6 days ago
Daywatch: ‘Ghost buses' may no longer haunt riders
Good morning, Chicago.
After years of rider complaints about 'ghost buses' — buses that show up on transit tracker apps but fail to arrive in real life — the CTA has started publicly sharing data about canceled bus runs.
The data is available on the CTA's online bus tracker at CTA spokesperson Manny Gonzales said.
The CTA has not yet started sharing canceled bus information on its ticketing app, Ventra, which also has a bus and train tracking function. Gonzales said the agency was working with the Ventra team to make the information available there.
'Hopefully this allows people to have a lot more confidence whenever they take CTA to know if and when their bus is coming,' Miller told the Tribune's Talia Soglin.
Read the full story from the Tribune's Talia Soglin.
Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day, including a look back at Chicago's role in the development of the atomic bomb, what Mayor Brandon Johnson said about the controversial pension sweetener for Chicago cops and firefighters and a transformed club scene featuring coffee.
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Hiroshima marked the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the western Japanese city today, with many aging survivors expressing frustration about the growing support of global leaders for nuclear weapons as a deterrence.
In the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV said that he was praying for those who suffered physical, psychological and social effects from the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, adding that the event remains 'a universal warning against the devastation caused by wars and, in particular, by nuclear weapons.'
The Department of Health and Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines that are being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu.
As Texas House Democrats hunker down in Illinois and other blue states to try to stop a Republican-led redistricting plan in their state, national Democrats and one of their hosts, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, ratcheted up their rhetoric yesterday, saying anything goes in the face of such Republican aggression.
Mayor Brandon Johnson acknowledged a controversial pension sweetener for Chicago cops and firefighters signed into law late last week by Gov. JB Pritzker will significantly set back Chicago's fiscal health but maintained both his and the governor's hands were tied.
For most of his adult life, Crosetti Brand terrorized and abused women, prosecutors said, until a brave 11-year-old boy stopped him for good.
Not yet a teenager, Jayden Perkins was forced to protect his pregnant mother from a vicious attack on March 13, 2024, in their Edgewater apartment. Jayden died of his stab wounds, but his mother lived to later gave birth to his younger sister and testified against their assailant, helping to put Brand, 39, in prison for the rest of his life.
Calling the slaying 'exceptionally brutal,' Judge Angela Petrone sentenced Brand yesterday to the maximum possible punishment, a life sentence plus an additional 120 years in prison following an emotional hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
More Crime and Public Safety coverage:
A proposed law on the governor's desk would expand the reach of personal injury lawyers, allowing them to file suit against any business operating in Illinois that exposes individuals to toxic substances — even if the company and the plaintiffs are based in another state.
A day after taking an afternoon team-bonding trip to the beach, the Bears turned things up a notch and held their most intense practice of training camp yesterday afternoon.
A physical two-hour session featured an abundance of live tackling and several skirmishes. The competitive tenacity was elevated from the start and didn't recede until after the final air horn blew. Here's a snapshot of all that occurred in Lake Forest.
The move comes amid budgetary concerns at the city of Aurora, with Mayor John Laesch saying at a recent public meeting that the city is facing a 'significant hole' between revenue and expenses in 2026, and that the city has been giving the Aurora Civic Center Authority 'way too much.'
However, Laesch told The Beacon-News that the Paramount is 'an important crown jewel in the city of Aurora,' and that he would 'work hard to make sure it doesn't shut down on my watch,' though it isn't close to doing that. He previously said that the Paramount is 'vital for our downtown' and, without it, many of the restaurants in downtown would likely end up closing.
Imagine this: It is late afternoon. Rather than returning home from the series of errands you ran throughout the day to prepare for dinner or a late night dancing to techno in an underground bar, your main social event of the day has already begun. A rising DJ with an ever-growing social media following is playing a mix of contemporary R&B and underground Afrobeats. Millennials are commingling with Gen Xers and Gen Zers as the packed room overflows onto the street. And instead of sipping a gin and tonic or a beer, you're drinking a coffee by Tizoc red de Totutla from Puebla, Mexico.
A startup recently profiled by Variety is promising an AI tool that will allow the average viewer to type in a few keywords and generate new episodes of a TV show either from scratch or 'based on an existing story-world someone else has created.' It won't be the only company to offer this kind of AI, but the service will apparently be free before eventually switching to a monthly subscription in the $10-$20 range. Users will also be able to share these 'new' shows on video platforms like YouTube.
Tribune TV and film critic Nina Metz asks: Will people be allowed to monetize content that's really just a soulless, artificial version of pre-existing shows?
