Trip World News

Destination: The Hawthorne Works Museum at Morton College in Cicero Payoff: Seeing the odd inventions that have evolved into our everyday technology. Walking through the Hawthorne Works Museum in Cicero, I was reminded of an evolution [...]

Dear Miss Manners: Please address the protocol of providing toiletries for one’s houseguests. My budget does not permit me to provide a basket of luxury bath items, but I always supply my guest bathroom with a fresh bar of bath soap, an ample [...]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan’s deposed chief justice sharply criticized President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday, calling him an “extremist general” for firing 60 judges and keeping the justice’s family — including his disabled 7-year-old son — under house arrest for three months. Iftikhar Mohammed [...]

Please submit listings by going online to metromix.com/listings.ADLER PLANETARIUM AND ASTRONOMY MUSEUM:Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity: Travel through worm holes, watch the creation of the Milky Way and witness the death of a star in this digital simulation in the StarRider Theater. Includes an audio tour; open end. 10:45 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 1:45 [...]

Itasca-based Arthur J. Gallagher %26amp; Co. will cut its back-office workforce by 400 positions in the next six to nine months, a shake-up announced Wednesday as the insurance brokerage posted a drop of nearly 5 percent in fourth-quarter profit. It also plans to [...]

The great thing about Chase’s automated teller machines is, there’s always one just around the corner. The maddening thing, if you’re not a Chase customer, is that it now costs $3 to use one. Chase, which has more ATMs than any other bank in Chicago, raised its [...]

The cost of getting a passport will hit $100 starting Friday. The increase is one of a series of changes this week that affect U.S. citizens traveling outside the country. Saying it needs more money “to cover the cost of providing efficient and [...]

As the value of their endowments rise, U.S. colleges and universities face increasing pressure to spend more to ease the financial load of their students. Last week, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee requested detailed financial data from 136 higher-education institutions with endowments of [...]

A former accounting clerk was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison for looting an Addison manufacturer of more than $1 million, which she used to feed a gambling addiction and buy diamonds and flat-screen TVs. Jonah Bantug, 43, of Davis Junction, near Rockford, [...]

Bidets — basins that stand alongside toilets so people can cleanse themselves after doing their business — have long been common in Europe. Toilet seats with bidet functions are popular in Japan. But in this country, to be delicate about it, the idea of [...]