Traffic around the metro-east Friday morning:

The show-business marriage that began in a Scottish castle came to an end in a drab London courtroom Friday as Madonna and Guy Ritchie were granted a preliminary decree of divorce.

The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. said Thursday it will cut its worldwide work force by 4 percent, or about 1,800 jobs, blaming the weak global economy.

A radical Islamic group in Somalia said Friday it will fight the pirates holding a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil.

A Chinese writer and journalist who was arrested after protesting against a power plant in southwest China was sentenced Friday to three years in prison on charges of subverting state power, his lawyer said.

A Gridley man whose conviction on child pornography charges was overturned by an appellate court has had his criminal record expunged.

Illinois State Police disclosed Thursday that two women were raped at the scene and near the time of the murder of a New Baden man whose charred body police found Sunday in a house that had been set on fire.

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS -- New information in what police had believed was the drug overdose in April of a 32-year-old Belleville woman, now is believed to have been a homicide, police said Thursday.

No contract was finalized Thursday between the St. Louis Cardinals and veteran left-handed reliever Trever Miller.

A St. Louis man was charged Wednesday with robbery after a disabled East St. Louis veteran told police that two men hit him and stole his cell phone on Nov. 12.

-EAST ST. LOUIS -- Three men were captured and arrested following an armed robbery at a barber shop Wednesday evening.

A second lawsuit against State Trooper Matt Mitchell was filed Thursday on behalf of a man and his then pregnant wife who were injured in the same crash last year that killed two Collinsville sisters.

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS -- PASS Security has bought St. Louis security system company Security Innovations Inc.

The St. Louis Cardinals are close to filling one of their most pressing offseason needs, negotiating a deal with left-handed reliever Trever Miller.

A spike in the number of whooping cough cases in St. Louis County and other parts of eastern Missouri has health officials calling for more frequent vaccinations.

The Army has set a date for its first execution in nearly 50 years.

St. Louis Rams running back Steven Jackson will not play Sunday against the Chicago Bears because of a strained right thigh muscle.

Columbia and Mater Dei each landed two players — while Collinsville, Triad and Belleville East each had one — on the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association All-State Football Team released Thursday.

Authorities have identified a headless, handless body found six months ago along Interstate 70, about 60 miles east of Kansas City.