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Commission proposes reform of the EU electricity market design to boost renewables, better protect consumers and enhance industrial competitiveness

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

On 14 March, the Commission proposed to reform the EU's electricity market design to accelerate a surge in renewables and the phase-out of gas, make consumer bills less dependent on volatile fossil fuel prices, better protect consumers from future price spikes and potential market manipulation, and make the EU's industry clean and more competitive.The EU has had an efficient, well-integrated electricity market for over twenty years, allowing consumers to reap the economic benefits of a single energy market, ensuring security of supply and stimulating the decarbonisation process. The energy crisis spurred by Russia's invasion of Ukraine has underlined the need to quickly adapt the electricity market to better support the green transition and offer energy consumers, both households and businesses, widespread access to affordable renewable and non-fossil electricity. The proposed reform foresees revisions to several pieces of EU legislation – notably the Electricity Regulation, th...

Unionized LAUSD School Workers Announce 3-Day Strike

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

After a massive protest at Los Angeles City Hall Wednesday, the union representing nearly 30,000 Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) employees announced a three-day strike, from March 23 to 25.Service Employees International United, Local 99 (SEIU-99), who represents custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and paraprofessionals working in the school district, have asked for higher wages, deeper staffing and greater equity in its new working contract.“As LAUSD parents and workers, SEIU Local 99 members know a strike will be a sacrifice but the school district has pushed workers to take this action,” SEIU-99 Executive Director Max Arias said in a statement Wednesday. “Families have been sacrificing for far too long on poverty wages. Students have been sacrificing for too long in school environments that are not clean, safe or supportive for all. Too many workers have been subjected to harassment simply for demanding change.”THIS IS HISTORIC. A SEA OF PURPLE AND RED. All uni...

Clippers beat Warriors 134-126 despite 50 points from Curry

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Even in the midst of Stephen Curry putting on a shooting clinic during the third quarter, Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers didn’t get rattled. They were able to weather Curry’s best punches, kept their lead and then pulled away from the Golden State Warriors in the fourth quarter.Leonard continued his hot play with 30 points, Paul George had 24 and the Clippers overcame Curry’s 50-point night to beat the Warriors 134-126 on Wednesday night.“You know they are going to make big runs, but we kept our composure, stayed steady and executed on the offensive end,” said Leonard, who had his fourth 30-point effort in the last eight games. He was 10 of 19 from the field and had eight rebounds and five assists.The Clippers (37-33) have won four straight to move into fifth place in the Western Conference. The defending NBA champion Warriors (36-34) are a game back as the teams split the four-game season series.“We didn’t get stagnant. We exec...

Hartman scores twice in Wild win; Blues’ Binnington ejected

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Ryan Hartman had two goals and an assist and the surging Minnesota Wild beat St. Louis 8-5 on Wednesday night in a game in which Blues goalie Jordan Binnington was ejected for throwing a punch.Binnington was whistled for a match penalty with 7:35 left in the second period. After giving up a goal — the Wild’s fifth — to Hartman, Binnington left the crease and went after Hartman, swinging his blocker glove at the forward’s face.Minnesota goalie Marc-Andre Fleury skated the length of the ice to confront the unmasked Binnington, but the two were separated by officials and Binnington was sent off the ice. “I mean, those blockers aren’t soft,” Hartman said. “We don’t have much protection on our face. I’d say so (it was a cheap shot). It’s nothing new from him. He’s been doing stuff like this for a while.”Binnington said he has no grudge against Hartman.“We know the type of player he is. I actually like his game, to be honest,” Binnington said. “I’ve played against him sin...

Residents voice safety concerns about Frederick Co. highway after deadly tanker explosion

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

Just a little over a week after a deadly tanker truck explosion on U.S. Route 15 in Frederick County, Maryland, sparked a fire that spread to nearby homes, members of the community came together Wednesday evening to share their concerns about the highway and the response to what took place with state and local officials.At the Frederick County High School auditorium, residents stepped up one by one to the microphone to speak about the March 4 incident.During a gathering Frederick County High School auditorium regarding a recent fiery crash, a man behind a microphone and speaks to the panel on Wednesday, March 15, 2023.One resident said the tree that stopped the tanker truck from going into the nearby neighborhood is now gone, which she claims leaves residents vulnerable to another crash.She called for officials to lower the speed limit on the road until protective barriers can be put in place. Others seemed skeptical that safety improvements would ever come.“Traffic safety alo...

Former NATO chief: Trump could sabotage the war

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former secretary-general of NATO, packs his prognosis for Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign into one loaded word.“I think President Trump will be a loser,” he tells me.It is a notoriously triggering term for the former president, evoking deep humiliation. Rasmussen uses it casually.“His baggage is too heavy, too controversial,” says Rasmussen, 70, who was Denmark’s prime minister for most of this century’s first decade.Yet Rasmussen, a right-of-center politician who is now a white-shoe international consultant, remains scared of Trump. What disturbs him more immediately than the idea of Trump back in the White House is a far likelier scenario: Trump winning the Republican presidential nomination.It may seem counterintuitive to fear Trump’s nomination more than his return to power, a less probable but vastly more dangerous outcome. But Rasmussen’s mind is on the war in Ukraine — and what Trump’s candidacy might do to sabotage it.The former NATO chief serves as a...

Students call for education reform in Hungary protest march

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Thousands of students and other opponents of Hungary’s government marched in the capital Budapest on Wednesday to demand educational reforms and a change in the Central European country’s political culture. The protest, dubbed a “freedom march” by organizers, was called by teachers unions and student groups who have spent months pressuring Hungary’s government to provide salary raises and better working conditions for educators. The groups have also demanded the repeal of legislation that limits teachers’ right to strike.Marchers chanted slogans like “no teachers, no future” and “striking is a basic right” as they moved down one of Budapest’s main avenues. Student groups and teachers have engaged in strikes, walkouts and other acts of civil disobedience in recent months after the government didn’t fulfill their demands, resulting in several teacher firings. Katalin Torley, a teacher that was fired from a Budapest high scho...

Japan, South Korea move forward on trade issue before summit

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japan and South Korea agreed on steps toward resolving a trade dispute that has been one of the strains the nations’ leaders aimed to resolve at a highly anticipated summit Thursday.Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will meet later in the day in Tokyo in a bid to overcome disputes over history and quickly rebuild their nations’ security and economic ties. A North Korean missile launch and encounters between Japanese and Chinese vessels in disputed waters earlier Thursday show what’s at stake for the two countries.South Korean Trade Minister Lee Chang-yang said following talks this week, Japan agreed to lift export controls on South Korea, which will withdraw its complaint to the World Trade Organization once the curbs are removed.Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry said Japan acknowledged improvement in South Korea export controls during the talks and that as a result of Seoul’s decision to drop th...

Exhibit: ‘Invisible’ Monet, Leon, was key to impressionism

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Behind some great men, there is a bigger brother.Claude Monet’s older sibling is the focus of a landmark Paris exhibit illuminating the hitherto unknown role Leon Monet played in the French impressionist painter’s life and art. Leon — a color chemist four years his senior — is now understood to have been critical in the emergence of Monet’s commercial success as well as the famed color palette that created masterpieces like the “Water Lilies” series.“It’s never been known before, but without Leon there would not have really been a Monet — the artist the world knows today,” said Geraldine Lefebvre, exhibit curator at the Musee du Luxembourg. “His rich big brother supported him in the first period of his life when he had no money or clients and was starving,” she said. “But more than that. The vivid palette Monet was famous for came from the synthetic textile dye colors Leon created” in the town of Rouen — site of some of Claude’s best-known paintings.Th...

Retrial ordered for US men convicted of killing Italian cop

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:02:55 GMT

ROME (AP) — Italy’s highest court has ordered a retrial for two U.S. citizens who were convicted in the slaying of an Italian carabiniere during a sting operation gone bad.The Court of Cassation late Wednesday threw out the guilty verdicts against Finnegan Lee Elder, now 23, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 22, both convicted in the stabbing death of the 35-year-old officer during a plainclothes operation while the Americans, teens at the time, were on vacation in Rome in the summer of 2019.The court will issue its reasons for the verdict in the coming weeks, and instruct an appeals court on the issues to examine in a new trial. Elder’s lawyer, Roberto Capra, expressed satisfaction at the decision, saying a new trial would open the possibility of recalculating the sentence. The two men, friends from northern California, were sentenced to life in prison, Italy’s toughest penalty, in the initial trial. An appeals court upheld the verdict but lowered the sentence to 24 years for Elder and 22...