Health

Chicago's allergy season increased by 14 days, on average, from 1970 to 2021, per an analysis from Climate Central, a nonprofit climate news organization.

• That's based on the number of days between the last freeze each spring and the first freeze each fall — essentially, the annual window during which seasonal allergy sufferers are most likely to rely on their antihistamine of choice to get by each day.

Chicago water officials are again missing targets for replacing toxic lead water lines that connect more than 400,000 city homes to water mains.

Why it matters: The pipes can leach brain-damaging lead into drinking water. Health officials say no level of lead ingestion is safe.

Lead removal experts have long believed Illinois had the nation's biggest network of lead water lines.

• But last month an Environmental Protection Agency report suggested that Florida's inventory of lead lines (an estimated 1.16 million) exceeds our 1.04 million lines.