On this day in 1942, a University of Chicago team led by Enrico Fermi created the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, in converted squash courts under Stagg Field, the University’s football stadium. more ›

Dale L. Mortensen, the Ida C. Cook Professor of Economics at Northwestern University, was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics. Professor Mortensen will share the $1.5 million prize with MIT professor and Federal Reserve Board nominee Peter Diamond and Christopher Pissarides of London School of Economics and Political Science. more ›

• Lawyers for asshat/former governor Rod Blagojevich have requested that his trial be moved to at least November.
• Today in the Boender Bribery trial.
• The first full body scanner was installed today in the United terminal at O'Hare.

• In light of yesterday's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, a bankruptcy court judge has once more given the okay for the Cubs to be sold to the Ricketts family.
• If, in a few months, you feel like your copy of the Chicago Tribune is shrinking, you're not imagining it.
• An Indiana National Guard soldier committed suicide in a Muncie, Indiana movie theater last night.

While it's unlikely this Nobel Prize win will bring the attention of that other Nobel winner, it's still worth noting Indiana Univ. professor Elinor Ostrom was named the co-recipient of this year's Nobel Prize in Economics. Ostrom is the first woman to win the award since it's inception over 40 years ago and she shares the award with Oliver Williamson, a professor at the University of California. According to the New York Times, "Ms. Ostrom’s work focuses on the commons, such as how pools of users manage natural resources as common property." [NYT, WBEZ] more ›

If you are a big fan of Gigio's Pizza, then you are in luck. They're running a promotion right now where saving 20 menus will earn you $5 off an order. MenuPages attempted to look into the small print of the promotion, but was seemingly unable to get anyone from Gigio's to pick up the phone. If you want to spend $400+ dollars to save $5, now you know how. Alternatively, as suggested by Adam... more ›

University of Chicago econ professor Roger Myerson won the Nobel Prize in economics today for "[laying] the foundations of mechanism design theory." Myerson is the latest in a long line of U of C laureates. more ›

Sure, Al Gore got a Nobel Prize today, but the environment? Well, it's still pretty fucked. Nearly half of Illinois's waterways are unsafe for swimming or fishing. more ›

Lauded as one of the great economic minds of the late 20th Century, Milton Friedman died today in San Francisco. more ›

We love to see people on the El all reading the same book. It’s a great conversation starter and it’s even more fun when it’s part of the Chicago Public Library’s One Book, One Chicago program. On February 15, CPL announced the tenth book in the program, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. What’s extra cool about this pick is that we will partner up with readers in our sister... more ›

Saul Bellow, the Nobel laureate whose life and characters were deeply associated with Chicago has died at the age of 89. Bellows won many awards - the National Book Award 3 times, even. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for a book called Humboldt's Gift, which reflected on the challenges of European immigrant life in Humboldt Park. That same year he won the Nobel Prize in literature. When he was just 9 years old,... more ›

NewCity announced its Lit 50 today, a list of the top 50 “literati who help make our city as vibrant as possible by hosting readings and festivals; the bestsellers who flex Chi pride when they're meeting with their New York publisher; the writers whose prose we've always admired.” No shockers with Studs Terkel coming in first and U of C professor and Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee came in second, but they are really... more ›