Wisconsin

As Schools Break Ranks, Union Looks for Answers
Fri, 09/02/2011
Just days after ruling out a strike, the Chicago Teachers Union finds itself grappling with dissent and fighting for public support, as district leaders have begun circumventing the union in their push for a longer day this school year. After pressing the union unsuccessfully to agree to a longer day throughout the summer, Chicago Public Schools...

Biggest Stock of Foreclosed Homes: Right Here
Fri, 07/08/2011
Although it never shared the notoriety of Miami, Los Angeles and Phoenix during America’s foreclosure crisis, the Chicago area now has the nation’s largest inventory of foreclosed homes because it is harder to unload troubled properties here than in most other metropolitan areas. The inventory data compiled by RealtyTrac, a California company...

Chicago’s New Gridiron Star
Sun, 05/01/2011
Jessica Springer left a lasting impression on Linda Bache three years ago in a women’s football championship game. Springer was a 220-pound running back and linebacker for the Dallas Diamonds. Bache, playing safety for the Chicago Force, tried to tackle her and suffered a concussion that, combined with another hit she took later in the game,...

Touring Toxic Chicago
Tue, 04/26/2011
Much of the steel that built Chicago was made there. And in decades past, most of Chicago’s trash ended up there. Much of our sewage still does, and it has the city’s only Superfund cleanup site. The Southeast Side, including the neighborhoods of Hegewisch, South Deering and Pullman around Lake Calumet, also was the stomping grounds of one of the...

Notre Dame Professor Leads Effort to Keep Asian Carp Out of Great Lakes
Thu, 03/31/2011
When the United States Fish and Wildlife Service decided in March to ban the import and transport of bighead carp — one of the infamous Asian carp — under a century-old law called the Lacey Act, David Lodge had one reaction. “It’s about time,” he said.  It figures that Mr. Lodge, 54, a professor of biological sciences at the University of...