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A 31-year-old Washington man was sentenced to 13 years in prison today by a federal judge in Peoria.

The president of the Peoria firefighters’ union says he hopes the recent Illinois Labor Relations Board ruling in their favor coaxes the city to head to the bargaining table. 

The U.S. used to send a lot of its plastic waste to China to get recycled. But last year, China put the kibosh on imports of the world's waste. The policy, called National Sword, freaked out people in the U.S. — a huge market for plastic waste had just dried up.

Where was it all going to go now?

Some transit systems in the U.S. are more user-friendly than others.

In certain circles in New York, San Francisco and D.C., it’s rare to know someone who owns a car.

In Omaha, Nebraska, it’s rare to meet someone who doesn’t.

A 14-year-old Peorian faces first degree murder charges in adult court for the June shooting death of 16-year-old Zarious Fair. 

Zaveon Marks faces two counts of first-degree murder and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm in connection with the murder in the 700 block of E. Frye in Peoria's East Bluff neighborhood.

Two Manhattan landlords took an unusual — and illegal — route to double their rentable space: cutting their two condos in half horizontally so they could rent out 18 tiny apartments in their Lower East Side building, according to the New York City Department of Buildings.

"The ceiling heights were 4.5 feet to 6 feet tall on each level, depending on where you were standing," Department of Buildings spokesperson Abigail Kunitz said in an email to NPR.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte has announced that his resignation amid political chaos and jockeying for power within his own coalition.

In a scathing speech to the Senate, Conte railed against his right-wing coalition partner, Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini. Conte is an independent. His coalition includes the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and Salvini's party, the League, which is staunchly anti-migrant and euroskeptic. Conte's government has held power for some 14 months.

If you wanted to measure your heart rate or step count during exercise, you would use a fitness tracker. But what if you wanted a device to tell you when when you need to drink more water or should reach for a sports drink?

With no discussion, the Peoria City Council recently approved spending more than $47,000 to buy the city's firefighters and police officers some heavy-duty protective gear.

With Nancy Cordes

SOS for moms and dads. How to nurture your child by caring for yourself. Self-compassion for parents.

Updated at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday ET

Texas is the latest state to be hit with a cyberattack, with state officials confirming this week that computer systems in 22 municipalities have been infiltrated by hackers demanding a ransom. A mayor of one of those cities said the attackers are asking for $2.5 million to unlock the files.

A young woman from El Salvador who was convicted of aggravated homicide after she lost her pregnancy has been acquitted in a retrial.

El Salvador has one of the strictest abortion laws in the world — it's not allowed under any circumstances.

Evelyn Beatriz Hernández, 21, has said she was raped by a gang member and didn't know she was pregnant. In 2016, she gave birth into a toilet, and her mother found her passed out next to it.

You recall back in 2004 when George W. Bush referred to "rumors on the Internets." That instantly became a classic Bushism, but to my mind he got it right — not just because what we call the Internet originated as a collection of networks 40 years ago, but because what people call "Internet culture" is an ocean of yammer strewn with innumerable islands and continents, each with its own rules, customs and conversations.

Work at the site of France's damaged Notre Dame Cathedral resumed on Monday, after a three-week pause over concerns about lead that spewed from the fire in April.

As the blaze ripped through the 850-year-old cathedral's roof and steeple, smoke billowed out — its yellow hue a sign of burning lead — spreading toxic dust that settled on streets, homes, businesses and schools in parts of central Paris.

For months, Hong Kong's streets have seethed with discontent. Scenes from the semiautonomous region show protesters, sometimes numbering in the hundreds of thousands, many wearing surgical masks and carrying umbrellas that have come to signify resistance.

The images are astonishing, and the issues that set the protests in motion are complex.

So here's a primer breaking down the major players, why they have poured into the streets and the response so far from China.

Mifepristone is one of a regimen of two drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration to end an early pregnancy. It's also prescribed to help reduce the severity of miscarriage symptoms. But it is heavily regulated in ways that can make it hard for women to obtain.

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro is now the 10th Democrat to qualify for next month's Democratic primary debate.

Castro, a former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, who later became a part of President Obama's Cabinet, met the final benchmark on Tuesday after a CNN poll showed him at 2%, giving him the requisite four surveys where he hit that threshold. He had previously already attained the required 130,000 unique donors from 20 states.

Congressman Rodney Davis found both supporters and critics at his second Open Government Night, held Monday night at Parkland College in Champaign. But it was the critics who were the most vocal.

A newly signed law will allow Illinois county clerks to unseal military discharge papers after 62 years. 

When Kim Gordon dropped "Murdered Out" three years ago, her first single under her own name, she didn't ascribe it any significance. "It just kind of happened randomly," she told NPR at the time.

Yuletsy Martinez, 19, and her husband crossed the border into Colombia when she was pregnant with her second child. They left because they couldn't find food or medical care in Venezuela. Martinez gave birth at a hospital in Colombia. "They took good care of me. And they helped me there," Martinez told NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro in a report that aired on All Things Considered.