Graceland Cemetery’s new entry plaza is designed to lure people into the 120-acre green space. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Graceland Cemetery has debuted a new entryway designed to draw people in rather than keep people out, embracing its status as one of Chicago’s great green spaces.

Experts agree that no amount of lead exposure is safe, but millions of people in the U.S. still get their drinking water through lead service lines. (José Osorio / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service / Getty Images)

The EPA proposal said lines must be replaced within 10 years, regardless of the lead levels in tap or other drinking water samples.

The remnants of Sunday's 1.8-inch snowfall, Nov. 27, 2023. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Dec. 7 is the average date for the city to record its first 1-inch snowfall, according to the National Weather Service. 

(Carl James / Pixabay)

This year, don't head to your Thanksgiving gathering empty-handed. Take these wild turkey fun facts with you, and use them to fill awkward silences.

(WTTW News)

Thanksgiving travelers should expect to gobble up traffic over the next few days, with AAA forecasting 2.46 million vehicles to hit the roads in Illinois — some 60,000 more drivers than last year.

Invasive species like teasel could use warmer hardiness zones to even greater advantage. (Beauty of Nature / Pixabay)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released a new plant hardiness zone map, and significant swaths of the country — Chicago included — are now in warmer zones.

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Technician James Stone works to remove a floating solar-powered telemetry receiver from the Mississippi River backwaters near La Crosse, Wis. on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023. (AP Photo / Todd Richmond)

Over the last five years, agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources have employed a new seek-and-destroy strategy that uses turncoat carp to lead them to the fish’s hotspot hideouts.

(Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

The core principle of “leave the leaves” is to manage the leaves on site. It doesn’t mean to just leave them where they fell.

Prescribed burn in Cook County. (Kelly Bougher / Forest Preserve District of Cook County)

Forest preserve districts across the region are in the middle of fire season — not combatting them, but setting them. 

File photo of homes in Cicero. (WTTW News)

The project involves sensors installed and monitored by the Cicero Independiente and MuckRock providing data to back up what many community members were already feeling.

Illinois’ new universal specialty license plate design, with monarch butterfly decal. (Illinois Secretary of State / Facebook)

After a seven-year wait, the state of Illinois will finally begin issuing monarch butterfly specialty license plates, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced Thursday.

Whooping cranes are known for their snowy white plumage, red caps and bugling call. Seen here in South Dakota. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mountain-Pacific Region / Flickr Creative Commons)

Fewer than 100 whooping cranes migrate through the eastern U.S. A family of three paid a visit to a Kane County forest preserve Nov. 9-10 while winging their way to Florida.

Aerial map of the epicenter of Wednesday's earthquake, Nov. 15, 2023. (U.S. Geological Survey)

A 3.6 magnitude earthquake hit north central Illinois Wednesday morning, shortly before 5 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is reporting.

Astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara spent hours on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station, successfully replacing hardware on the station’s solar array. (Courtesy of NASA)

During their first-ever spacewalk, astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara spent hours outside the International Space Station, successfully replacing hardware on the station’s solar array. But a tool bag became untethered and is now orbiting Earth.

The crow-sized Cooper’s hawk has been called a “flying cross,” with its long tail and short wings. None of those traits is reflected in the bird’s eponymous name. (Courtesy of Walter Kitundu)

North America’s eponymous birds — those named for people — will all receive new names. The decision made by the American Ornithological Society has drawn praise from some quarters and provoked vehement opposition elsewhere.

Instructional materials are posted on a wall of a kindergarten class in Maryland on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. (AP Photo / Julia Nikhinson, File)

More parents are questioning routine childhood vaccinations that they used to automatically accept, an effect of the political schism that emerged during the pandemic around COVID-19 vaccines, experts say.