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European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen declares an energy emergency. The crisis will not be contained to Europe. EC President Seeks 'Emergency Intervention' in Electricity Market Please note Ursula von der Leyen Calls for 'Emergency Intervention' in Electricity Market. "The skyrocketing electricity prices are now exposing, for different reasons, the limitations of our current electricity market design," the European Commission president said on Monday while addressing the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia. "[The market] was developed under completely different circumstances and for completely different purposes. It is no longer fit for purpose. "That is why we, the Commission, are...

Two San Diego Unified school board members want to review the level of punishment handed down to 31 students at Scripps Ranch High School this week over a video made at school that depicts "twerking," a suggestive manner of dancing. School board member Scott Barnett said Thursday that he plans to request that the twerking incident and the student punishments be discussed in closed session at Tuesday's board meeting. "I want to make sure I am comfortable that the facts and activity warrant the consequences," Barnett said in a statement. San Diego Unified board member Kevin Beiser, whose district includes...

SOUTH ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO (KTVI)– The Walmart on Telegraph Road at I-255 was evacuated for close to three hours Thursday night after a shoplifter was caught with a portable meth lab that was actually cooking the volatile drug in her purse. Quick thinking cops may have prevented a bad situation from being much worse. Police say it was about 6:30pm when they received the call about the couple shoplifting. Beat cops arrived to make the arrests with little thought of drugs. Police say A 32-year-old woman had stolen a purse and was filling it with cosmetics. But when they...

The most powerful law governing politics -- at least those in California -- is the one called "unintended consequences." While any major decision made by voters or politicians may have its declared or intended effect, inevitably it will also manifest itself in consequences that no one anticipated, or at least acknowledged, before the fact. California's nearly 30-year history with Proposition 13, the landmark ballot measure that slashed property taxes, is the most obvious case in point. As the state became the primary financier for schools, it sparked creation of a powerful "Education Coalition," dominated by the California Teachers Association and...