Updated at 3:30 p.m. ET: Snow was falling heavily by midafternoon in Chicago as a winter storm spread east, NBCChicago.com reported.

Though no significant delays were reported, airlines at O’Hare Airport canceled more than 300 flights, NBCChicago.com said. At Midway Airport, Southwest Airlines canceled all 70 of its flights scheduled between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Friday.

The Chicago Department of Aviation urged passengers to check airline websites for status updates.

The Milwaukee area was seeing light snow at midday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Original story: Snow is forecast for Chicago, Milwaukee and other Midwestern cities Friday as a winter system travels toward the Northeast, according to The Weather Channel.

Grizzlies are high profile this year.

A lingering winter and late berry crop kept bears in proximity to humans longer than normal, perhaps contributing to a stream of headlines about grizzlies killing people and people killing grizzlies.

Meanwhile, a young lady on a big horse charged out of the pack of grizzly stories near Glacier National Park. In a cloud of dust, the 25-year-old wrangler likely saved a boy’s life while demonstrating that skill, quick-thinking and guts sometimes are the best weapons against a head-on charging grizzly.

The man suspected of killing a ranger at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State is believed to have been found dead, according to police.

Authorities located a body face-down in the snow without any identification, but believe it to be Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, the sole suspect in Sunday’s shooting, according to a Twitter posting from Washington State Patrol spokesman Guy Gill.

Barnes was being tracked by ground and aerial search crews for the shooting death of 34-year-old ranger Margaret Anderson, who tried to block his path when Barnes sped past a checkpoint in the park Sunday morning. Barnes fired shots at Anderson and another ranger before fleeing into the park’s wilderness. The other ranger was not injured.

Thousands of birds died on impact after apparently mistaking a Wal-Mart parking lot and other areas of southern Utah for bodies of water and plummeting to the ground in what one wildlife expert called the worst downing she’s ever seen.

Crews went to work cleaning up the dead birds and rescuing the survivors after the creatures crash-landed in the St. George area Monday night.

By Tuesday evening, volunteers had rescued more than 2,000 birds, releasing them into nearby bodies of water.

“They’re just everywhere,” Teresa Griffin, wildlife program manager for the Utah Department of Wildlife Resource’s southern region, told The Spectrum newspaper in St. George. “It’s been nonstop. All our employees are driving around picking them up, and we’ve got so many people coming to our office and dropping them off.”

A defunct German satellite is expected to fall to Earth this weekend, with experts predicting that up to 30 big pieces of the junked spacecraft could hit the planet. But exactly when and where the satellite will fall remains a mystery.

The 2.7-ton Roentgen Satellite, or ROSAT, will likely plummet to Earth on Saturday or Sunday, according to the latest update from the German Aerospace Center.

“Currently, the re-entry date can only be calculated to within plus/minus one day,” agency officials said in a statement. “This time slot of uncertainty will be reduced as the date of re-entry approaches. However, even one day before re-entry, the estimate will only be accurate to within plus/minus five hours.”

Las Vegas (CNN) — At first glance, it’s pretty easy to say Las Vegas has an unhealthy water fetish. There’s the 22-million-gallon Bellagio fountain, which rockets dancing cylinders of well water 500 feet into the air to the tune of “God Bless the USA.” There’s the liquid volcano at The Mirage, where water seems to bubble like lava. And, finally, the blue canals inside (inside!) the Venetian hotel, where water buoys gondolas for the amusement of gamblers and tourists.

Keep in mind that this city is in the middle of the Mojave Desert, one of the hottest and driest places in the world.

It’s a little reassuring that progress marches forward, despite our nation’s best efforts to stop it. Solar in particular appears to be growing in leaps and bounds due in large part to a 60 percent drop in price per kW (kilowatt) production in just the past three years. In many regions solar power is getting competitive with coal power, and its price will continue to drop with the onset of a many new advancements in solar technology.

I’ve been keeping abreast of the latest solar developments happening at MIT, and over the past few months scientists appear to be having one breakthrough after another. Below I’ve listed five of the most impressive — taken together, these could mean nearly infinite solar energy, stored easily and safely at a fraction of the cost of burning coal:

NEW ORLEANS — BP is arguing that victims of last year’s Gulf oil spill should not be paid any more claims for future losses because the areas affected by the spill have recovered and the economy is improving.

The British oil company makes its case in a 29-page document filed
with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which administers the $20 billion
fund for victims.

It criticizes several aspects of the fund’s policies and claims that
at some times it has paid victims more than is allowed under the federal
Oil Pollution Act.

LAUREL, Montana — Exxon Mobil came under fire on Wednesday from Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who said the oil giant had assured Montana that any spill on the Yellowstone River could be shut off in a few minutes. Instead it took at least 48 minutes for that to happen when a pipeline ruptured on July 1, releasing an estimated 42,000 gallons of oil into the longest undammed river in the U.S.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in March, the appetite for new nuclear power plants slipped to post-Chernobyl lows. Regulators from Italy to Switzerland to Texas moved to stop pending nuclear-power projects, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) began to re-evaluate the safety of all domestic plants. Yet nuclear power still provides 20 percent of America’s total electric power and 70 percent of its emissions-free energy, in large part because no alternative energy source can match its efficiency.