We get it. Wash your hands. Cover your mouth. Stay home if you feel sick. The collective swine flu freakout has a bunch of us home from school, off of work, and generally playing sick-hooky. If you're trapped inside on a boring gray Thursday, here's a short list of possible sick-day activities. more ›

The Trib has a reader update page for Black Friday craziness but things seem...relatively tame. Police were called early Friday morning (like, 2:40 a.m. early) to Gurnee Mills Malls to take care of a rowdy bunch of shoppers waiting on the early morning store openings. Still, nothing can compare to the tragedy in Long Island where a Wal Mart worker was killed in a stampede of early morning shoppers and a crush of customers at the same store also injured a pregnant woman. Earlier reports said she suffered a miscarriage but those have been retracted. more ›