It's business as usual at Calumet Harbor Tuesday March 2, 2010 even though the Asian carp is a few miles away from Lake Michigan in the Illinois Ship and Sanitary Canal. Its introduction into the Great Lakes could be a disaster for the environment.
Jose More/Chicago News Cooperative

Proposals to block Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes have largely focused on the costs and inconvenience of closing off Chicago-area waterways into Lake Michigan. But now business and environmental groups are exploring a possible upside: a broadly based infrastructure investment that would benefit much of northern Illinois.
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Ron Gibson (right) opens up a meeting of the Cafe Society with introductions of all the people in the room at Ron's Barber Shop on the West Side of Chicago Friday, February 12, 2010.
John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

In bright red letters, “Ron’s Barber Shop” is printed on the glass front at 6058 West North Avenue on Chicago’s far West Side. A bumper sticker is plastered on the shop’s back door with a message to the community: “Stop. Killing. People.”
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Naomi Davis, a leader of Blacks in Greens, a black environmental group, poses near a landfill in the South Side of Chicago Wednesday March 3, 2010.
JoseŽ MoreŽ/Chicago News Cooperative

No one can accuse Naomi Davis of lacking ambition. She wants simultaneously to rebuild black America and save the planet — one neighborhood at a time. She knows she cannot do either alone. Her plan is to recruit and train an army. A green army.
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While Mayor Richard M. Daley has changed tactics on residential recycling in an effort to build public participation in the program, that has not stopped him from recycling some of the politically connected people with prior experience at his once-vaunted Blue Bag plants.
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Effects of the Cuts
An analysis of C.T.A. scheduling data shows none of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods has seen an average wait time increase of more than 90 seconds during the afternoon rush hour, between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., left. The analysis also examined the impact of C.T.A. and Metra cuts at night between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., map at right. Neither study found a disproportionate impact on minority neighborhoods.

Click here to find out how the cuts have affected you.
For a high-resolution breakdown by neighborhood, click here and here.

Though critics of the Chicago Transit Authority’s recent cuts in service contend that the reductions disproportionately affect low-income and minority areas, a Chicago News Cooperative analysis of transit, racial and economic data paints a more even-handed, and milder, picture.
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Members of the audience opposed the closing of more schools Wednesday at a meeting of the Chicago Board of Education.
José Moré/Chicago News Cooperative

Josephine Norwood, a Bronzeville mother of three Chicago public school students, has rebounded from two rounds of school closings that displaced her children from their schools. As she watched the Board of Education approve another set of schools for closing or turnaround last week, Mrs. Norwood had a simple question: Can Chicago Public Schools officials promise that the new schools will be better?
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The former house of Tony Rezko is for sale again.
José Moré/Chicago News Cooperative

For a man known for his shady political and business dealings, Tony Rezko’s home life seems to have been more than sufficiently illuminated.
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Tom Balanoff, head of the Service Employees International Union, the biggest financial contributor to Illinois political campaigns.
John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

As the debate intensifies over what to do about Springfield’s $13 billion budget deficit, a powerful labor union has given Gov. Patrick J. Quinn another big number to take into account: $1.7 million.
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With a fiscal crisis looming in Illinois, some influential people concerned about the dismal condition of the state’s finances are proposing that lawmakers increase the individual income tax rate by two-thirds and the corporate rate by one-third.
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