a man leaving behind an oppressive regime for what he thought was a sanctuary for medical research — only to discover that U.S. authorities were even worse than the Communists. Page after page would show authorities trying to shut him down, trying to put him in jail. But he would persevere, bolstered by the testimonies of patients who come to his... full story >>

Six ways the city has wrecked a vital agency. Two projects that work anyway.

Like most cities of its size, Kansas City gets millions of dollars in federal money to provide safe, secure and affordable housing to its residents. For 30 years, the city used an outside agency, the Housing and Economic Development Finance Corporation, as a middle man to divide federal money and handle housing programs. The HEDFC's no-bid contract was renewed each year while it administered loans, bought and sold parcels of land, and oversaw the development of large multifamily housing projects.

It didn't take an urban planner to recognize that the HEDFC's business model... full story >>

The Best Movies of 2008

Is it a sign of the apocalypse? Something in the water? Or is it just the way the wind is blowing? Whatever the case, when our often-contentious quintet of film critics put their heads together about the best movies of 2008, they somehow agreed (more or less) on a dozen they thought were deserving of that designation. What's more, two of those films — The Dark Knight and Wall-E — also happen to rank among the year's five highest-grossing releases (with The Dark Knight, as of this writing, the second highest-grossing film ever released in the States), taking the wind out of... full story >>

An open letter to the man who raped my wife

At about 10 a.m. on a weekday in mid-November, Bill sat down to write a letter. A steady rage had been burning inside him for a week, and this was the only way he could think to get it out.

Bill's mind was clear. He'd had his customary five cups of morning coffee, black. The kids were playing quietly. Bill touched his fingers to the keyboard of his computer.

You are a rapist, he wrote.

You drugged a woman. You drizzled your infection on her body with your small, pathetic tool. You did a woman who was nothing other than a warm corpse.

Bill imagined... full story >>

The LOL Year in Review

Just check out any newsstand right now and you'll see that 'tis the season — for year-in-review issues. While the annual lookback is an all-too-familiar format, we must confess we love it. We know you're not supposed to admit that to some news snobs, who frown upon recycling old material; it's like admitting you think Dave Barry is funnier than David Sedaris, or that you'd rather watch Dateline than listen to All Things Considered. But in an age of information overload, there's something wonderfully satisfying about having the past 12 months distilled into its highlights, so we... full story >>

Class Conscious: St. Louis educators are desperately seeking ways to get kids back in school

"I had a lot of issues with people," he remembers. "I got into fights. I beat up other people. My family needed money. My mom's a single parent. I had to start making money. Working part-time wasn't efficient. That pretty much boils it down."

The summer before he quit school, White started his own landscaping business; he worked mostly in Ladue. When the weather got cold, business dried up, and he started hustling pot and crack. When he left Normandy, he says, no one... full story >>