Stories by Patty Wetli

Monitors have confirmed that for the third year running Sea Rocket has returned to Montrose and Blaze is back at Waukegan.

Officials said the zoo remains open and “animal care continues without interruption.”

Deborah Witzburg served a single four-year term as inspector general and declined to ask Mayor Brandon Johnson for reappointment following frequent clashes with the mayor.

Pepper has been spotted on a Waukegan beach, where he and mate Blaze nested in 2024 and '25.

The annual City Nature Challenge has rolled around again, and everyone's invited to join the effort to boost the Chicago region's standing in this friendly global competition.

Lincoln Park Zoo’s baby Eastern black rhino is ready to meet her adoring public.

What kind of outdoorsman leaves Colorado for Illinois? Six months into his tenure as general superintendent with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Adam Bianchi still gets asked that question.

A bird-friendly building ordinance has once again been introduced to the Chicago City Council — the second time such legislation has been brought before City Council since 2019 — but advocates fear the measure was dead on arrival.

The Chicago Harbor Lock was built in the 1930s as part of the project that famously reversed the flow of the Chicago River. WTTW News explains.

Thunderstorms dumped 2.43 inches of rain at O'Hare Airport, Chicago's official weather station.

Chicagoans should prepare for anything weather-wise on Tuesday as meteorologists track storms potentially developing to the west.

Once again, early bird honors go to Pippin, the unlucky-in-love bachelor who’s marking his third year at Montrose in search of a mate.

There’s a divide in the pollinator gardening movement between those who advocate for nothing but native plantings and those whose standards are less rigid. New research suggests there’s a middle ground.

Cook County’s Trash Bash series offers people a one-stop shop to unload items for donation or recycling.

Something sweet is coming to Chicago in 2027: the Candy Hall of Fame Experience.

Jackson Park’s cherry trees are beginning to blossom, a South Side rite of spring that’s as bewitching as it is unpredictable.

The change was suggested at Wednesday’s meeting of the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners.

Tickets to the highly anticipated Obama Presidential Center, which opens June 19, will go on sale to the general public May 6, the Obama Foundation has announced.

To address “long-standing registration frustrations,” the district announced the first wave of improvements to the process, set to take effect this year.

If the weather holds, NASA will send four astronauts into space today on a 10-day mission to the moon and back, something the agency hasn't done in more than 50 years.

March weather madness continued Monday with record-setting warmth followed by thunderstorms, and a cool down on the way.

Watch where you park on Chicago’s streets starting April 1 or risk a fine.

Lincoln Park Zoo is celebrating the arrival of a baby eastern black rhinoceros, born early Thursday morning.

The bright daylight fireball was visible across a large swath of the U.S., from Illinois to Maryland to New York, at approximately 7:55 a.m. Central time.

A newly released survey of the eastern monarch’s 2025-26 winter population in Mexico showed a 64% increase over 2024-25.

Four candidates (all Democrats) are on the ballot for three available six-year terms on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Board of Commissioners, all but one of them running as an incumbent.