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.

(andreas N / Pixabay)

Clocks roll back to standard time at 2 a.m. Sunday.

(Pixabay / Mayur Gadge)

This weekend, nearly 80 sites across the greater Chicago region will be collecting pumpkins for composting, part of a nationwide push to keep food waste out of landfills.

This epaulette shark pup hatched Aug. 23, 2023, at Brookfield Zoo, born from what staff believe was an unfertilized egg. (Jim Schulz / CZS-Brookfield Zoo)

The epaulette shark pup hatched Aug. 23, born from what staff believe was an unfertilized egg. 

(Pixabay / Peggychoucair)

The scariest thing this Halloween is the weather forecast for trick-or-treaters.

Organic material is demonstrated being loaded into a digester at a GreenWaste Zanker Resource Recovery Facility in San Jose, Calif., Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. (AP Photo / Jeff Chiu)

Tackling food waste is a daunting challenge that the U.S. has taken on before. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the EPA set a goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030, but the country has made little progress.

Barn owl. (Lubos Houska / Pixabay)

From carnivorous plants to blood-sucking sea creatures, nature serves up plenty of frights, lots of them found right here in Illinois.

McCormick Place Lakeside Center's walls of glass and location on the lakefront are a deadly combination for birds. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Monday’s meeting of the McPier board was dominated by discussion of the mass death of 1,000 birds in a single day, killed after colliding with McCormick Place. Bird conservationists want a solution in place by spring migration.

A cut lead pipe is pulled from a dig site for testing at a home in Royal Oak, Mich., on Nov. 16, 2021. The Environmental Protection Agency will soon strengthen lead in drinking water regulations. (AP Photo / Carlos Osorio, File)

Decades after officials banned lead in gasoline for new cars and stopped the sale of lead paint there are still an estimated 500,000 U.S. children with levels of lead in their blood that are considered high, and experts say lead in drinking water is an important source.