Public transportation use in Chicago has hit levels not seen since the 1990s, mostly because of rising gas prices and employment. It's up throughout the U.S., though the increase is mostly in rail rather than buses. Read more
Some people are still sore about Chicago not getting the Olympics, a wound re-opened by the G8 mess. But in trying and failing, we might have won by losing. Read more
Hactivist Jeremy Hammond, practitioner of not-so-civil disobedience, gets busted by the feds... for the second time in his young life. It's practically a replay of his first arrest. Read more
A new study suggests that the CTA's implementation of bus tracking—on its web site, on smart phones, and at bus stops—has led to a small but noticeable increase in weekday ridership, even if you adjust for what you'd expect. Read more
THE ICEMEN COMETH: Corey Crawford has one of the loneliest jobs in sports. But now he's got company: his backup and potential replacement, Ray Emery Read more
Sheriff Joe Arpaio claims that the digital layers contained within the Obama birth-certificate PDF are evidence that it's faked. If you have a scanner and Adobe Illustrator, you can play along with the debunking at home. Read more
The collapse of Detroit is attributed to a familiar litany of reasons, but they're ones that, in many ways, are shared by our city. A local urban planner, born in Detroit, shares some ideas for why the Motor City's collapse was so much worse than its Rust Belt peers. Read more
The state is way behind on its Medicaid bills, and facing a hugely expensive backlog, as it has periodically over the past couple decades. The state doesn't have a lot of options for cutting back on its Medicaid spending, but there are a couple areas where substantial progress could be made. Read more
Amtrak's stats confirm what you've probably already noticed—traffic congestion is terrible, whether you're in a train or a car. But it's just as bad for the people whose jobs are on the rails, thanks to the nation's worst rail bottleneck. Read more
Chicago now has less than ten percent of the number of taverns as it did in the days of the saloon. Two abstemious mayors, the changing demographics of alcohol consumers, and the spread of liquor licenses to other establishments have done them in. Read more