Rachel Kurowsi arrived in Beijing on July 5 to work at the Olympics as one of 300 English-speaking volunteers, all of whom are students of journalism. Her job is in the office of the Agence-France Presse in the Olympic Village's press center. At the press center, Kurowski works with Chinese volunteers who are also university students. They are curious about her -- as she is about them. In this letter from China, Kurowski talks about her newfound friendships.

The John Edwards affair acquires a St. Louis connection: Former Post-Dispatch online community editor Virginia "Pigeon" O'Brien, who says she is a friend of Edwards mistress Rielle Hunter, has been interviewed by FoxNews and CBS' The Early Show this week.

O'Brien disputes Edwards' claims about the timing of the affair, telling the Early Show's Maggie Rodriguez it began in "February, March of '06".

A Kansas City Star blog has a recap of the Early Show appearance , as does philly.com .

Controversial securities marketed by Wachovia Corp.'s St. Louis-based brokerage unit could cost the banking giant $500 million in legal settlements. The company has set aside $500 million, before taxes, in reserves to cover "active settlement negotiations" with state regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission over its selling of auction-rate securities.

The bloody conflict between Russia and Georgia has taken about 2,000 lives so far. Two experts, Charles Kupchan of Georgetown University (right) and Stephan Sestanovich of Columbia University, discuss the roots of this conflict in a distant part of the world -- and find blame on both sides.

Sure as the season itself, students heading back to college this fall will be seeking a record burden of loans to finance their studies. Before they crack a book, many are in for a rude lesson in economics: The sun has emphatically set on the good old days of easy money. As a result, students this year can expect to scrounge harder and pay more for their borrowed money than ever, and some may not be able to get it at all.

Fighting continued Monday in Georgia as Russian soldiers opened a second front inthe two countries' 4-day-old war. Russian took over an army base near Senaki, near tothe Black Sea, while Georgia's military tried to regain ground in South Ossetia, the  Moscow-backed region seekingindependence from Georgia. | Los Angeles Times

Foreign embassies Monday began evacuating citizens from Georgia. SomeEuropean countries sent planes to Tbilisi to retrieve theircitizens but most are organizing vehicle convoys to Armenian capital of Yerevan, three hours south. | Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

St. Louis University law professor Joel Goldstein explains why in this election -- more even than others -- the vice presidential candidates have to be presidential. Their selection will say more about John McCain and Barack Obama than all the ads the two have aired so far.

A less than scintillating ballot – not the heat – is most to blame for an election day turnout that saw fewer than one in five registered voters casting primary ballots in Missouri on Tuesday, says a St. Louis authority on the American electorate. Instead, he said, voters most likely stayed away because the day's top contest -- the race between Republicans Sarah Steelman and Kenny Hulshof -- simply did not inspire large numbers of registered voters.