EAST ST. LOUIS > Kidnapper gets prison term • Carey Breshers, 52, has been sentenced to 24 years and five months in federal prison for kidnapping two women at gunpoint from a loan store in O'Fallon, Ill., during a failed check-cashing scheme in 2010, officials said Tuesday. Breshers forced one of the employees of World Finance to write a $3,000 check, prosecutors said, but two attempts to cash it failed. Breshers returned to their workplace and took $1,104, then had the women drive him to St. Louis, where they were released. Breshers, who lives in Oklahoma, pleaded guilty in June of kidnapping, use of a firearm during a crime of violence and interference with commerce by robbery. His sentence will be consecutive to a 121-month sentence he received a year ago in Oklahoma for interference with commerce by robbery. He also must pay restitution of $44,618.50.

STANTON > Gunman charged in unexplained attack • Xavier S. Minden, 18, of St. Louis, was charged Tuesday in Franklin County with armed criminal action, assault, burglary and other crimes after what Sheriff Gary Toelke said was an unexplained series of incidents. Minden allegedly fired a shot through the window of an occupied car without provocation about 6:20 p.m. Monday and then fired into the house of the driver, in the 400 block of Highway W in Stanton. The driver put his two children in the house, returned with a pistol and fired back. So did a neighbor, with a shotgun, whom he called for help. A task force of police spotted Minden walking near the gate of the Meramec Caverns campground, holding a gun to his chin. He kicked in the door of a cabin whose occupant, a woman, fled. A hostage negotiator talked Minden into surrendering.

ST. LOUIS > Man killed on I-55 is ID'd • Police said Tuesday that Clarence F. Davis, 57, of East Prairie, Mo., was the man hit and killed on Interstate 55 near Park Avenue on Monday. Davis was struck by an SUV in the northbound lanes about 11:55 a.m. Monday while trying to retrieve something that had fallen from his truck.

MACOUPIN COUNTY > Manslaughter charge is filed • Richard C. Morgan Jr., 27, of Gillespie, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in last year's death of his 3-month-old daughter, Nevaeh. She suffocated Nov. 23 after her father stuck a baby wipe in her mouth, said Master Sgt. Dave Wasmuth of the Illinois State Police. Morgan found her struggling to breathe, alerted a relative in the house and called 911, police said. Nevaeh died at St. Francis Hospital in Litchfield. Morgan was held Tuesday in lieu of a $100,000 bail.

ST. LOUIS > Airplane cleaners charged • Two men who cleaned airplane cabins at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport have been charged with stealing valuable items left on board. Jessie A. Webb III, 23, and Cornelius L. Palm, 25, both former employees of Airport Terminal Services of Maryland Heights, were arrested in a sting operation in June and charged last week with theft of an iPad and Nintendo DS video game console. According to charging documents, Webb took the items from planes he was cleaning and gave them to Palm, who attempted to remove them from the airport.

UNIVERSITY CITY > Charges possible in bicycle fatality • Prosecutors are considering charges against a 29-year-old woman police say fatally injured a bicyclist Friday night. Samuel Scott, 19, was struck while bicycling home from his job as a cook at Dewey's Pizza in University City. A woman who drove the car that struck Scott in the 7500 block of Delmar Boulevard was arrested at the scene on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, police said. She was released from the University City jail as prosecutors consider charges.

MARYLAND HEIGHTS > Suit alleges discrimination • A former employee of Vision Financial Corp., a collection agency, alleged in a discrimination suit that a supervisor there used a disparaging term for black employees and that white employees kept an insulting notebook of employees' so-called "black speech" that they sold out of the office for $5. The suit, filed Monday in federal court by Deidre Humphrey, names Vision Financial Corp. and office manager David Hensley as defendants. When Humphrey complained to one of Hensley's superiors, she was fired, the suit says. Neither Hensley nor Vision could be reached for comment.

ST. LOUIS > Lindell Bank is robbed • A man who indicated he had a weapon took an undisclosed amount of money from a teller about 3 p.m. Tuesday at the Lindell Bank, Hampton Avenue at Chippewa Street.