Stories by Patty Wetli

NASCAR officials have announced their traffic plan for the Chicago Street Race course, and, not surprisingly for a sport that emphasizes speed, set-up and tear-down will take fewer days than in 2024.

"Unofficial" trails were damaging rare ecosystems in Swallow Cliff Woods. The forest preserve district asked people to stick to marked paths and the message succeeded.

A new notification system is being proposed at access points along the Chicago River to warn recreational users when untreated wastewater has entered the waterway.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the forecast for Chicago includes a chance of almost anything and everything: rain, thunderstorms, wind and even snow.

A group of microscopic sunflower sea star larva arrived at Shedd Aquarium last year and have been bulking up behind the scenes ever since. Now, after growing 16,000%, they’re ready to make their public debut.

A high wind warning is in effect for Chicago through noon on Saturday, with the potential to bring down trees and power lines, according to the National Weather Service.

This week’s lunar eclipse will be the first witnessed in high-def from the moon itself — technically a solar eclipse on the moon — thanks to a lunar lander. “I cannot wait for this to happen,” said astronomer Michelle Nichols of Adler Planetarium.

The decades-old St. Patrick's Day tradition routinely attracts tens of thousands of revelers to the riverfront, but in recent years it's also attracted criticism from environmentalists.

Brian Gladstein, a long-time Rogers Park resident with an extensive background in nonprofit management, will lead the organization into its 50th year.

The dump — known as a confined disposal facility — was constructed in 1984 to store polluted sediment dredged from the Calumet River and Cal-Sag Channel. When it reached capacity, the initial plan was to top off the 45-acre site and turn it over to the Chicago Park District. Instead, the Army Corps proposed a 22-foot vertical expansion that would extend the dump’s life for another 20 years.

The monarch butterfly population has rebounded from a near record low number in 2024, according to the latest annual survey conducted by the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico.

Clocks will officially move ahead one hour at 2 a.m. Sunday, but President Donald Trump has called Daylight Saving Time “inconvenient, and very costly.”

Preservation Chicago has released its annual “Chicago 7 Most Endangered” list of threatened buildings and assets, and the roll call reads like a trip through Chicago history.

In a lot of ways, the history of the North American beaver is interwoven with the history of Chicago.

From December 2024 through February 2025, Chicago notched less than a foot of snow.

After a career in city government spanning 35 years and five mayoral administrations, Rosa Escareño, general superintendent and CEO of the Chicago Park District, announced her resignation Wednesday.

The donation is one of the largest to the aquarium in recent history, according to Shedd.

In just a handful of decades, the rusty crayfish has become dominant in the Great Lakes. Join us on a deep dive into this elusive invader.

We separate fact from hype about the upcoming “planet parade.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza in four rats submitted for testing.

A 1,300-acre restoration project at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie has ground to a halt after federal grant funds, awarded in 2023, were frozen by the Trump Administration.

Tens of thousands of federal employees were fired in the last week. Here's the story of two former members of the U.S. Forest Service, who, up until a few days ago, worked at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Will County.

Reports of wild bird deaths continue to mount, and not just in Illinois. Meanwhile, a vaccine for chickens could be on the horizon.

Sub-zero wind chills will be the norm until Friday.

A band of dry air crashed Chicago's snowstorm party Wednesday.

The state of Illinois has pressed pause on a barrier designed to keep invasive carp from entering the Great Lakes, saying it can no longer count on the federal government to honor its funding obligation to the $1.15 billion project.