ST. LOUIS (AP) — Four fatal shootings Christmas Eve brought St. Louis homicide toll for the year within reach of its all-time annual record. Police say at least 257 people have been killed in St. Louis this year, 10 short of the record 267 set in 1993. But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that because of the city’s population decline, its homicide rate is believed to now exceed 85 per 100,000 people. It was 69 per 100,000 in 1993 when the city’s population was nearly 30% larger than it is now. Compounding the violence in the area was a fatal double shooting of two men in nearby University City.