Stories by Patty Wetli

The Chicago Park District has announced that for the first time since 2020, all of the district's 50 outdoor pools will be open seven days a week, beginning Saturday, just as temperatures are expected to soar into the 90s.

According to the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort, 2025 has been a year for the record books, with 82 breeding pairs counted.

Just days after Brookfield Zoo issued the exciting announcement of the first bottlenose dolphin born at the zoo in more than a decade, staff is mourning the sudden death of the calf on Wednesday night.

A space rock the color of coal and no larger than a pebble you’d shake from a shoe just arrived at the Field Museum, where scientists will spend the next two months probing this extraordinary specimen for clues to the origin of life on Earth.

Chicago native Natasha Olguin has been named deputy commissioner of the Chicago Film Office.

If private landowners don’t remove invasives alongside natural areas, species like buckthorn will persist in forest preserves and parks, regardless of habitat restoration efforts.

Dino Derby, a foot race featuring competitors wearing inflatable T. Rex costumes, will be the main event during Saturday's Dinopalooza festival at the Field Museum.

Graceland Cemetery's newest residents — a litter of coyote pups — are causing a stir.

Team owner Joe Mansueto will personally pay for the stadium, it was announced. Groundbreaking could take place in late 2025 with the stadium ready for play by the 2028 season.

Meteorological summer in Chicago is kicking off with a mini heatwave, following a chilly and dry end to spring.

Outbound express lanes on the Kennedy are reopening Sunday, a month ahead of schedule.

The explosives had been deployed earlier in May, and failed to activate, during a joint military exercise conducted by the Coast Guard and U.S. Air Force off the shore of Milwaukee.

Wildfires are burning out of control in central Canada, and the smoke is drifting toward Chicago.

The U.S. Coast Guard is warning the public about potential explosive devices that could wash up on Chicago-area beaches.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources said it is monitoring a bear that’s been spotted hanging out all week in St. Clair County, just east of St. Louis.

Illinois is once again moving forward with a planned barrier designed to keep invasive carp from entering the Great Lakes, having secured funding guarantees from the federal government.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has announced a $4.8 million settlement with Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, resolving environmental violations related to the building’s cooling system, which uses water drawn from the Chicago River.

Blaze and Pepper — the piping plover momma and papa who raised three chicks on a Waukegan beach in 2024 — are back on the nest with a full clutch of four eggs.

Chicago’s beaches are opening Friday, marking the unofficial start to summer.

Cook County Forest Preserves is on a mission to restore 30,000 acres of habitat to high-quality condition by the year 2030. There’s just one tiny little problem: a lack of native seed.

Chicago's piping plover pair, Imani and Sea Rocket, are officially expecting.

We asked experts what to do when you see something in the Chicago River that doesn’t belong there.

Chicago is cleaning up Friday after powerful thunderstorms tore through the city Thursday evening, bringing down hundreds of trees, leaving some without power, and even delaying the most highly anticipated concert event of the year.

The National Weather Service is warning of a threat for “significant severe weather” Thursday afternoon into the evening. Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour kicks off a three-night stand at Soldier Field Thursday night.

Ever since it opened in 2023, the Chicago Park District’s new 17-acre headquarters in Brighton Park has been known as Park 596.

The Chicago Park District is undertaking an inventory of its trees — counting their numbers and recording their health — in order to develop a management plan.