A 19-year-old suburban Chicago woman was arrested for allegedly attacking her mother and the family dog after returning home intoxicated early Sunday morning. more ›

Parents in Berwyn and Cicero are angry a member of the schoolboard made a racist comment on his Facebook page, and now some are calling for his resignation. more ›

This heartwarming story reminds us there are still folks out there who care enough to take action. more ›

Police seized 750 chickens from a farm in suburban Homer Glen that authorities believe was used as a cockfighting training center. The fowl will all have to be euthanized. more ›

As far as pickup lines go, "wanna see my alligator" is a pretty original one, when it isn't used as a euphemism. Police in suburban Ford Heights arrested 43-year-old Dewayne Yarbrough for possession of a dangerous animal after they received a tip Yarbrough kept a four-foot alligator in his home because chicks dug it. more ›

Given this area's idol worship of all things related to the 1985 Bears, you'd think having the last name Ditka would equal a "get out of jail free" card. To hear Michael P. Ditka, son of the legendary former Bears coach, that's not the case. Son of Ditka contested a DUI charge in Deerfield, claiming that police targeted him because of his famous name. more ›

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle made a visit to the northwest suburb of Palatine on Monday night to address the village's ongoing threat to secede from the county. more ›

The DuPage County Board approved by a 13-5 vote to allow a Muslim group to build a community center in unincorporated Willowbrook. It's not just a mosque, although the 600-person prayer room planned for the community center seems to be driving the headline writers. There are also plans for a school and a recreational center on the grounds of an abandoned house on 91st Street in Willowbrook. more ›

The saga of Scott Huber, who has camped out on the streets of downtown suburban Naperville for almost a decade, has finally come to a close. more ›

In another sign of spring, Ravinia announced its full music lineup for the season today. As in previous years, this year's schedule is a good balance of popular acts, jazz and classical music. The name acts are a mix of today's popular acts and your parents' nostalgia acts: Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, Maroon 5, Five for Fighting, Steely Dan, Tony Bennett's 85th birthday concert, Lyle Lovett, k d lang and Lynyrd Skynyrd are all on the schedule. The one we're penciling in is Robert Plant's June 16 concert, which has all the earmarks of selling out the fastest and seeing a rush to the lawn reminiscent of his 2008 Ravinia appearance with Allison Krauss or the benchmark for Ravinia lawn rushes, a 1998 Poi Dog Pondering concert. more ›

We're learning more about "honeybee" killer Gary Amaya, who was killed trying to rob an Orland Park tanning salon over the weekend. more ›

Vessels made from polystyrene have been keeping coffee and other foods toasty warm for decades, but due to deep environmental concerns Highland Park is considering banning use of polystyrene cups, bowls, and plates in restaurants and in businesses. However, some question whether banning the versatile and cheap material is the right answer to the region's landfill problems. Some have suggested streamlining or producing more viable, technologically advanced methods of recycling and reusing polystyrene materials:

Tanya Triche, senior counsel for the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, has followed the debate in Chicago and Highland Park and questions whether alternative products will solve the problem. "If the goal is to get PSF (polystyrene foam) out of landfills, all you are really doing is replacing it with something else that is going into the landfill," said Triche, who suggested that communities build recycling facilities. "Banning something, we really don't feel is the best way to tackle the issue," she said.

As a sign of the continuing difficulties transitioning out of the current economic recession, a handful of Chicago suburban communities are making deep cuts in their police departments to bring citywide costs down. Arguing that police department budgets are some of the highest around the city of Chicago, officials have reduced the number of police officers on duty all around. Prospect Heights recently laid off six police officers, and Naperville also let go of six police officers recently, right after its city council approved a new police union contract. Additional cuts are pending in places like Aurora, Arlington Heights, and Palatine. more ›

Scoff at Chicago's suburbs all you want, but those SUV driving soccer moms are going to decide the direction Illinois heads in for the next four years. As state Sen. Terry Link (D-Vernon Hills) tells the Sun-Times, "I believe the collar counties will decide who the next governor is going to be." And both major party candidates are both too clueless to realize it. more ›

Naperville, home to 7-figure historic houses, Ribfest, and 2 Targets is a suburbanite wet dream. Which is probably why their city council doesn't want homeless people cluttering up their spiffy downtown. They recently passed an ordinance 6 votes to 1 "banning sleeping, camping and storing personal property" anywhere on their downtown streets. The Naperville city attorney says they enacted this measure to "protect the economic vitality" of the area. more ›

A soldier was killed Thursday evening after getting food at a restaurant with his cousin, the Sun-Times reports. Simeon Sanders, 21, was shot while crossing the street to avoid men arguing on the sidewalk in the south suburb of Harvey. Sanders was visiting his family during his furlough. Harvey police are currently investigating the incident, according to the Sun-Times. Funeral arrangements are to be determined. more ›