Are big cats invading the suburbs? Every couple of years we hear about police getting panicked calls about cougars slinking around. After reading about the latest in Lake Forest, we checked in with Brookfield Zoo. more ›

Someone sent a scary-nasty letter to Mayor Daley as some kind of reaction to the cougar shooting, threatening to burn down Daley's summer home (which almost happened) and ranting about his family, and a source close to the investigation told the Sun-Times that the same person may have sent a threatening letter to the Brookfield Zoo in 2003. more ›

Oof, we just had a second where we thought it was Friday. But it's not! It's only Thursday. Time for some things that are awesome. more ›

We knew you couldn't stay out of the news for long, Roscoe Mellencamp, famously deceased locally-roaming cougar! We just didn't really expect this. Police are investigating a fire they say someone set last month near Mayor Daley's vacation home in Michigan, possibly out of anger over the death of the cougar. The fire didn't damage the Daley home, but it did destroy one of his neighbors' houses and damaged another. more ›

Items worth thousands of dollars were stolen from the South Side home where five people were murdered last week. A flat-screen TV, diamond jewelry, several watches and a pair of earrings are among the stolen items. So far, the police don't have any suspects. [Trib] more ›

If you, like us, were wondering what was going to happen to Roscoe Mellencamp's remains after his necropsy, wonder no more: The cougar killed in Roscoe Village has his final resting place at the Field Museum. The museum's famed mammal collection, which includes around 200,000 other specimens, now includes the bones and fur pelt of one more deceased big cat. more ›

Cartoon for Chicagoist by Tim Daly more ›

The mysteries about Monday's cougar-shooting continue, and first and foremost on everyone's mind is: Where did that cougar come from? Animal control authorities from Illinois and Wisconsin are running DNA tests to see if this was the same cougar that had been spotted in other residential areas in the Midwest the last few months. more ›

Police shot and killed a 150-pound cougar in Roscoe Village last night. No one really knows how it got to the North Side, or if it's a wild cougar or an escaped pet. (You're not supposed to have pet cougars, BTW.) more ›