The effort to cut diesel soot emissions – Chicago Tribune

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California launched a legal battle with U.S. railroads that, if successful, could improve the health of people who live near train yards in Chicago.

The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to require railroads to cut diesel soot emissions from passenger, freight and industrial locomotives by 91% by 2050 and to slash smog-forming nitrogen oxides, or NOx, by 86%.

When it comes to diesel soot, “there is no acceptable level of exposure,” Cari Anderson, branch chief for freight at the Air Resources Board, told the Tribune.

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A publisher of far-right websites and mailings designed to look like newspapers created a special online portal for top Illinois GOP candidates and activists to directly seek favorable coverage during last year’s elections, according to a newspaper report that prompted state Democrats to denounce the actions as “deceitful” to voters.

Katie Porter, who is appearing Saturday with David Axelrod at the Chicago Humanities Festival, serves a very specific, very recognizable need in our cultural imagination, writes Christopher Borrelli.

A three-term House Democrat, representing Orange County, California, Porter has made her reputation from social-media snippets of congressional hearings in which she scrawls stats across a whiteboard while asking pointed, easy-to-comprehend questions of executives and government officials who are not used to being publicly challenged.

After she lost her hearing at age 87, Clarice Boswell decided to get a hearing device implanted in her ear. The clock was ticking: She wanted to regain her hearing in time to hear her daughter inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

Cathy Boswell, a former basketball star at Illinois State University and an Olympic gold medalist, is due to be inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Saturday.

In the 6-foot-5, 333-pound Darnell Wright, the Bears have a player who has prototypical size, an aggressive style and a lot of experience. He started 42 games over four seasons at Tennessee and was a first-team All-SEC selection in 2022. Some draft analysts believe he is a plug-and-play starter at right tackle.

You could say “Peter Pan & Wendy,” the latest voyage to the Disney+ recycling bin, is an unexpectedly strong movie. But it’s not unexpected, so really, you shouldn’t call it that, writes Michael Phillips.