Sometimes, we here at Chicagoist get emails. Oh, we get emails all right, and every now and then, one of them piques our interests to the point where we'd like to know more. When one of those emails crosses our inbox with the perfect storm of plagarism, white supremacy, IP address tracking and Wheaton College, well, we thought we'd like to find out what was behind all of this. more ›

Princeton Review released its college rankings yesterday, and some Illinois schools have a lot to be happy about. Others....not so much. The results are from student surveys, so you have no one to blame but the kids at your alma mater. more ›

Chicagoist used to think the mumps was one of those quaint diseases like scurvy that only pirates and characters on House get, but apparently it's alive and kicking. Thirteen students at Wheaton College have come down with the mumps recently, and several other cases are being investigated. Even though most people are vaccinated against the disease, it only works 80 to 90 percent of the time. College students are especially susceptible because they live in such quarters and frequently "hook up," as the kids say. The mumps are about as contagious as the flu, so students are urged to take typical precautions like washing hands, covering their mouths when they sneeze, not sharing utensils, and asking potential mates to sign 14-part, legally-binding disclosures before they go out on dates. more ›

Don't Kill a Dream, Save a Life: Bring in a gun, get a hundred bucks. 42,000 pounds of unprocessed pork spilled in an accident and closed an IL highway. Unforch, the driver was killed. Would Evanston be better off if it were a part of Chicago? The National Merit Scholarship announced its first round of 2006 Merit Scholarship winners. 47 are from the Chicago area. NYT had an article on a study conducted by... more ›

Sometimes Chicagoist likes to venture out to the burbs and remind ourselves that politics outside the city limits is just as exciting as it is the Land of Daley. more ›

It’s the first week in January so most news organizations are combating the winter doldrums by gangbanging any news story that looks at them sideways. (This notion might be the only explanation why the story of the West Virginia miners—a legitimately newsworthy and tragic event—showed up on CNN’s Showbiz Today last night just before a story on Lindsey Lohan’s publicity st…er, bulimia and drug use). more ›

That’s Handel’s Messiah, of course—we don’t mean to imply that Jesus is making a personal appearance in the western burbs (although anything is possible, wouldn’t He probably check in with Oprah first? Pass around some free King James & what all?). more ›