ST. LOUIS (AP) – A city alderman frustrated with the police response to rising crime called Tuesday on residents to arm themselves to protect their lives and property.

Alderman Charles Quincy Troupe said police are ineffective, outnumbered or don’t care about the increase in crime in his north St. Louis ward. St. Louis has had 157 homicides in 2008, 33 more than last year at this time.

“The community has to be ready to defend itself, because it’s clear the economy is going to get worse, and criminals are getting more bold,” Troupe, 72, said Tuesday.

Execution stayed for ex-soldier

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – A federal judge in Kansas has issued a stay in what would be the military’s first execution since 1961.

U.S. District Judge Richard Rogers issued the order Nov. 26 in the case of former soldier Ronald A. Gray, who had been scheduled to die Dec. 10 for a spree of murders and rapes in the 1980s.

The 43-year-old Gray is held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. He was arrested in connection with a spree of four slayings and eight rapes in the Fayetteville, N.C., area.

Police see double:

1 car, 2 tipsy drivers

EAST MEADOW, N.Y. (AP) – Police on Long Island say they’ve pulled two drunken drivers from one car.

Nassau County officers say they spotted a woman trying to make a three-point turn on a road in East Meadow.

They say that when she couldn’t complete the maneuver, she switched places with a male passenger, who took the steering wheel and completed the turn while not wearing a seat belt.

Police pulled them over and charged them with drunken driving.

As police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey put it, “We have two individuals arrested for driving the same car intoxicated.”

The man and the woman were arraigned Friday on driving while intoxicated and other charges.

The woman was ordered