Illinois | featured news

The nephew of a small-town Illinois mayor shot and killed five people, including two boys, before leading police on a chase that ended in an exchange of gunfire that left him dead, authorities said Wednesday....

Five people are dead and one injured as a result of a shooting in the tiny southern Illinois town of Manchester, the mayor confirmed in a television interview on Wednesday."We got five confirmed fatalities, one wounded and in the hospital, and the shooter's been apprehended," Mayor Ronald Drake said in an interview on the St. Louis Fox television station.

One person died and dozens of elementary school children were taken to hospitals Friday after a school bus crash in northern Illinois that left two cars mangled and the bus on its side, authorities said. All 35 people aboard the bus survived the crash in Wadsworth, Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran Jr. said.

An Illinois man accused of stealing 21 tons of Wisconsin cheese has been arrested in New Jersey. New Jersey authorities say Veniamin Konstantinovich Balika, 34, from south suburban Plainfield was arrested Tuesday afternoon. New Jersey State Police Lt. Stephen Jones said Wednesday the man was driving a refrigerated truck carrying 42,000 pounds of Muenster cheese.

The Illinois state Senate approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage on Thursday in a Valentine's Day vote spearheaded by Democrats, as gay couples around the country used the romantic day to dramatize their quest for the right to marry.

A former bookkeeper for a cash-strapped Illinois town, who admitted embezzling $53 million to finance a lavish lifestyle centered on prize-winning horses, was sentenced Thursday to almost 20 years in prison.

CBS News reported the Illinois Democrat is working on a deal stemming from allegations he misused campaign funds.

A suburban Chicago woman stabbed her 7-year-old son 100 times then turned the knife on a 5-year-old girl who witnessed the killing, as both children begged for their lives, a prosecutor said Thursday....

In a modest milestone for President Barack Obama's high-speed rail vision, test runs started zooming along a small section of the Amtrak line between Chicago and St. Louis at 111 mph Friday.

A tip from an auto body shop helped police locate and charge an 83-year-old woman with a hit-and-run crash that killed a 6-year-old boy in Illinois last weekend.