Nearly half of the Chicago red light cameras included in a new Tribune study did nothing to make drivers safer and may have caused an increase in injury-related crashes.

Researchers hired by the Tribune to analyze the effects of the city’s cameras said the finding involved 43 of the 90 camera intersections in the study — the ones that averaged fewer than four injury crashes a year before red light cameras were installed.

The small number of total crashes makes it difficult to know for certain whether the cameras were to blame for the increases, but the scientists from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute said they are confident in their conclusion that the cameras offered no safety benefit at those intersections.

More than a quarter of all people in Winnebago and Boone counties combined rely on LINK to put food on the table.

Schemira Shotwell’s Christmas just got brighter. Thanks to the Salvation Army she has gifts to give to her kids for Christmas and food to put on the table.

“Without this program we would not have a Christmas at all,” Shotwell said.

A record number of households in Illinois are dependent on food stamps. That’s according to the Illinois Policy Institute.

It says more than one million homes rely on food stamps.

That’s 22 percent of all households in the state and the highest number in Illinois’ history.

As in much of the state, opinions in Northern Illinois vary on a new eavesdropping bill now on Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk.

State Sen. Tim Bivins, R-Dixon, who served 20 years as Lee County’s sheriff, said he voted against the bill because it failed to address police use of body cameras.

“We need to address this and get the standards clearly spelled out,” Bivins said.

Last week, New York Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo banned the practice in his state of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” — blasting chemical laden water deep beneath the Earth at extreme pressures in order to crack rock and release natural gas. The move followed a report from the New York Department of Health, finding “significant uncertainties about the kinds of adverse health outcomes” that may be associated with the technology. It found the science on this question was uncertain but worrisome, and that was enough to put on the brakes.

Yet just a month ago, outgoing Maryland Democratic governor Martin O’Malley decided to let fracking go forward in the western part of his state. This, in turn, was based on a report from Maryland’s departments of Environment and Natural Resources, which concluded that with adequate regulation,”the risks of Marcellus Shale development can be managed to an acceptable level.”

So what’s going on here? How can two states comprehensively assess the risks of hydraulic fracturing and then decide on very divergent policies?

A published report says a Chicago Board of Education member appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel has stake in companies that’ve seen a boost in the business they get from city schools.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday that from 2010 until Deborah Quazzo’s 2013 appointment, money paid to companies she invested in totaled $930,000. The companies saw an additional $2.9 million in Chicago Public Schools business since the appointment.

Quazzo says she doesn’t see a conflict of interest. She says she invests in companies that improve outcomes for children and hasn’t concealed her involvement.

Another Chicagoland school district is throwing its students a bone – or at least larger lunch portions.

Mundelein High School District 120 is officially dropping out of the National School Lunch Program, making it at least the second one in the Chicago area to do so this school year.

Leaving the federal program allows the school “total flexibility to design the food service to our students’ needs,” Superintendent Kevin Myers tells the Daily Herald.

The mayor of Springfield says he anticipates the “most difficult” budget he’s had to put together.

Mayor Mike Houston tells The (Springfield) State Journal-Register for a story published over the weekend that it’s a “very very tight budget.”

For three years, Springfield officials have been making cuts. City officials say there aren’t many obvious places left to make reductions.