Illinois, Peoria | featured news

If you were to make a song mix of old-school country gems, chances are you'd include several hits from the likes of Joe Diffie, Aaron Tippin and Sammy Kershaw. The trio will perform Friday at the Avanti's Dome in Pekin, as part of the "Roots and Boots" tour. During the show, the artists will perform their hits and share stories about what got them to where they are. If you listened to country in the 1990s, this is a nostalgic trip back with some of the era's most played [...]

Today, Dolores Behnke's mind will race back 80 years and remember a telephone call.That's about all she recalls from the day her childhood took a terrible turn. Though the 5-year-old didn't know it, her mother would answer the ring to hear that her husband, a Peoria police detective, had been shot during a gun battle at a South Peoria barber shop. At first, the prognosis seemed positive: Detective Robert E. Moran had walked on his own power into a hospital [...]

PEORIA — Authorities arrested a man in the North Valley on Wednesday afternoon in connection with an overnight home invasion in Canton.Toby Dansizen, 28, was taken into custody about 2 p.m. at 802 NE Perry Ave. after officers forced open the rear door of the apartment building. Dansizen surrendered without incident, according Peoria police Capt. Mike Scally. Dansizen was the lone suspect in a home invasion in Canton that occurred Tuesday night in which [...]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Probing whether the White House shares blame for health care website woes, the House's chief investigator Wednesday plunged into the technical issues behind the dysfunctional rollout of HealthCare.gov.Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is exploring a long list of issues: insufficient testing, possible security flaws, design shortcomings — even [...]

ROSCOE, S.D. (AP) — Robert Malsam nearly went broke in the 1980s when corn was cheap. So now that prices are high and he can finally make a profit, he's not about to apologize for ripping up prairieland to plant corn.Across the Dakotas and Nebraska, more than 1 million acres of the Great Plains are giving way to cornfields as farmers transform the wild expanse that once served as the backdrop for American pioneers.

WASHINGTON — The city plans to vigorously enforce the rules that regulate the open burning of landscape waste."There will be zero tolerance," City Administrator Tim Gleason told Washington City Council members Tuesday at their monthly committee of the whole meeting.Complaints voiced by residents at the September committee of the whole meeting led to city staff taking a look at the city's open burning regulations."We decided no changes are [...]

TACLOBAN, Philippines — A run-down, single-story building with filthy floors at Tacloban's ruined airport has become the area's main medical center for victims of last week's powerful typhoon. It has little medicine, virtually no facilities and very few doctors.What it is not short of are patients.Hundreds of injured people, pregnant women, children and the elderly have poured into the squat, white [...]

CHICAGO — Prosecutors have filed a response to Rod Blagojevich's corruption conviction appeal.The 169-page government filing submitted late Tuesday urges the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reject the imprisoned former governor's request for a new trial.Defense lawyers filed the appeal on the Illinois Democrat's behalf in July. It asks the Chicago-based appellate court to toss his convictions [...]

SPRINGFIELD — The number of registered beekeepers in Illinois is on the rise.The Illinois Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday that almost 700 beekeepers registered with the state for the first time in the past year. That brought the total number to more than 2,500 beekeepers managing more than 24,000 colonies.Bob Flider is director of the agriculture department. He says the increase in [...]

SPRINGFIELD — When lawmakers voted this month to approve gay marriage in Illinois, the state was set to become the 15th in the nation to legalize same-sex weddings.Now Illinois may become the 16th state.That's because Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie is expected to sign legislation Wednesday legalizing gay marriage in that state. Same-sex marriages are set to begin in the island state on Dec. 2.