The spring equinox is still a few weeks away, but meteorologists mark March 1 as the official start of spring. Someone forgot to tell March. 

The projects, proposed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot at Wednesday's City Council meeting, would largely be funded through Tax Increment Financing dollars.

The lakefront is arguably Chicago’s crown jewel, but that status is threatened, according to Preservation Chicago, which placed the lakefront on its annual endangered list for 2021, citing threats including development of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park and erosion from rising lake levels.

Postponing activities like laundry, running the dishwasher or even showering will provide maximum capacity in the sewers for snow melt.

Animals that wouldn’t be able to survive on their own in the wild are getting the care they need, and are helping educate the public, at five forest preserve nature centers around Cook County. But during COVID-19, people aren’t allowed to go inside these centers, so the animals and their caretakers reach out virtually.

The Chicago Park District announced Tuesday that lakefront parks and playgrounds will reopen, nearly a year after they were closed due to the coronavirus.

NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface.

After numerous winter storms this month left much of the Chicago area blanketed in an entire season’s worth of snowfall and ushered in dangerously cold wind chills, warmer temperatures are expected in the coming days. But first: more snow.

First came the big chill, then the big dig, and now officials are warning Chicagoans to prepare for the big melt. With temperatures on the rise, the snow that’s accumulated over the past three weeks is about to turn into a river. 

This week’s killer freeze in the U.S. was no surprise. Government and private meteorologists saw it coming, some nearly three weeks in advance. And yet catastrophe happened. At least 20 people have died and 4 million homes at some point lost power, heat or water.

NASA’s Perseverance rover greeted its global audience on Twitter, beaming back to Earth the first image captured after touching down Thursday afternoon on Mars. 

A collective groan may or may not have been heard around Chicago when the city awoke to find it was snowing — again. Geoffrey Baer explains how this recent blast of snowy weather stacks up against Chicago’s most infamous winter storms.

Humans are making Earth a broken and increasingly unlivable planet through climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. So the world must make dramatic changes to society, economics and daily life, a new United Nations report says.

NASA prepares to land a rover on Mars designed specifically to detect signs of ancient life. Local astronomer and space exploration enthusiast Mark Hammergren tells us more about the mission.

Students from across Chicago voted on the name for the Shedd’s 5-month old Pacific white-sided dolphin calf.

If winter 2021 feels epic, that’s because it has been. According to the National Weather Service, it’s been 40 years since Chicago has seen so much snow in such a short span of time.