The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in Sackett v. EPA, which challenges the scope of the Clean Water Act and could have far-reaching implications for the nation's wetlands.

Chicago has long had a tortured relationship with recycling. City leaders have scrapped old programs and replaced them with new ones, but the result is the same  recycling rates in the single digits. 

Chicago bills itself as a world-class city, but when it comes to recycling, its performance has been less than first-rate. 

Florida, with nearly four dozen reported dead, was hit hardest by the Category 4 hurricane, one of the strongest to make landfall in the United States. Flooded roadways and washed-out bridges to barrier islands left many people isolated amid limited cellphone service and a lack of basic amenities such as water, electricity and the internet.

With South Carolina’s coast under a hurricane warning, many left Charleston for higher ground and store owners used sandbags to ward off high water levels in an area prone to inundation.

Floodwaters rose waist-high near Orlando as one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the United States crossed the peninsula. Ian's tropical-storm-force winds extended outward up to 415 miles, drenching much of Florida and the southeastern Atlantic coast.

His alter ego, Ron Swanson, may have been an anti-government government employee, but in real life, actor Nick Offerman has thrown his support behind a referendum that would increase the property tax levy for the Forest Preserve District of Cook County.

About 2.5 million people were ordered to evacuate southwest Florida before the storm hit the coast with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. It was heading inland, where it was expected to weaken, at about 9 mph, but residents in central Florida could still experience hurricane-force winds.

The beloved duo live on in limestone, their instantly recognizable images carved into a block of the rock wall that separates the dunes from an adjacent paved path. They now join the thousands of modern-day “petroglyphs” that date back to at least the 1930s.

Northern Indiana Public Service Company is retiring the 130-acre Michigan City Generating Station, which has been burning coal for electricity for nearly a century. The company is also cleaning up decades of coal ash byproduct. But advocates say plans to leave some coal ash on the site puts groundwater and Lake Michigan in danger of contamination. 

A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.

Ian was forecast to hit the western tip of Cuba as a major hurricane and then become an even stronger Category 4 with top winds of 140 mph over warm Gulf of Mexico waters before striking Florida. As of Monday, Tampa and St. Petersburg appeared to be among the most likely targets for their first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921.

Jupiter is making its closest approach to Earth since 1963 on Monday night, and the views should be especially spectacular.

Hundreds of millions of birds are currently on the move every night across North America as they wing their way south during fall migration. Chicago is under a high alert Sunday, with a massive number of birds expected to pass overhead.

Officials are reporting that nine of the endangered bees were found during a recent survey of Lake County forest preserves.

The annual Adopt-A-Beach cleanup, organized by the Alliance for the Great Lakes, is set for Saturday.