Chicago loses 2nd firefighter in week
CHICAGO -- A firefighter died Wednesday while battling a blaze in a high-rise building on Chicago's North Side, authorities said.
Lt. Jan Tchoryk, 55, "went down" on the stairs on the 11th floor, Fire Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt said.
The blaze was reported before 8 a.m. on the 27th floor of the condo and apartment building in the Gold Coast neighborhood.
Tchoryk is the second Chicago firefighter to die this week. Jermaine Pelt, 49, died Tuesday and two other firefighters were injured while battling a house fire on the South Side.
"Our men and women who are first responders in the city are heroic," outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot said. "They are brave. They, every single day, put their lives on the line for us. They deserve our unending thanks and support, not just on a tragic day like this, but every single day."
States' greenhouse-gas suit dismissed
NEW ORLEANS -- A lawsuit that Louisiana and other Republican-leaning states filed challenging the figures the Biden administration uses to calculate damages from greenhouse gasses was dismissed Wednesday by a federal appeals court.
The unanimous decision by three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was the latest defeat for states challenging the Biden "cost of carbon" policy.
It leaves the administration to continue using a damage cost estimate of about $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions as it develops environmental regulations. That estimate is under review and could increase.
The Biden cost estimate was used during the Obama administration. President Joe Biden restored it on his first day in office after the Trump administration reduced the figure to about $7 or less per ton.
A federal judge in Louisiana had ordered a halt to the administration's approach last year after the states sued, arguing the policy threatened to drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenue from energy production.
The 5th Circuit blocked the judge's order and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.
On Thursday, the appeals court dismissed the case, saying the challenging states had no standing to sue because they had not shown that the regulations caused the economic harms their lawsuit cited.
Biden plans visit to Britain, Ireland
WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden will travel to the United Kingdom and Ireland next week in part to help mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday accord, a U.S.-brokered agreement that helped end decades of deadly sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
Biden will first visit Belfast, Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., on Tuesday and Wednesday to mark progress since the agreement was signed and to underscore U.S. readiness to support Northern Ireland's economic potential, the White House said.
He will then spend Wednesday through April 14 in the Republic of Ireland, holding engagements in Dublin, County Louth and County Mayo, where he will deliver an address celebrating the "deep, historic ties" between the U.S. and Ireland, the White House said.
Signed on April 10, 1998 -- which was Good Friday -- the landmark accord helped end three decades of sectarian violence over the issue of Northern Ireland uniting with Ireland or remaining in the United Kingdom.
The anniversary is being marked with celebration that peace has endured but also concern about entrenched divisions and political instability. And the specter of violence has not wholly disappeared -- last month, U.K. intelligence services raised the terrorism threat level for Northern Ireland from "substantial" to "severe."
Asked recently whether that would affect his plans to visit, Biden, who is proud of his Irish heritage and has long wanted to visit Ireland, said it would not.
"No, they can't keep me out," he said.
Senate Democrat running in Nevada
LAS VEGAS -- Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada who steered a moderate path during her first term, announced Wednesday that she will seek reelection in the perennial battleground state.
Rosen focused on her efforts to promote bipartisanship and "big problems to solve" for the country, including "lowering costs for the middle class, defending abortion rights, tackling the climate crisis [and] protecting Social Security and Medicare."
The announcement is welcome news for Democrats ahead of a challenging 2024 Senate map. They must defend incumbents not only in red states -- Montana, Ohio and West Virginia -- but also in several swing states.
No Republican challenger has announced yet. Rosen ended 2022 with $4.4 million in her campaign accounts, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
The 2024 election will come two years after Rosen's colleague from Nevada, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, eked out a reelection victory over Republican Adam Laxalt, even though the GOP managed to flip the governor's mansion in the state.
Rosen, 65, was a first-term congresswoman from a Las Vegas-area district when she defeated GOP Sen. Dean Heller in 2018.