Stories by Patty Wetli

The Black Crowes and Charley Crockett round out the music lineup for Chicago Street Race Weekend, July 1-2.

Lingering lake effect snow could make the evening rush hour an equal exercise in patience, according to the National Weather Service.

The National Weather Service is trackiThe National Weather Service is tracking a storm set to hit late Tuesday, with peak snowfall during Wednesday morning’s commute. The greatest snow totals are expected east of I-55 and south of I-80.ng a storm set to hit late Tuesday, with peak snowfall during Wednesday morning's commute. The greatest snow totals are expected east of I-55 and south of I-80.

Pending confirmation by the Illinois Senate, Natalie Phelps Finnie is poised to become just the second woman to head the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, following in the trailblazing footsteps of her immediate predecessor Colleen Callahan.

A low-flying helicopter, towing what looks like a giant hula hoop, is set to pass over a wide swath of the state's midsection into Northwest Indiana, surveying the Illinois River watershed. 

Looks like we’re going to have to come up with replacements for terms like “starstruck” and “starry-eyed.” Scientists say the visibility of stars is rapidly fading as light pollution increases.

Monuments can be created by the stroke of a president’s pen, and undone by the same. As a national historical park, Pullman now has added protections.

The board will help ensure the growth, maintenance and health of Chicago’s tree canopy for generations to come, officials said. The group’s first meeting could come as early as February.

The Department of Streets and Sanitation has announced the 50 finalists in the contest. Voting is open to Chicago residents through Jan. 31.

The preservation community is coming around to considering the 1970s and 1980s to be historic, ushering in a new wave of buildings up for landmark consideration.

Remember the pair of mountain lions (aka cougars, aka pumas, aka panthers) that wandered into Illinois last fall? Scientists say folks east of the Mississippi should expect more of such sightings.

January and February are prime months for bald eagle watching in Illinois, with some 3,000 of the raptors hanging out in the state during the winter.

Supporters of Promontory Point can breathe a sigh of relief that the peninsula's much loved stair-step limestone wall is poised, finally, to become protected from attempts to replace it with concrete.

The road to city landmark status for Promontory Point starts at Thursday’s meeting of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. Supporters have been fighting to protect the lakefront peninsula for more than 20 years.

Wastewater sampling has been a key early-warning tool for detecting spikes in the spread of COVID-19, and now Illinois is making its data available to the public through an interactive online dashboard.

Lincoln Park Zoo announced it welcomed not one, not two, but three lion cubs on Monday. The zoo had been on lion watch since early December, when staff confirmed 4-year-old African lion Zari was pregnant.

The six recommended appointees to the board, which was created in June 2021, all received unanimous support during a key committee hearing. Next up is a full Chicago City Council vote.

"Despite promising signs of recovery the first 48 hours, the bird took a very rapid turn for the worst," Willowbrook Wildlife Center shared on social media.

A GPS collar allowed researchers to track the wolf from Michigan all the way to Manitoba, Canada. That's just one of the wild stories we followed this week.

Live trees — well, not so live anymore — can be recycled at any one of 26 citywide locations, Jan. 7-21.

Rescuing a bald eagle floating on ice in open water raises the stakes exponentially, but volunteers with Chicago Bird Collision Monitors proved up to the task with a New Year's Day recovery effort.

We checked in with the experts at Streets and Sanitation, and here's what's accepted in the city's blue recycling carts and what isn't.

There's still plenty of holiday merriment to be made through the New Year. 

Enjoy a cosmic Christmas, with all five naked-eye planets visible in the sky. The moon, Mercury and Venus will form a sparkling triangle on Christmas Eve. 

From industrious sharks to the bird of the year, here’s what caught our attention this week on the climate and nature beat.

The snow total from Thursday was a mere 1.3 inches at O'Hare (though northwest Indiana and lower Michigan have been hammered with lake effect), but the real danger of this system was always the wind and cold, meteorologists said.