NPR News

Updated at 10:30 a.m. ET

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the closest thing to a rock star economist this country has seen, died Monday at 92, NPR has confirmed. He reportedly had prostate cancer.

It has been more than three decades since Volcker stepped down from the Fed. And it's a safe bet that many younger Americans do not even know his name.

The Peoria City Council is set to vote Tuesday on approval of a final plan to revitalize the MacArthur Highway corridor.

The plan drafted by IDG Architects calls for murals, new housing, a workforce training center, and a health center for Peoria's South Side over the next five years.

First District Councilwoman Denise Moore said at a Planning and Zoning meeting last week that she hopes this only the beginning.

Updated at 9:50 a.m.

The World Anti-Doping Agency's executive committee says Russian athletes can't compete under their flag at international events for the next four years, declaring Russia's Anti-Doping Agency to be noncompliant with its rules. The committee says critical data about Russia's athletics programs was "neither complete nor fully authentic."

Morning Edition host Rachel Martin interviews former Vice President Joe Biden aboard his campaign bus en route to Decorah, Iowa, about his bid for the Democratic nomination and the impeachment inquiry against President Trump.

This is the transcript of a conversation held on Dec. 6, 2019.

Rachel Martin: Mr. Vice President, thank you very much for having us.

Former Vice President Joe Biden: Well thanks for being on the bus. I appreciate it.

On the bus, very exciting. So we're in Iowa.

Updated at 5:22 p.m. ET

The Justice Department's internal watchdog determined the FBI had sufficient evidence to open the Russia investigation — but sharply criticized the bureau over its surveillance of a former adviser to the Trump campaign.

In his highly anticipated 400-page report, inspector general Michael Horowitz also says he found no evidence of political bias in the FBI's decision to launch its investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Updated at 6:51 p.m. ET

Democrats in the House took the next step toward impeachment on Monday with the presentation of what they call the evidence of President Trump's improper conduct in the Ukraine affair.

"President Trump's persistent and continuing effort to coerce a foreign country to help him cheat to win an election is a clear and present danger to our free and fair elections and to our national security," said Daniel Goldman, the Democratic staff counsel who presented the Democrats' case in the Judiciary Committee hearing.

Caroll Spinney, the actor and puppeteer who portrayed Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street over five decades, died Sunday at age 85.

The Sesame Workshop said Spinney had died at home in Connecticut, and that he had long lived with dystonia, a disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions.

In Glacier Bay, Alaska, mountains rush up farther and faster from the shoreline than almost anywhere else on the planet. Humpback whales, halibut and sea otters ply the waters that lap rocky, pine-crowned islands, and you can stick a bare hook in the water and pull out dinner about as fast as it takes to say so.

This is the place 31-year-old Laura Marcus chose for her Arete Project. Or just maybe, this place chose her.

The FBI is investigating the shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Friday as an act of terror.

Rachel Rojas, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Jacksonville Field Office, said in a news briefing Sunday that investigators are working with "the presumption that this was an act of terrorism."

Doing so, she said, "allows us to take advantage of investigative techniques that can help us more quickly identify and then eliminate any additional threats to the rest of our community."

There is currently no evidence of such a threat, she added.

Updated at 12:05 p.m. ET

The fast-rising rapper Juice WRLD has died at age 21 after a medical emergency at Chicago's Midway Airport. TMZ first reported the death, saying that witnesses saw him having a seizure after disembarking from a private plane.

The Cook County medical examiner's office confirmed his death to NPR, saying that the autopsy for Juice WRLD — whose real name was Jarad Anthony Higgins — will most likely take place on Monday.