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   BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - Three southwestern Illinois men are accused of violating the state's absentee ballot laws before a municipal election earlier this month.

   Prosecutors in St. Clair County charged 59 year old James Haywood Jr. of Cahokia and August Stacker Jr. of Belleville with one count apiece of violation of absentee ballots. Twenty-five-year-old Steveland Kidd of Cahokia faces two felony counts.

   The county's state's attorney, Brendan Kelly, says 27 absentee ballots from municipal elections involving Alorton and Cahokia were challenged and rejected, based on the findings of investigators.

   The three were jailed on Tuesday, when Kelly announced the charges. Online court records don't show whether they have attorneys.

Police now say the item at the center of the incident was a package of phone books.

The Belleville Police Department led the investigation into the suspicious package which was located outside of the Medical Arts Building 180 S. 3rd St Belleville. 

The building is associated with St Elizabeth Hospital. Hospital administration ordered 150 people to evacuate two buildings as a precaution. Both Belleville Police and Fire units were involved in the investigation.

   BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - The Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville in southern Illinois is pairing its parishes so they can be served by one priest.

   According to a plan released Thursday, the move will mean no parish in the diocese will be closed anytime soon.

   Diocese spokesman Monsignor John Myler says the plan encourages the parishes to prepare for a time when only 50 priests will be available to pastor. He says parishes have been instructed to begin working jointly immediately.

   Myler says the parishes are to implement the pastoral plan in a dynamic, flexible, gradual manner. He says if two or more parishes decide it is better to close a church building, it would be a decision of those parishes.

   The diocese covers the 28 southernmost Illinois counties and includes 121 parishes.

Two more districts have joined the growing list of metro-east school districts that plan to lay off teachers and other staff. Belleville District 118 and Highland Community Unit District 5 both announced staff layoffs Tuesday due to the state's budget shortfall.

District 118 will lay off six teachers and 20 staff members. The state of Illinois owes the district nearly two-million dollars.

In Highland, several teachers are being let go, but the specifics haven't been released.

Earlier this week, officials with Belleville District 201 and the Collinsville School District announced layoffs.

BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - A newly freed Illinois prison inmate is back behind bars, now accused of fatally beating a teenage honor student in southwestern Illinois nearly a quarter century ago.

The Belleville News-Democrat reports that St. Clair County prosecutors in southwestern Illinois have charged 51 year old Carlos Garrett with first-degree murder in the death of Nicole Willis. Her partly clothed body was found near her Centreville home.

It's not immediately clear what prompted the murder counts against Garrett.

Until Monday, Garrett had been serving a six year prison term on a Montgomery County drug-distribution conviction.

Garrett remained jailed yesterday in Belleville on $1 million bond.

Online court records do not show whether he has an attorney.