As a clearer picture of what happened Tuesday begins to emerge, neighbors are still coming to the defense of Margaret Matthews, the 68-year-old woman who shot and injured a 12-year-old boy who is accused, along with an accomplice, of harassing the woman and vandalizing her home. The account police offered hadn't changed all that much from yesterday. Matthews had returned home from grocery shopping to find her windows broken and saw the two boys running from her house. She called the police but the boys returned, shouting at her and when she went outside, she found them standing on a nearby shed throwing bricks, one of which, she told the Tribune, hit her in the chest. She called police again, got her gun, and fired. Matthews told the Tribune, "There is no explanation for how I felt. I was terrified...The young man hit me in the chest with a brick. After a year of harassment, that was the straw that broke the camel's back." more ›

• 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.

Apparently multiple shootings and animal porn aren't the only problems facing the Chicago-area. Some disturbed Arlington Heights vandals decided to show one woman what they thought of her "Obama For President" signs by rubbing fecal matter all over them. Wait...what?

Robin Harris of Arlington Heights discovered Wednesday night that someone had smeared feces on two Obama presidential campaign signs in her front yard. more ›