You win some, you lose some, and sometimes you fight to a tie. In Chicago and elsewhere, there was a little of everything:
On the skids
Although the tulip buds were sprouting on Michigan Avenue, Old Man Winter was in no mood to let go of Chicago’s throat as spring officially arrived. Winds gusted to 35 m.p.h. and temperatures were actually 20 degrees below normal for this time of year, creating frozen roads that led to many accidents in the area, including a 22-car pileup that closed the outbound lanes of the Kennedy Expressway at Ontario Street on Thursday.
On the shelf
Bart the bull got another reprieve when the Glenview Park District put off a vote that could have cleared the way to send the patriarch of Wagner Farm to the slaughterhouse. The Park District board’s beef? The bull had outlived its usefulness, having grown sterile and so large that he poses a safety risk to visitors and other livestock. About 20 people attended a meeting to determine Bart’s fate, most of them supporters.
. . . And off the shelf
The huge Larsen Ice Shelf, which has hunkered along the Antarctic Peninsula for 12,000 years, has lost another significant chunk this month. With the breaking off of a 1,255-square-mile section, the 700-foot-thick block of ice has lost two-thirds of its mass in the last five years, a pace that alarms scientists. Since the late 1940s, the temperature near the peninsula has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit each decade; scientists fear this could lead to a rise in sea levels and catastrophic climate changes.
On the level
In England, the government announced that pubs that serve pints of beer less than 95 percent full could face prosecution. The current minimum is 90 percent. Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt said that the new measure would put 60 million pints of beer into British bellies each year, or about 4 pints per drinker.
On the rebound
After several years when hundreds of migratory gray whales washed up dead along the shores of Mexico and California, researchers and naturalists have counted many more calves in 2002 than they did all of last year. “It’s nice to see the species recovering,” said Gabriel Arturo Zaragoza, the census coordinator for the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, where the whales spend the winter.
On the move
Six lowland gorillas headed by the gentle male silverback Frank were lucky enough to be heading south as winter continued to reign in Chicago. The group was shipped to Louisville as the inaugural residents of the Kentucky zoo’s new ape facility while the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Lester Fisher Great Ape House is demolished and replaced with new construction. It was a stroke of luck that the Louisville Zoo is just finishing a 4-acre, indoor/outdoor gorilla facility designed for two gorilla families.
On the run
The war on terrorism has armed the Coast Guard to the teeth, and the agency is cutting them on drug smugglers who used to run circles around its vessels. Gone are the lumbering cutters that had little chance against smugglers’ 50-m.p.h. cigarette boats, and in their place are boats that can travel nearly 200 m.p.h. Not only that, but they carry helicopters, machineguns, marksmen and speedy inflatable boarding craft. So far this year, the Guard has seized 72,000 pounds of narcotics–mostly cocaine–compared with 138,000 pounds during all of last year.
Off limits
The Czech government declared a multimillion-dollar art collection looted by the Nazis “national treasures,” blocking their return to a Chicago-area man, who had claimed the collection of Emil Freund, his great-great-uncle. Gerald McDonald of west suburban Lyons said, “Sometimes I feel like just going over there and saying: Give me that art. It belonged to my great-great-uncle. He was killed by the Nazis. His art does not belong to you.”
. . . And just plain off
When Presa Canario purebreds were just considered massive, loyal but not overly aggressive dogs, they largely went unknown in the United States. But now that the Canary Island natives can be considered a murder weapon, every hoodlum in America wants one. “They’re looking for that designer weapon that could make them look tougher,” said Tracy Hennings, a breeder. The breed gained notoriety after two dogs killed a woman in San Francisco; one of the owners has been convicted of second-degree murder.
THE STAT
37.5
(How many millions of dollars were lost by Illinois businesses each business day as college hoops fans debated the fortunes of the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. This figure was calculated by international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. and assumes a daily 10-minute discussion.)
CROSSWINDS
“The pope seems focused on this notion that there are a few bad apples, when this is really a leadership crisis.” — R. Scott Appleby, a University of Notre Dame scholar, criticizing Pope John Paul II’s writing in reaction to recent incidents of pedophilia in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church
“You have to remember this letter is addressed to priests who feel depressed and demoralized by what’s going on. The pope is trying to reach out to them.” — Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Catholic weekly America
