Average California gas prices remain near $5 per gallon despite national gas prices plummeting amid falling oil prices, leading many Californians to wonder why their gasoline is the most expensive in the United States.

The Baltic states connected to electricity supplied via Finland, Sweden and Poland after disconnecting from Russia, which had supplied them electricity for decades.

Following the weekend's cut from the Russian power grid, electricity prices in the Baltic region have started to rise rapidly. This is due to low wind, no sun, the increase in gas prices and recently damaged infrastructure.

Over the weekend, Estonia switched off from the Russian grid and hooked up to the European system. Since then, the price of electricity in Estonia has started to climb.

The prime minister of Moldova's separatist Transdniestria region said on Monday that the abrupt curtailment of Russian gas supplies that plunged the region into an energy crisis has also shattered both its exports and imports.

The cutoff, prompted by Ukraine's refusal to renew an agreement allowing Russian gas to transit through Ukraine, has led to daily blackouts in the pro-Russian region of some 350,000 people and disruptions in heating and water supplies.

President Joe Biden on Monday announced an executive action that will permanently ban future offshore oil and gas development in parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in a way that could be especially difficult for the incoming Trump administration to undo.

Biden’s executive action will ban new oil and gas leasing across 625 million acres of US ocean. The ban will prevent oil companies from leasing waters for new drilling along the entire East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California, and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea.

US President Joe Biden has announced a ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling along most of America's coastline, weeks before Donald Trump takes office.

The ban covers the entire Atlantic coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Pacific coast off California, Oregon and Washington and a section of the Bering Sea off Alaska.

It is the latest in a string of last-minute climate policy actions by the Biden administration ahead of Donald Trump's return to the White House.

The head of Moldova’s breakaway region Transnistria has urged residents to burn firewood for heating and warned that blackouts cannot be avoided, after Moscow stopped supplying gas via Ukraine.

Vadim Krasnoselskyi, the president of the Russian-backed separatist sliver on Moldova’s eastern flank, said in a message on Telegram on Friday that “1,500 multi-story apartment buildings have no heating and hot water. Almost 72,000 private households have no gas. One hundred and fifty gas boiler houses have been shut down.”

BRUSSELS, June 20 (Reuters) - European Union countries agreed on a 14th package of sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine, diplomats said on Thursday, including their first restrictions on Russian gas.

The package bans re-exports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) in EU waters but stops short of banning imports as the bloc did in 2022 for Russian seaborne oil. Some EU countries still import pipeline gas from Russia via Ukraine.

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Michigan gas price averages over the weekend were the highest they have been this year.

According to AAA, a gallon of unleaded gas cost an average of $3.57 on Saturday. The previous record-high price, $3.45, was set last week before the weekend jump.

Saturday's high fell one cent to an average of $3.56 ahead of Monday's data release. The price is 11 cents more than this time a week ago, 31 cents more than this time a month ago, and 1 cent more than a year ago.