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Authorities arrested a 25-year-old Western Illinois University student Thursday in connection with a prank 911 call made Wednesday night, which prompted a five-hour law enforcement response.

Alvin Montgomery of Macomb was arrested Thursday near Bayliss Hall on the WIU campus, Macomb Police Chief Curt Barker announced Friday morning. Montgomery is charged with disorderly conduct: Making a false 911 call and attempted obstruction of justice for attempting to delete information from a cellular phone.

Toulon teen mom Kendra Meaker received the maximum allowable three-year prison term today for abandoning her 3-week-old infant along a rural roadside last fall.

Circuit Judge Scott Shore told the 19-year-old woman that he would have given her an even longer sentence if the law allowed it for her offenses of felony obstruction of justice and misdemeanor endangerment of the life or health of a child.

University of Illinois officials say the likelihood of cuts in the school's state appropriation means they should plan to rely more heavily on private fund-raising.

It may not eliminate all red tape, but a bill introduced by Rep. Aaron Schock aims to minimize, modernize and streamline the process of bringing goods into the country.

The Peoria Republican's measure, one of two he rolled out in the last week, would raise the value at which shipments into the country require more customs paperwork.

It was a groundbreaking ceremony for an area where, as City Councilman Ryan Spain pointed out, the buildings are already built.

Peoria’s Warehouse District, long a talking point and dream of city developers, moved a step closer to reality Friday when a bevy of dignitaries that included Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and former Peoria Mayor Richard Carver took spades in hand to acknowledge the project’s start.

Jim Miller is no stranger to watching Illini Central compete in the state tournament.

The Mason City resident spent more than 30 years coaching junior high basketball there and about 15 years coaching girls high school ball, coaching multiple teams to the state finals.

So it was a no-brainer that Miller would be in attendance for the tournament this year when the Cougars square off against Nokomis Friday afternoon.

By mid-morning Friday, just a smattering of power outages remained after a brief transformer fire.

The 6 a.m. fire in the 900 block of East Glen Avenue prompted responses from Heights firefighters and police, according to a police dispatcher.

Galesburg police snagged a California fugitive off an Amtrak train Wednesday and confiscated luggage toting marijuana.

Jason Macord Brewer, 37, of Nord, Calif., was arrested after police learned he was wanted on a $150,000 warrant on three California charges: inflicting corporal injury on a co-inhabitant and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

On the eve of his bench trial, a 21-year-old Mason City man pleaded guilty Thursday to charges stemming from a high-speed police chase a year earlier.

Brendin Williams pleaded guilty in Mason County Circuit Court to aggravated fleeing.

A senior al-Qaida leader and son-in-law of Osama bin Laden pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in New York to plotting against Americans in his role as the terror network's top spokesman.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith entered the plea through a lawyer to one count of conspiracy to kill Americans after being captured in Jordan over the past week.