WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators have closed a small lender in Illinois, bringing U.S. bank failures this year to 14 after 24 closures in all of 2013. U.S. bank failures have been declining since they peaked in 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis and the Great Recession. From 2008 through 2011, bank failures cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $88 billion, and the fund fell into the red in 2009.