Peoria County | featured news

PEORIA — The death of an 8-year-old boy who was found inside a refrigerator in August was ruled a homicide at an inquest Thursday.A coroner's jury deliberated more than 30 minutes before handing down the ruling in the death of Marquail Johnson, who was found Aug 15 inside a refrigerator behind 740 S. Western Ave.The boy was last seen by his mother about 8 p.m. Aug. 14 and was reported missing to police at 10 p.m. After more than 50 police officers [...]

CHICAGO (AP) — With President Barack Obama shifting course Thursday to allow insurers to renew health plans they planned to cancel, Illinois regulators and the state's largest health insurance company found the ball in their court.Obama announced he would give insurers the option to keep offering consumers plans that would otherwise be canceled because they fall short of coverage requirements under the nation's health overhaul. The [...]

PEORIA — Kyle Wright was arrested 18 months ago as part of a large federal crackdown on cocaine trafficking in McLean County. On Thursday, he shook hands with the nation's top prosecutor and gave him a copy of his graduation speech from a unique program in Peoria aimed at keeping low-level offenders like Wright out of prison.In front of his parents, his girlfriend, his children, dozens of supporters and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Wright, 38, was [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The swirling lines from Linden Bateman's pen have been conscripted into a national fight to keep cursive writing in American classrooms.Cursive. Penmanship. Handwriting.In years gone by, it helped distinguish the literate from the illiterate.But now, in the digital age, people are increasingly communicating by computer and smartphone. No [...]

TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) — The air was thick with the stench of decay as sweating workers lowered the plastic coffins one by one into a grave the size of an Olympic swimming pool.Scores of unidentified bodies were interred together Thursday in a hillside cemetery without any ritual — the first mass burial in this city shattered by last week's Typhoon Haiyan.Six days after the disaster, some [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is speeding up research on safety systems that automatically prevent drivers from operating their cars if they are drunk or aren't buckled properly.Officials also said Thursday that they expect to decide by year's end how to encourage automakers to make available in more cars some special safety systems already in certain high-end vehicles. Those systems warn drivers before a collision that they are [...]

When the Mathes family began building their house in rural Tremont, over four decades ago, they imagined it would be their home for generations to come. That dream was cut short Tuesday morning by a fire that leveled the house in a matter of hours.Hal Mathes and his wife, Clara, were at a doctor's appointment in Peoria when the fire broke out. By the time they returned, the only thing salvageable from their home was a statue of St. Francis that was just outside the house. [...]

BOSTON — Former Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for his murderous reign in the 1970s and '80s, bringing to a close a case that exposed FBI corruption so deep that many people across the city thought he would never be brought to justice.Bulger, 84, was defiant to the end, calling his trial on racketeering charges a sham and refusing to testify or provide information to probation officials [...]

CHICAGO (AP) — Republican candidate for Illinois governor Bruce Rauner has made a $500,000 donation to his own campaign, effectively lifting the caps on political contributions for everyone in the race.Rauner campaign spokesman Mike Schrimpf said the donation was made Wednesday. It will help pay for television ads that the wealthy businessman and political newcomer is launching in an effort to increase his name recognition in advance [...]

A Galesburg woman was sentenced to nine years in prison Wednesday in the hit-and-run death of a Knox College student.Lakeesha D. Smith, 34, pleaded guilty in August in Knox County Circuit Court to reckless homicide and leaving the scene of an accident. Those charges followed the Oct. 28, 2012, death of 18-year-old Tundun Lawani. Smith, who admitted drinking earlier in the evening, hit Lawani in a crosswalk near the college campus and fled without contacting authorities. [...]