• An Amber Alert was issued today for two Zion girls taken from their mother by their father at gunpoint. The girls were found and reunited with their mother but as of late this afternoon the father was still at large.
• Police have charged a suspect in Sunday's hit-and-run in Rogers Park that killed a woman and critically injured her 6-year-old sun.
• The bad weather has settled in as has the havoc being wreaked with local travel.

• Two Metra workers have been suspended after a weekend incident in which a young boy's foot got caught in a train's closing doors.
• Our thoughts and prayers go to the family of Sergeant Albert Ware, a Chicago soldier killed by an IED in Afghanistan last week.
• Edward Stapinski, the Lockport police officer involved in a deadly car crash on the Stevenson Sunday night, is being held on $750,000 bond. Stapinski's blood-alcohol level was allegedly three times the legal limit upon his arrest.

Summer travel season is still in full swing and Wired magazine released its "100 Geeky Places To Take Your Kids This Summer" list. Chicago's very own Adler Planetarium starts the list, the proposed home to a controversial projector. Also making the list? Lincoln Park Zoo and the Shedd Aquarium. more ›

Qannik, the first successful male beluga whale born through the Shedd Aquarium's captive beluga breeding program, died from a bacterial blood infection according to a report released by the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington three weeks after his death on March 28 . He was 8-years-old. more ›

Happy Leap Day! While it hasn't officially become Pizza Party USA day, there are plenty of ways to celebrate. more ›

The Shedd Aquarium is free through Friday, and Chicagoist can’t think of a more mesmerizing place to take your kids. more ›

Busy day for local museums: the Field Museum is raising its admissions prices, and the Shedd Aquarium is looking to expand its office space. Adler Planetarium? Anything? No? Shedd officials say their 300 employees are cramped, thus an additional 24,000 square feet of workspace, plus "a ground level terrace on the north side of the structure, build another elevator and upgrade its food-service kitchen." The proposed addition apparently wouldn't really affect how the Oceanarium... more ›