Aware that to reach the Moncloa he needs to achieve a good result in Catalonia, where 48 of the 350 seats at stake are distributed, the PP candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has returned to Barcelona in what is his third visit in just one month. In the first pre-campaign event, the Popular Party's presidential hopeful surrounded himself with the party's top brass in Catalonia to try to stop the rise of Vox.

From being disparagingly called the Monguer by some of her party colleagues to receiving the nickname of the Empress. The rise of Isabel Díaz Ayuso within the Madrid PP has been as surprising as it has been meteoric. How has she managed to go from contempt to hegemony? The journalist David Fernández (Madrid, 1975) analyzes this trajectory in the book Ayuso. Zancadillas, intrigas y venganzas en la Corte de Madrid (Libros del K.O., 2026), an unauthorized biography for which he has spoken with 180 people who have known the current president of the Community of Madrid in different stages of her political career.

The date for the first pre-campaign event for Gabriel Rufián and Irene Montero has been set. The ERC candidate and the head of the Podemos list for the Spanish elections on November 29th will debut at a joint rally next Saturday, October 24th, in Barcelona. The event is the result of a collaboration agreement between their respective parties for the general elections, under which the purple party will not run in Catalonia and will instead support ERC, which includes members of Podemos as independents on its lists, while Rufián will hold campaign events with the former Minister of Equality on Spanish soil.

After Saturday's outburst of rage, tension between police and protesters returned to the streets of several French cities this Sunday. In Toulouse, Lyon, Rennes, or Lille, hundreds of people took to the streets again in protests organized through social media, and in Paris, some of the scenes that turned the streets of the French capital into a battlefield on Saturday were repeated. The epicenter was once again the Place de la République, and there were also renewed looting incidents in some shops, although fewer than during Saturday's events.

In Riyadh, cars fill the roads, restaurants receive customers and football matches are played. But, under this appearance of normality, an uneasiness that is difficult to erase has settled in: not knowing when the next alert will sound or where the next projectile might fall. The wave of attacks by the Houthis from Yemen has hit strategic infrastructures and has exposed the limits of a country that has invested enormous resources in defense.

"We are in an era of manifest mistrust: it seems we do not know where things are headed, or perhaps we do not want to know, and all this generates discomfort and restlessness," said philosopher Josep Ramoneda to Esther Vera, director of the ARA, and Xavier Mas de Xaxàs, journalist for La Vanguardia, the two speakers at the closing conversation of the Cap Roig Meetings of the La Caixa Foundation, held this weekend.

In an autumn marked by the discourse surrounding artificial intelligence, Europe seemed far from any seat of power. Just a few weeks away from the predictable mega-IPO of Anthropic, and still with the echoes of the controversy over the technology's safety that shook the United States in September, the Twenty-Seven have moved a relevant piece for the first time in recent years. At the beginning of October, Mistral, the French benchmark for AI –the only European player mentioned in the conversation of the most advanced models– launched its latest model, Mistral Large 4, also known "very officially" as le Chonk.

The rain has given a certain respite to Catalonia this Sunday, but the presence of the DANA Adam will cause a new day of persistent and widespread rainfall across much of the country throughout this Monday. Within 24 hours, the downpours could leave accumulations of more than 100 liters per square meter. The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has warned that the risk associated with this cold drop is still "not over" and has requested maximum caution in the face of the forecast for this new episode. According to meteorological predictions, however, at the moment there is no area marked with a red warning and the rainfall is expected to be less intense than that experienced this past weekend. However, the affected territory still needs to be "calibrated" and these phenomena have a point of uncertainty that does not always allow for anticipating them with so much lead time.

Issiaga Sylla was 19 years old when he arrived in Catalonia completely alone. He says he did not understand the culture, nor did he speak Catalan or Spanish, and he barely knew anyone here from his country. He is from Guinea Conakry. "I didn't interact with anyone," he confesses.

As a child, Mohammed Fadily met thousands of children like him, minors living in shelters after having crossed the border illegally to achieve a better life in Europe. Only about twenty of them made it. "Most have died sleeping on the street, are in prison, or have returned to Morocco." When he arrived by boat he was fifteen years old and, although some of his cousins were already living in Spain, none of them gave him a hand when he asked them for help. He did not speak Catalan or Spanish and the few familiar faces turned their backs on him. His family was miles away, he would not be able to visit them until he reached the age of majority. He was transferred from one center to another without being informed of anything. The only certainty he had was that he did not know anyone.

La Titan Desert del Marroc és una de les curses més dures dins del món del ciclisme de resistència. Al llarg de sis etapes, els participants creuen la serralada de l'Atles i les dunes del desert del Sàhara per completar un recorregut de gairebé 600 quilòmetres i més de 6.000 metres de desnivell positiu. I l'edició d'aquest 2026, celebrada entre finals d'abril i principis de maig, tenia segell català. La marca Inverse, amb seu a Mollet del Vallès, va ser l'escollida per dissenyar i fabricar el mallot oficial de la competició, una peça adaptada per resistir la calor, el vent i la sorra del paisatge i que diversos dels 475 ciclistes que van emprendre el repte es van enfundar.

One at four in the morning and the other at eight in the morning. The Mossos d'Esquadra are investigating two possible cases of men kidnapped by force in the country. As ARA has learned, one occurred in Santa Coloma de Gramenet and the victim has not yet appeared. The other took place in Fontanals de Cerdanya and, in this case, the man has been located injured.

350 days later, Barça returned to Zubieta, the scene of the last official match defeat for the Barcelona side. That November 2, 2025, Pere Romeu's team fell 1-0 to Real Sociedad. Almost a year later, the Basque side became their nemesis once again. Pere Romeu's players, who went into the international break with the best possible feelings, lost 2-1, including refereeing controversy.

Barça has announced the absences of Eric Garcia and Jules Kounde just hours before boarding a plane to travel to Paris, where the 'blaugrana' team will face Paris Saint-Germain. These are two very important absences for Hansi Flick, as they are the two players he relies on to occupy the right-back position and cover Lamine Yamal's back. Both returned from this Saturday's match against Betis (2-5) with discomfort, which has resulted in injuries of varying nature. Together with the rest of the expedition, they landed 14 hours later than scheduled in Barcelona due to the storm and underwent the relevant medical tests.

Sabadell suffered their second defeat of the season, after seeing how Burgos took advantage of a penalty that had to be retaken to take the three points (1-0). The arlequinat team strongly protested the referee's decision to order a retake of the penalty, which was initially saved by Fuoli. Curro, on the second attempt, did not fail, giving the victory to a local team that created the best chances of the match.

The sunglasses in her hands betray the age of the image. "It's not that I want to look younger," Matilde Ferrer excuses herself with a laugh, it's that the photograph in that Berlin restaurant reminds her of the happy trip she took with her children and she always likes to look at it again. In the background, there is no green or any plant to be seen. Nor any of the flowers that she has dedicated herself to hybridizing for more than forty years.

The weekend has been dominated by weather that has progressively destabilized, shifting from the mildness and fair conditions of Saturday morning to the downpours and cool atmosphere of this Sunday. The DANA Dana and the arrival of humid maritime winds have caused precipitation that, in some cases, has exceeded 200 mm on the peninsular Mediterranean coast (you will find more data at the end of this report). The weather will remain unsettled on Monday, with widespread and once again heavy rain in some areas, such as in a large part of Catalonia, where some monthly rainfall records are already approaching 400 mm.

Valls will once again become the epicenter of the world of castells. From October 16th to 25th, the Santa Úrsula Fair will fill the city with popular culture, music, heritage, fire, and activities, but it will be on Sunday when all the focus will once again point toward a single place: the Plaça del Blat. There, the Colla Vella dels Xiquets de Valls and the Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls will star in a new battle with the precedent of one of the most extraordinary and tumultuous Santa Úrsula festivals in recent years.

Laura Díez (Barcelona, 1969) is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Barcelona and a member of the Constitutional Court since 2023. She speaks to ARA following a key decision on the amparo appeal by former minister Dolors Bassa, which is expected to trigger the full application of the amnesty by the Supreme Court.

When Jonathan was born, Charles Darwin was only 23 years old. This giant tortoise of the Aldabra species is the longest-living (terrestrial) animal in the world known to date. It is 194 years old and still today it walks, at a very slow pace, through the gardens of Plantation House, which is the residence of the governor of Saint Helena, one of the Seychelles islands. It has lost its sight and sense of smell, and it must be fed (basically lettuce and carrots), but it is still active and weighs about 180 kilograms. Now, scientists have studied its DNA to try to extract data that will help us live longer.

There are few Latin American women more famous than Sofía Vergara. The 54-year-old Colombian actress is today on the Olympus of Latin American fame on a global scale. So much so that she can only be compared to JLo, Shakira and, in a way, Salma Hayek. It is for this reason that any mention made of her is susceptible to becoming a press headline eager to be clicked in Latin America, the United States or Europe.

"Cross the catwalk!" It has been 25 years since this television cry became popular. It was one of the key moments of every broadcast of Operación Triunfo, the talent show that revolutionized Spanish television and music and that this October celebrates a quarter of a century. On the night of October 22, 2001, TVE kicked off a new format that mixed elements of the reality genre, which was just beginning to emerge, and musical contests. After the third gala, when the phenomenon exploded, nothing was ever the same again, neither on Spanish television nor in the lives of the sixteen young contestants who had signed up for the program with the hope of making a career as singers.

One out of every three food items ends up in the trash. The figure is staggering, and it should make us think about what we buy, how much we buy, and how we cook it. Chef Ada Parellada explains that she has seen a person throwing away dry bread and, immediately after, buying a package of breadcrumbs (or biscuit flour, as we can correctly call it both ways). "It is neither ethical nor moral, because bread should not be thrown away," she says, and adds that she entered the fight against food waste out of indignation and anger at seeing facts like the one we have just recounted.

Human remains that can offer a lot of data about our past, sediments with a lot of information about what was eaten centuries ago, textile machines, computers, amphorae, tombstones, sculptures, paintings, murals, capitals, clothes, fossils, stones, seeds, bullets, pitchers... If we were to add up the heritage guarded by Catalan museums, the figure would reach eight million pieces. It is an unreachable and heterogeneous collection of which the public only sees a very small part in the exhibition halls; the rest, the vast majority, remains invisible in warehouses and depots.

"It's been many years and many hatreds." That is how Gabriel Rufián spoke, in an interview this Friday on RAC1, about the obstacles to achieving a unitary list of the left in the State. Personal enmities also influence the dispute between parties, and the baggage of the divorce between Podemos and Sumar still weighs heavily; this was definitively consummated three years ago in Congress and may condemn the electoral prospects of the left. In the negotiations of the last few days, wounds that are still open and distrust that has been dragging on since the process of drafting the lists for the 2023 elections have been perceptible.

The Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) has prohibited the presence of activist Vito Quiles throughout the university campus for the event he intends to hold this Monday, after the agitator announced his intention to give a talk there on Friday.

"Let them hear it loud and clear: I love you". This is how the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, addressed his wife during a rally in Fuenlabrada following the federal committee meeting that approved the PSOE's candidate lists for November 29th. In an event charged with high emotion, Sánchez began his speech by referring to Begoña Gómez, his wife, who is facing trial and was seated in the front row. "They have tried to break us in every way and have achieved just the opposite. Today we are more united and stronger than ever. Let them hear it loud and clear: I love you," he declared, while also thanking her for being his wife and the mother of his daughters. Then Gómez went up to the stage, and they hugged and kissed before the audience's ovation. Later, he made a post saying that he loves her with the video of the scene.

Miriam Nogueras, Junts candidate for the general elections on November 29, has criticized the parties that go to Madrid to "engage in servility" and has reclaimed Junts as the only party of "strictly Catalan obedience".

The facts are as follows: the Broad Front, which wanted to recreate the 2023 Sumar formula, has not been possible on a general scale, so both Irene Montero and Ada Colau will formally be candidates for the presidency of the Spanish government. Neither of them, however, is the preferred candidate for the bulk of Spanish left-wing voters, who prefer (oh, surprise) the republican Gabriel Rufián. And now let's recap.

Donald Trump, who in his election campaign promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, began his second term by starring in an extremely tense meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, where he did not hide his disdain for the Ukrainian leader. That set off alarms in Kyiv and, although the two leaders apparently eased the tension, it has become clear in recent days that Trump continues to belittle the Ukrainian president, whom he points to as the culprit for not being able to reach a peace agreement while celebrating the alleged willingness of Vladimir Putin. And in all this context, aid from the United States to Ukraine has remained blocked for almost two years, since Trump returned to the White House.

Amid the rapprochement between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian army launched a drone attack this Saturday night against Saint Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city with more than five million inhabitants, and the Leningrad region. It is considered one of the largest drone attacks of the entire war, and it has left one person dead and five injured. About 20,000 people were left without electricity due to the damage caused to an electrical substation, and damage also occurred to several residential buildings.

Roberto Saviano (Naples, 1979) wanted to write a love novel. But when he discovered the story of Rossella Casini, a young woman raped, murdered, and dismembered by the family of her boyfriend, Francesco Frisina, heir to a 'Ndrangheta clan, he began an investigation that brought to light one of the cruelest crimes perpetrated by the Calabrian mafia. My love does not die (Ara Llibres) is the result of five years of work. A book with which the author of Gomorrah (2006) tries to do justice to a forgotten victim of the mafia, while continuing to fight against his own demons. A battle of which he confesses to being increasingly tired. Saviano meets ARA at the Cervantes Institute in Rome. The Italian journalist seems especially dejected, convinced that he has sacrificed his life in vain. While abroad he is recognized as a brave writer, in Italy there are those who reproach him for having diminished or tarnished the country's image by denouncing the relationships between power and organized crime. Saviano has lived under police protection for 20 years after being threatened with death by the Casalesi clan, one of the most bloodthirsty in the Camorra. He was 26 years old, almost the same age as Rossella Casini when she was brutally murdered.

Uncertainty has settled into Donald Trump's United States electoral appointments, and the midterm elections of November 3rd are no exception. The concern regarding any possible attempt by the U.S. president to interfere in the elections has led thousands of volunteers to train for what might happen on November 3rd: from a possible deployment of ICE agents to the White House's attempt to challenge the results in some districts. "Authoritarians feed on fear, and the way to combat it is by organizing people," explains Jessica Acee to ARA, organizer of States at the Core (STAC), a pro-democracy group that has trained more than 50,000 volunteers for the upcoming elections.

"We were born in war and we will die in war," says Natasha, accompanied by her husband, Leonidas, both eighty-three years old, on the fourth floor of an empty building in the center of Kramatorsk. Liena, a worker at one of the few grocery stores left in the neighborhood, tries to convince them to leave the city, that even living in a basement is a death sentence: "If the Russians arrive, they will throw a grenade and ask afterwards if there is anyone alive." The octogenarian couple lives trapped in the uncertainty of a meager pension, between the approach of a war front that is about nine kilometers away and the anxiety over daily shootings and the high-pitched sound of fiber-optic drones searching for vehicles to destroy. Despite this situation on the streets, every Sunday morning they attend the mass offered in an abandoned restaurant near their home, where about thirty people gather to pray and sing.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will change the way we work and many other things. Among them, taxes. The tax system of countries will have to adapt. Currently, a large part of tax revenue comes from labor income (wages) through a progressive tax (the more you earn, the more you pay), which is the personal income tax (IRPF). But to the extent that AI will reduce jobs – at least during a transition period during which many jobs will disappear, be transformed, or require less personnel – public coffers will notice it.

Foment del Treball raises an alarm and warns that the increases in gas and electricity prices put "the continuity of industrial activity at risk," in a statement this Sunday. For this reason, despite the call for elections, it demands "extraordinary and immediate measures" from the Spanish government.

In the eyes of the world, France is once again the sick man of Europe. It is nothing new in a country historically marked by labor conflict, political scandals, military defeats, and crises of all kinds, but at the same time, it is not good news that, in the current climate of student protests and a pre-election environment marked by the rise of the far right, fears regarding the viability of the country's public finances are now being added.

The Spanish economy remains at the forefront of advanced countries in growth, with a forecast of 2.6% this year according to the Bank of Spain and 2.5% according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But inflation, they also warn, eats away at the purchasing power of wages that are not enough to buy or rent a house. The remuneration of employees has gained weight in the Spanish economy, but it is starting to lose it in favor of the profits of some business sectors. Workers perceive that with every euro they buy fewer and fewer things, or that they need more to acquire the same. There is a palpable reality, the rise in prices, which has stalled the contribution of wages to the total wealth this year, and a psychological element, according to the experts consulted, which makes many ask themselves: "Now that the economy is doing well, when is it my turn?"

Training as an insertion tool. The Formació i Treball Foundation is a true institution in Catalonia. It was founded in 1992 by Caritas and its main objective is to train people at risk of social exclusion so that they can subsequently be inserted into the labor market. Their model is radically opposed to that of traditional companies: while companies usually seek to retain talent, the foundation provides jobs to hundreds of people so that they can later work in conventional companies. "Our reason for being is the labor insertion of people," the entity's president, Misi Borràs, assuresCompanies.

A phone call interrupts the conversation, but it no longer leaves her "desperate," as it did a few months ago. "They keep calling, but now I answer the phone calmly and tell them that I am exonerated," says Lisa Manresa. As she explains it, she breaks down the amounts that ended up becoming an unaffordable debt: 14,000 euros for her husband's dental work, 15,000 for the car, and 72,000 euros pending on the mortgage she shared with her ex-partner, the expenses associated with her eldest daughter's borderline personality disorder, who is 30... When she could no longer keep up with the payments, the accumulated debt had climbed to 208,000 euros.

About sixty young people have reported having been victims of a scam in the purchase of tickets for the Oques Grasses concerts at the beginning of October in Barcelona. The Central Cyberfraud Unit of the Mossos has opened an investigation and the police believe that the number of affected people could be much higher.

The death of Helena Jubany, murdered in 2001, will go to trial more than two decades later. The judge in Sabadell who is instructing this case has decided to send Santi Laiglesia to trial, a lawsuit that will be heard by a popular jury at the Barcelona Court. This decision cannot be appealed, according to judicial sources, and will lead Laiglesia to sit in the dock. In the document, the judge concludes that there are "rational indications of criminality" against Laiglesia.

Until recently, getting the residents of the Sagrada Família and the temple to agree seemed like an impossible mission. Now, however, the Barcelona City Council has achieved it twice over. On one hand, because before the summer it reached a nascent agreement regarding the impact that the staircase of the Glory façade would have on the buildings in front, which satisfied both parties. On the other hand, because since then it has maintained a silence that is making both sides of the negotiation impatient, and they are pressuring it to take a position now.

The unity of the left-wing parties to the left of the PSOE will not happen. 

The first episode of the podcast Tocar sostre deals with the issue of housing rentals. Participants include businesswoman Joana Amat, notary and member of the Board of Directors of the Cercle d'Economia Camino Quiroga and writer Llucia Ramis. Moderated by journalist Antoni Bassas.

Until the Barcelona Olympic Games, the city lived with its back to the sea. This changed in 1992. One of the legacies of the transformation that Barcelona experienced on the occasion of the world's greatest sporting event is the Olympic Port. In this space, sailing is the protagonist. A few members of the ARA Premium Club have been able to sail on very well-equipped sailboats, piloted by expert skippers, on a sunny afternoon with good temperatures and strong wind: yes, the blue sea had a few whitecaps. It is about the free activity Windy Thursdays, organized by the Olympic Port. When they left the port and set out to sea, the participants verified that the wind is an excellent engine for a sailboat. All the sailboats not only acquired a remarkable speed but also heeled over immediately. The members of the Premium Club were not passive participants, but on the contrary. They even learned how to tack, which is one of the most complicated operations on any sailboat.

The reader Mireia Castelló sends me a critique regarding gender bias in the headline of the profile of the new head of the Mossos d’Esquadra, published in the Society section on September 10th.

The topic of the week has been the regularization of half a million immigrants. Although you might think it's not an economic issue, it's a topic that comes up in all my economics classes.

Maria Martorell thought the problem would be running out of writers. When she imagined Veus Pròpies, a publishing house dedicated to recovering in Catalan authors from the 19th and 20th centuries who had been left on the margins of the canon, she calculated that she might have material for three or four years. Now she knows she was wrong. “There is material for many years,” she says. The more she searches, the more names appear.

The Centre Excursionista de Catalunya (CEC) is turning 150 years old, and starting this November, it will organize a whole series of activities to commemorate its birth and, above all, to celebrate that it remains a living entity well-connected to the country's cultural activity. The presentation of this program of events will be announced next week, but for now, it is already known that the poster is a work by the artist Perejaume, one of the great figures of contemporary Catalan art. The work invites a broad look at the backbone spirit that hiking has traditionally had in Catalonia: the resemblance between the waves of the sea and the shapes of the mountain ranges refers to an integral concept of the territory that unites nature, culture, and identity.

"I had never entered a literary contest to avoid coming in last,", asserted Isabel Allende during her acceptance speech for the 75th Planeta Prize, endowed with one million euros, which meant she would leave Penguin Random House and join the group currently presided over by José Creuheras. The news has reopened, once again, the controversy over publishers changing by some authors, often spurred by literary awards for unpublished work, but also by economic offers difficult to refuse (although they do not usually transcend), by the desire to give a new boost to their career by changing houses and even as a sign of protest.

On December 27th, Marc Sarrats will settle accounts with 2026 in the show El 2026, vist per sentència, at the Teatre Coliseum in Barcelona, with tickets already on sale. Taking advantage of the occasion, we talk unhurriedly about comedy, fatherhood, politics, and ghosts.

La Zaranda, Teatro Inestable de Ninguna Parte, celebrates its fortieth anniversary with the annual appointment at the Romea by the will of its until now director Josep Maria Pou and in attention to the group of fans that have followed them for so many years. And the fact is that La Zaranda's theater is so peculiar and different from everything that can be seen on stage... A theater stripped of artifices that makes virtue of simplicity and that draws from the classics without performing them. A theater in which the creation of a singular world prevails, crossed by an almost existentialist poetics and inhabited by losers. Displaced characters like Beckett's clowns who do not know what to do or how to do it but who continue with inherited routines. Characters of great pathos like these angels that Eusebio Calonge has imagined and that could just as well inhabit a corner of the Spanish picaresque of the Golden Age as the London neighborhood of Mackie the Knife, from The Threepenny Opera, or the suburbs of a modern city. Through the black space of All the angels took flight –occupied only by four large old books, which will finally be the martyrs' tombstone, a bed frame, a box of Imperial beers and plenty of blankets– walk a robber and drug dealer named Virgilio (Gaspar Campuzano), the Romanian prostitute Micaela (Ingrid Magrinyà), the also prostitute and junkie Alacrana (Natalia Martínez), the pimp Paco Cadena (Enrique Frutos) and Ramonet (Francisco Sánchez), a poor “fool” who speaks little but quotes Shakespeare and Dostoevsky.

"If these songs have reached today, it is because they are bangers", declared Marc Heredia, composer and pianist of the Trio Fortuny. Agreed, they are bangers. But what the chamber trio has done with the voice of Judit Neddermann is the eighth wonder: they have recovered the songs that move us the most in the world, the traditional songs that our mother or grandmother sang to us when we were little –the stories of The heir Riera and of The spinner, the Gifted mountains and The sailor, compositions that have been gleaned from the Càntut archive, and have reinterpreted them through chamber music, with new arrangements and recompositions. The result is Edge, a jewel that next year will take the form of an album, but which is already a beautiful and exciting show, delicate and at the same time powerful, premiered Saturday evening at the Kursaal, in one of the climaxes of the Fira Mediterrània de Manresa, which has supported them as co-producers from its Obrador d’Arrel.

Sometimes it is hard to tell where football ends and art begins with this Barça. A team full of artists that turns a game with a ball into a spectacle that catches the eye, stringing together routs as if it were easy to score five goals (2-5). And all this, with a Lamine Yamal who is up to his usual tricks. A teenager who is rewriting the history books of football. In a stadium that is always imposing, Hansi Flick's team did not fail either, even though they suffered at times. The setting was complex and became complicated with dirty moments, scuffles, and the injuries to Eric Garcia and Gerard Martín, the worrying note of the day. But this team, which has signed off on the best start to the League in its entire history, has magic to spare. The Blaugrana music prevailed over the noise. To overcome challenges like the one at La Cartuja, you need joy and you need to know how to suffer.

Girona needed life and Andorra gave it to them. The Gironins could not have had it easier and took advantage of two unfortunate actions by goalkeeper Owono to secure the victory before halftime (2-0). With this result, they are five points away from the direct promotion zone.

Barça overcomes Betis at the Cartuja in Seville (2-5) in a match that went wild at the start of the second half. No one until today had managed to scrape points at the home of the green-and-white team this season.

Asisa Joventut repeated their Supercopa Endesa exhibition and sent Barça back to the corner to think (113-89). La Penya, which thrives in scenarios that motivate them, made the 10,248 spectators at the Palau Olímpic go wild. Ricky Rubio, Nico Laprovittola, and Eli Ndiaye led the green-and-black triumph. Furthermore, the young Adrián Torres completed a great performance. "Catalonia is green-and-black," the pavilion ended up chanting.

LeBron James will live in New York but play in Philadelphia. The new star of the Philadelphia 76ers, who will debut his 24th NBA season on Tuesday, will make a daily commute equivalent to going from Barcelona to Lleida. The forward will travel the distance by helicopter to avoid the dreaded traffic jams of the East Coast of the United States. The eccentricity has generated a flood of comments from fans. Some see it as practical, but the majority criticize the ecological footprint it will generate every day he has to go to training. Others remember the unfortunate Kobe Bryant, who died in an air accident.

Sydney Schertenleib (Zurich, 2007) is the big name of this start of the season for Barça. The Swiss footballer has taken the step forward that Pere Romeu demanded so much and has taken advantage of the injury absences to consolidate her place in the starting eleven. She has been a starter in the eight matches that the 'blaugranes' have played so far, the last one in the 'Clásico' against Real Madrid at the Camp Nou, with a goal included (7-0). "When you shoot you don't think much, you just do it," she confessed after the duel.

The French beach of Pampelonne, which during the seventies and eighties became one of the great symbols of European body liberation, is far away. Press photographs showed stretches of sand dotted with umbrellas and bodies where the "topless was not the exception, but the rule. Neither were the Costa Brava, the Costa Daurada, the Costa del Sol or Ibiza, where the spirit hippy and the impulse of the sexual revolution turned the bare breast into an expression of freedom. Slim Aarons' photographs immortalized that carefree way of inhabiting Mediterranean leisure, where the semi-naked bodies of bathers were part of the landscape naturally, without dramatization or scandal. It was not about sexualizing the body, but precisely about freeing it from the gaze that turned it into an object and lightening it from the weight of centuries of moral demonization.That landscape, however, today seems almost an archive photograph. Not only because fifty years have passed, but also because the reality it represented has been fading away. The topless, which for decades was part of the usual landscape of Mediterranean beaches, is today an increasingly exceptional practice. Data suggests that, compared to the eighties, it has decreased by two-thirds. And the paradox is that the women who continue to practice it the most are precisely those who grew up during the sexual revolution. The youngest, on the other hand, have barely even incorporated it. What has happened for what seemed like a conquest of bodily freedom to have retreated?Breasts are exactly the same as forty years ago. What has changed is the world that observes them. When a woman decided to leave them exposed, she knew who would see them, how, and for how long. Upon leaving the beach, that exposure also ended. Today, however, a woman can leave the sand, but if someone has taken a photograph of her, her image will continue to circulate indefinitely on others' screens, becoming, in the best case, content for social media and, in the worst, an advertisement for sexual content pages. The moment a photograph escapes our control, so does a part of our body.Furthermore, social networks, along with the media, have exponentially intensified the pressure on bodies, which seem to have to respond more than ever to canons of perfection to deserve to be shown. Beaches and swimming pools have ceased to be friendly spaces for body diversity. Bodies forced to coexist with the scrutinizing gaze of others and, above all, with their own, often even crueler, the result of low self-esteem eroded by a system that turns insecurity into a business.When the feminist struggles of the seventies denounced the sexualization of women's bodies, they already sensed that this battle would not be easy. Half a century later, it continues to be one of the great open fronts. There will be those who consider it inevitable to sexualize female breasts, as if it were a natural instinct against which it were useless to rebel. But history shows precisely the opposite. During the first half of the 20th century, male nipples were also the object of censorship and scandal. Only when men began to uncover their torsos normally on beaches did that moral burden gradually fade. The sexualization of the body, therefore, is not immutable, but simply the result of a cultural construction, even if we want to dress it up as natural.The paradox is that we have never lived with so many images of naked bodies and, yet, for decades these have not been so unfree. Captives of aesthetic pressure and the surveillance society, the youngest have inherited more images of the body than their mothers, but less freedom to inhabit it.

We wake up all year round and when we blink we see that it is 6 in the morning, mostly we would like to turn back the clock without knowing the wonderful point of putting our feet on the ground and starting to walk. However, in August nothing is the same. At this time, the blinds of almost everywhere are still down, the terraces are cleared and the first buses pass through the streets, some delivery drivers, people walking their dogs and athletes who have decided to start the day when many are still sleeping. And to know what lies behind all this and why it is worth trying, all it takes is a simple gesture of putting your feet on the ground and getting out of bed. Really, you don't have to be a runner nor turn your vacation into military training. Walking very early is simply a rather unpopular way to make the most of summer days (or a single day) and, above all, to recover hours that we often ignore because we associate them with the alarm clock and going to work. There are many reasons not to forget about this time slot to simply walk and walk.1. Rediscover the backstage of daily theater

Walking at six in the morning in August is, first and foremost, a way to rediscover your surroundings. When it's still dark or starting to get light, the streets have a completely different rhythm from what they will show a few hours later. Silence replaces noise, the promenades and boulevards are walked almost alone, and the light changes minute by minute until sunrise. Like a moving picture that only happens at that precise moment. This is the opportunity to see the city waking up: the cleaning services, the first runners, the delivery people, the markets getting ready, or the cafes raising their shutters paint a scene that most people don't usually see: a kind of gear or backstage of the theatre that is about to begin and cannot be seen in any other way.2. It doesn't have to be a routine

Another good reason is that it doesn't have to become a routine. The fun can also be trying it out on an August morning, getting up when it's still dark, going out without haste or much destination and discovering that, for a few hours, the city seems like a completely different place: that journey we have never taken and which (perhaps) we will never undertake again. It doesn't have to be a daily proposal: just one day is enough to fill us with satisfaction.3. Physical activity without heat 

In this activity there is a very obvious practical reason: physical activity is best done at the beginning and end of the day. According to Canal Salut, during the summer it is advisable to move and exercise in the early morning or in the evening and avoid the hottest hours. Specifically, the Department of Health points out the period between 12 and 5 p.m. as when temperatures are highest and the risk of heatstroke increases. Among its proposals for staying active in summer is precisely taking walks in the morning or evening. Likewise, the World Health Organization (WHO) goes even a little further when talking about heat episodes. If demanding physical activity is to be carried out, with an intensity that goes beyond walking, it recommends moving it to the coolest part of the day and even recommends the period from 4 to 7 a.m. This (almost extreme) recommendation helps to understand why moving the walk forward a few hours can make sense during the hottest days. 4. Your 'vip' moment

In summer we strive to find secret coves, little-known villages, and viewpoints that social networks have not yet discovered. But leaving home to walk at 6 in the morning solves everything, like a magic wand that makes us instant vips full of powers: visiting natural spaces when there is almost no one; taking the photo without competition; having the spiritual privilege of being the only being in that space, and having a golden hour light that cannot be easily found. For example, we can manage to conquer a promenade before the first bathers arrive, walk along a boulevard without the usual hustle and bustle, or admire an iconic facade in solitude and silence.5. Achieving a well-deserved reward 

The best thing is that the plan can have a reward, and a good one. After walking for an hour or an hour and a half, when the bakeries and cafes start to open, it's time for breakfast. A coffee, something freshly made with the intoxicating aroma of bakeries and workshops in operation, and that strange feeling of having lived half a day when it's still eight o'clock. 6. Love and share with others

But leaving the house so early is not just an introspective activity that benefits oneself. This activity has a derivative full of love: it allows us to enjoy the pleasure of bringing freshly made bread home under our arm, or bringing breakfast to all those who have not yet woken up: sharing croissants straight from the bakery with the smell of hot butter or even bringing breakfast to bed for those we love, like in the movies. Summer also serves this purpose.7. Physical and psychological well-being

Going for a walk is also, obviously, a very complete way to exercise and obtain physical and psychological benefits that we can all intuit. For example, Ona Fillol says good morning to everyone at 7:24 AM from her social media: "Walking 45 min with the sunrise… The best ritual to start the day!", she says, and assures that starting the week walking when the sun has not yet risen has "many benefits such as activating metabolism, starting with energy, improving circulation, and starting the day in a better mood", she summarizes. Fillol assures that fat is burned naturally, legs, heart and joints are strengthened, and stress and anxiety are reduced. "You improve mood and concentration, you sleep better at night, and your body and mind will thank you for it", she adds.Likewise, the trainer behind the account @ona_moves, Ona Espot, explains that what walking at six in the morning brings her, which she doesn't find at any other time of day, is that "there are fewer people, the weather is much more comfortable, and the day begins differently." What makes her think that getting up early was worth it is "especially the light" of the day, but also her mental state: "I have a clearer and more relaxed mind," she assures. And beyond the internal benefits of making this effort, Espot assures that what surprises her most is "the people, the noise, and the routine." "I feel like I wake up with the city, the two at the same time," she says. From her perspective, she invites everyone who is starting to try it to detect "how they really feel throughout the day" and feel how, certainly, "there is something different." Espot mentions numerous benefits as well, but highlights the clarity and, paradoxically, "the rest" it provides. And among her most vivid memories of this summer practice, there isn't just a list of benefits or sensations, but a metaphorical entry into the routines of many people: "Especially when you pass the same places and greet people you don't know, but we know we'll meet fleetingly, even with complicit glances." 8. Get up early, but maybe not so much

One of the reasons to go out early in the summer is that, paradoxically, you might not have to do it at 6 AM. "I always recommend going out when the sun rises, and 6 AM is usually a good option, especially during hot periods," says Miguel Sánchez, a hiking specialist, in this case about the Camino de Santiago: the quintessential context for summer hikes. While he advocates that it's always best to start early, he qualifies that at the end of August, with the shortening of the day, 6 AM is "a bit early" and assures that one could leave at 7 AM and it would still be "early enough not to catch the central hours of heat." So we would be getting up early, but without exaggerating.9. Live the landscapes and vacations

For its part, among the evident benefits there is also the admiration of the beauty of the landscape, be it the everyday or that which is visited as a tourist. For example, Mireia Delgado particularly highlights "the colors of the sunrise over Montserrat", pinkish hues that, combined with the particular stones, leave a totally picturesque landscape. Social networks are also full of travelers who get up at 4 and even 2 to climb peaks in the Alps, the Pyrenees, Greece, Sicily, the United States, or any Indonesian volcano or remote summit in order to see, at least one day, the landscape from another perspective. Conversely, there are also many tourists who come to our coasts to see the sun rise over the Mediterranean. For example, the British Georgia explains all that the landscape component of the sea brings her: "I will never stop feeling grateful", and she places these kinds of walks as the best. Like her, dozens of travelers cannot help but be impressed by the Mediterranean landscape and its dawn reflections. It is enough to go out when there are still few people, to see how more cars and pedestrians gradually appear and to check how, in just over an hour, that initial silence disappears. There is no need to set the alarm clock at half past five every day or even to become one of those people who explain that they have trained, meditated, and read fifty pages before sunrise. It is enough to try it one summer morning (when, if not?). Go out when the city is still asleep and return when others are just starting their day. We will have accomplished everything that day.

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Les xarxes socials són nocives per als menors. Aquest va ser el veredicte contundent en una recent onada de casos judicials d'alta tecnologia a Califòrnia, Kentucky i Nou Mèxic. En el moment més dominant i ambiciós de Silicon Valley, un dels seus productes estrella té tot l'atractiu –i les demandes– que van tenir els cigarrets cap als anys 90.

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There are no more woodcutters. This forest trade from the mid-20th century disappeared due to the energy transition – the replacement of natural resources with fossil fuels – and the rural exodus towards cities. It is an example of how the economy of many territories has been transformed and, consequently, their landscape, especially the forest. Reflections like this have been brought back to the table following the major fires that have ravaged Catalonia and the State, and which have put the need – although some speak of an obligation – to manage a forest that, added to the climate crisis, has an unprecedented fuel load. And behind it all, a key but wasted resource: wood and its potential. "It has much more than we are giving it," anticipates Mario Beltrán, technician at the Centre for Forest Science and Technology of Catalonia (CTFC). This does not mean that wood is not used in our country, but much of it comes from abroad. Today, Catalonia imports 80% of the wood it consumes. Of this amount, 40% comes from other parts of Spain and the rest from abroad. In Spain as a whole, more wood is also imported than exported, especially in the form of products with higher added value such as sawn timber and paper pulp.

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In 2005, four friends who shared an apartment in Barcelona decided to found an association named Freedonia to promote activities related to theater, music, art, and culture in general. Some time later, in 2009, they opened their own venue on Lleialtat street in El Raval, very close to the editorial office of l’ARA, which has become one of the music venues underground more active and resistant in the city, along with others such as the Meteoro hall, Diobar, or Heliogàbal in Gràcia. One of the founders was Coque Sánchez: “At that time, some venues we liked had to close and we wanted to create a space to share culture beyond the commercial logic of bars or nightclubs”. Currently, Coque manages this non-profit entity “with almost 10,000 active members” that schedules live music every weekend with a capacity for a hundred people. An increasingly exceptional project in the city, as obtaining a live music license is quite complicated: “Venues are closing and new ones are not opening. 30 years ago, there were about 400 live music licenses in the metropolitan area, and now we have 160. Barcelona wants to boast of being a culturally active city, but with the conveniences of a dormitory city; we must mediate to defend the rest of the neighbors, but also to promote nightlife culture, which is also a service to citizens and serves, among other things, to prevent young people from all ending up with depression”.

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In a moment when we live surrounded by notifications, photos that disappear in 24 hours, and messages that are forgotten in seconds, writing and sending a postcard is almost a revolutionary act. The truth is that finding the time to look for a postcard, write a thought or an experience on it, buy a stamp, and go to a post office or a mailbox to send it forces us to slow down, to connect with the here and now. And that is precisely what we at ARA wanted to propose to you with the initiative A postcard summer, in which we asked you to send us a postcard telling us about your summer, and in return, you could participate in the raffle for three analog cameras, thanks to the collaboration with Carmencita Film Lab.

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British actor and presenter Russell Brand steps out of a black Mercedes in front of the Southwark Crown Court in London. His sunglasses, the tie undone over his chest, the way he adjusts his trousers, and his air of superiority are more reminiscent of a celebrity arriving at Paris Fashion Week than a defendant appearing before the justice system. Brand faces seven charges related to sexual offenses, including three allegations of rape. Six women accuse him of acts that allegedly took place between 1999 and 2009. He maintains he is innocent. In the photograph, his bodyguard is carrying the Bible in his hand. A grotesque detail that has to do with the new image this individual is trying to build for himself following the accusations.

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On October 5th, in the middle of the midterm election campaign, Donald Trump delivered a speech in Nebraska. Nothing new: patriotic grandiloquence and discursive posturing about the greatness of America. Once the speech ended, Y.M.C.A., by the Village People, played—that song which in the seventies became an icon of gay culture and which today Trump has adopted as his campaign soundtrack. The president then gave himself over to his now-characteristic robotic dance, until a movement revealed an unexpected detail: the suit's label, with the name Jos. A. Bank. An American brand that, at first glance, seemed consistent with one of Trump's most recurring proclamations: consuming products manufactured in the United States. But is the case of Trump and his protectionist measures in fashion exceptional?

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If there is one place in Africa that is worth visiting to understand the deep mystery of the continent, it is Great Zimbabwe. These are enigmatic ruins that rise in the southeast of Zimbabwe, far enough from the capital, Harare, and the country's second city, Bulawayo, for most tourist circuits to ignore them. A big mistake, since when you walk among the walls of Great Zimbabwe, or when you climb to the fortifications on the high part, you realize that Africa is much more than what historians say who insist on narrating the history of Africa starting from the arrival of the first explorers.

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The one in the photo is Caldwell. This week his owner, Katie Brockman, won the Dog Photographer of the Year award at the 2026 Dog Photography Awards. It is the chosen photo from among all the winners of the different categories. It is not one of the major photography awards, but it has repercussions because images of beasts, especially if they are endearing, are grateful content for many media outlets.

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Among all the authentic Barcelona institutions that still withstand the onslaught of time, the Cinema Maldà is undoubtedly one of the essentials. Its mere existence is, in itself, a small miracle. In the heart of Ciutat Vella, at number 5 Carrer del Pi, it stands like an indestructible monolith against the inexorable swings of gentrification, runaway tourism, and the destruction of the neighborhood. The only cinema in the nerve center of Barcelona. It is easy to say. The Comèdia closed a couple of years ago, and the Aribau and the Renoir Floridablanca are the only ones that accompany it in its radius of influence. And the Filmoteca, of course, but it plays in a different league.

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The Titan Desert in Morocco is one of the toughest races in the world of endurance cycling. Over the course of six stages, participants cross the Atlas mountain range and the dunes of the Sahara Desert to complete a route of nearly 600 kilometers and more than 6,000 meters of positive elevation gain. And the 2026 edition, held between late April and early May, had a Catalan seal. The brand Inverse, based in Mollet del Vallès, was chosen to design and manufacture the official jersey for the competition, a garment adapted to withstand the heat, wind, and sand of the landscape, which several of the 475 cyclists who took on the challenge wore.

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Governments will meet in Antalya, Turkey, from November 9 to 20, 2026, for the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), to discuss the progress made and agree on new measures against climate change. What should Catalonia and Spain advocate for at COP31? Adaptation to climate change. Adaptation consists of preparing for climate risks and reducing their impacts, for example, by protecting our coasts, improving infrastructure, and protecting people from extreme heat and droughts.

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It is the year 1967. Aboard a plane, engineer Wolfgang Dierichs notices a woman sitting a few seats away. He sees her take a lipstick out of her bag. The researcher, who works in the adhesives division of the German multinational Henkel, observes as the passenger uncaps it, turns the base, and pushes the colored stick up until it is ready to be applied. He thinks the mechanism is very clean, fast, and precise, and, before landing, he is already turning over an idea: what if, instead of a lipstick, the tube contained glue?

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It was the early 2000s and almost everyone carried in their pocket a small, simple, and robust mobile phone, the Nokia 1100, which became the best-selling mobile phone in history, and still holds that record today. In those days, the Finnish technology company controlled 26% of the global telephony market share and brought to market another device that would mark an entire generation with more than 126 million units sold. It was the Nokia 3310, also known as the "brick" for its reputation for being indestructible in everyday drops.

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In the summer of 1980, the Spanish people watched with perplexity the outbreak of what would become one of the most remembered cases of the peninsula's true crime history. We are talking about the murder of the Marquis and Marchioness of Urquijo, an aristocratic couple who were victims of shots from a mysterious figure while they slept in their mansion in Somosaguas (Madrid). We label the killer as mysterious because, although the justice system handed down a sentence and convicted the couple's former son-in-law, the speculations about the participants in the crime have never stopped over the last forty-six years. In fact, the court itself opened the door to various hypotheses when it stated in the sentence that the person who fired was undoubtedly Rafael Escobedo Alday, "alone or in the company of others". This addendum seemed to point to a large number of individuals, all of them members of a grotesque bunch of characters who for years were protagonists in the media: the children of the Marquis and Marchioness, the irascible estate administrator, the effeminate butler, Dick the American (the daughter's second husband), the Marquis of Torrehermosa, or Javier Anastasio de Espona, who is the one we are really interested in.

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Gabriel Ginebra forma part del Consell Regional de Persones Expertes de la TUI (Time Use Initiative) i serà un dels ponents a la Time Use Week que se celebra del 19 al 21 d’octubre a Barcelona. Forma part d’una família de dotze germans, amb la seva dona ha criat set fills i ara ja té dos nets.

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Like penguins is an autofiction show, in which I tell the story of Helena, who is me. I explain why I became a clown.

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Sandra Bruna (Barcelona, 1973) is a literary agent. Twenty-five years ago she created the Sandra Bruna Literary Agency and represents more than a hundred authors.

She grew up on Nàpols street, in the Dreta de l'Eixample, which she claims has changed a lot over the years. “It was a neighborhood that was a real neighborhood. I remember Miquel, the man from the kiosk, the plumber who would come to the house to fix things for you... That which now seems like it can only happen in small towns, before it also happened in the neighborhoods of Barcelona,” she explains. Bruna went to the Sagrat Cor school, in Tetuan square. “I was a very studious girl, but the sciences were very hard for me. I had to put a lot of effort into math, chemistry, physics, and that was a tough process. On the other hand, everything that was literature went very well for me. Many times they would reward me for the effort rather than for the results, especially in the science line, because they saw that I really worked very hard at it,” she recalls.

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Gabriel Ginebra is part of the Regional Expert Council of the TUI (Time Use Initiative) and will be one of the speakers at the Time Use Week that is being held from October 19th to 21st in Barcelona. He is part of a family of twelve siblings, he has raised seven children with his wife, and now he has two grandchildren.

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Something uncomfortable happened to Sweden: for years it lived off the prestige of an educational system that was no longer achieving the same results. PISA 2012 made a problem difficult to ignore: 478 points in mathematics, 483 in reading, and 485 in science. But six years later they were 502, 506, and 499. The average explains only part of the story. In mathematics, between 2012 and 2018, the percentage of students below the basic level fell by 8.3 percentage points, and those reaching the highest levels grew by 4.6. TIMSS pointed in the same direction: Swedish 8th-grade students went from 484 points in 2011 to 501 in 2015.

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This weekend it seems it might rain, yet there are plenty of proposals to enjoy with the family. As always, we have prepared a selection of activities for you to do with your children on October 16th, 17th, and 18th, such as going to the cinema to see a premiere, participating in some of the Barcelona Dibuixa activities, or enjoying a family poetry recital at Foix.

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On October 15, 1940, at 6:30 in the morning, 86 years ago today, at the Santa Eulàlia moat, a firing squad killed President Lluís Companys. On November 8, 1940, three weeks after the assassination of Companys by order of General Franco, the government of the Republic of Mexico sent its heartfelt condolences to his widow, Carme Ballester. This is demonstrated by a letter, hitherto unpublished, which the Associació Memòria i Història de Manresa is publishing this Thursday. In the missive, the secretary of the Mexican legation in Paris, Bernardo Reyes, expressed to her a message of solidarity and recognition:

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In 2022, the results of the program were published for mindfulness largest school study to date, with the participation of 84 high schools and more than 8,000 students aged 11 to 13. The data showed that it was of no use and, furthermore, the adolescents who were already struggling ended up worse off. In Australia, an eight-session emotional skills program increased depression and anxiety in students, and worsened their relationship with their parents. Psychologist Lucy Foulkes, from the University of Oxford, says that if we teach young people to observe their emotions, some learn to interpret discomfort as a symptom and the label ends up becoming true. Talking about emotions is not the problem: the key is how we talk about them, because monitoring oneself is not the same as understanding oneself.

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Writer Sofia Andrukhovych (Ukraine, 1982) continues to try, despite the war, to write from Kyiv. These days she is in Barcelona to talk about memory, trauma, and creation in times of conflict at the Biennial of Thought, and to present The story of Romana and Uliana. Amadoca (Salamandra), translated into Spanish by Olga Korobenko. Originally conceived in three interconnected parts (the story of Romana, the story of Uliana, and the story of Sofia), the Spanish edition includes only the first two books. Through family memories and intense love stories, the author, daughter of the writer Yuri Andrukhovych, covers the Stalinist repression, the Holocaust, and the war in the Donbas.

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It is unusual for Judit Carrera, director of the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), to appear in the economics pages. Tourism governance and access to housing are two such huge and transversal challenges that they also impact the definition of Barcelona as a city and its cultural dynamics. From the CCCB, she has placed these topics at the center of many of her activities, from the Biennial of Thought that is being held these days to the Cities and Tourism cycle, for which there are precisely two new activities this very week. The topic, however, also affects the very functioning of the center. Carrera, on one hand, argues that limits must be placed on tourism and, on the other, is committed to the CCCB reaching more foreign visitors. When the search for a new tourism model has become the Holy Grail, Carrera establishes culture as a vector of change.

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It is logical that a good part of the audience that goes to the theater looks for entertainment with laughter that does not make them think. It is no longer so logical that the billboard is filled with this type of theater, ignoring proposals that invite one to ask questions and talk about what has been seen. As you can imagine with this preamble, A small distortion is a proposal from the latter, like almost all the theater of Enric Nolla. A theatre that avoids conventional logic and approaches the dark corners of the human being, as is evident in his dramaturgical debut, Hurricane (2000), passing through White slave trade (2001) and ending with this A small distortion, in which he reflects on the creation of masculinity in our society, making it very clear with the title that it is the author himself who poses the question. And he does so with the help of a character of those who take the air bridge in first class, who have a closet full of ties. A self-satisfied winner who despises the weak and hates failure in a clear critique of a model with Trump-like airs. And the fact is that Nolla's theater is neither innocuous nor kind; it avoids the obvious and responds to the restlessness of someone who confronts an ungraspable world often prone to destruction. We find the protagonist in a luxurious penthouse with impressive views of the city, while he prepares the speech he is to deliver at the company party that has just awarded him the management of an international delegation.

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The audience at the Sitges Festival, so noted this edition for the bad habit some spectators have of applauding every violent death whether it is pertinent or not, has once again shown that, when it wants to, it can be the great asset of this festival. And it has done so with a simple and natural gesture, of elemental justice: awarding the best film of the festival, Wildwood, an extraordinary film that is already history of animation cinema, if not of cinema in general. The film from the animation studio in stop motion Laika, a true technical and cinematic prodigy, has taken the festival's Audience Award, but the official section jury has completely ignored it in its list of winners and opted to award a minor and derivative work like the French Sanguine, the second feature film by Marion Le Corroller, which underlines with a fluorescent pencil its critique of the labor exploitation of capitalism with elements of body horror borrowed from much superior recent titles like Cru or The Substance.

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Ernestina Torelló (Barcelona, 83 years old), co-owner together with her children of the Torelló winery (Corpinnat), has just written a page of history: the Cercle del Liceu, the social club located wall-to-wall with the Liceu de Barcelona and inaugurated in 1847, has chosen her as its first female president. New times for an institution that is changing little by little: the black and white balls, the ones that were drawn to accept new members, like those in the film La bola negra by directors The Javis, are still stored in one of the lounges. They are no longer used; now, to get in, four members must vouch for you and you must pay an annual fee of one thousand three hundred euros.

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Autumn is here, and that is synonymous with Catalan traditions. Panellets and sweet potatoes, like this stuffed one. But there are also new foreign traditions that are taking hold. We make it work so we don't stop having panellets, by adding a touch of terror.

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Not everything is turmoil among the sparkling wines produced here at home. The departure of producers from the DO Cava, the majority to join Corpinnat or Clàssic Penedès, has monopolized the attention paid to bubbles for years. With all this commotion, another of the movements that have been decisive for the revolution of Penedès sparkling wines to take place has been left in the background. It is about the multiplication of ancestrals, bubbles that strive, as so many other producers of sparkling wines made with the traditional method –cava style– also try to do, to vindicate the Penedès and its vineyards.

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Ten years ago, Guillem Salazar and a friend of his decided to start a gastronomic project in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. Covid caused a lot of damage and changed the mindset and priorities of many people. Ignasi, his friend and partner, decided to take another path, and Guillem was left alone at the helm of the project. Today he is the owner, leader, and chef of Debut, a very personal proposal that has the support of a great team.

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We were already in tomato injury time –they are practically the last ones of the season–, and Roger Viñas has used them to prepare a wonderful gazpacho. He tells me that people don't ask for it much, even though the tomatoes are from Xavier Carbó, from the Mas Rabassa agricultural estate, in Sant Genís de Palafolls. "If only they knew," I say to myself. And the lamb meatballs? They are from Cal Tomàs, in La Pobla de Segur. Meatballs made of lean organic Xisqueta lamb served with a bread and garlic sauce. A perfect dish: for its quality and the values it conveys. You will find all of this on Passeig de Sant Joan in Barcelona.

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The Can Cabrisas pastry shop in Cadaqués will close forever on October 31st. “We didn't want to tell anyone, but Helena Garcia Melero found out and published the photo with me on her Instagram account, and it has already spread,” explained Mercè Cabrissas. Her tone is one of melancholy, not sadness, because she is looking forward to retiring. The reason they are closing is because they want to retire, to rest. Behind them remain five cousins, three children from Mercè's side, and two from her brother's side, who are the ones who could continue in the future. “The recipe for the taps de Cadaqués is well kept in the family, and it will not be lost,” says Mercè.

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Peugeot has waited for the Paris Motor Show to reveal one of its best-kept secrets, the brand-new electric prototype E-T16. This vehicle is, in reality, a conceptual prototype that aims to pay tribute to the legendary Peugeot 205 T16, a rally car that conquered the world rally championships in the years 1985 and 1986 in the Group B category.

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Elon Musk has reason to celebrate. Nine years after its announcement, Tesla has finally shown the first images and technical capabilities of the Roadster, the American brand's electric two-seater sports car. In fact, the first Tesla Roadster was presented in 2006, taking advantage of the Lotus Elise base in force at that time, but transforming it into an electric car. Tesla sold about 2,000 units of the first Roadster between 2008 and 2012, before ceasing production and turning it into a car highly coveted by collectors, especially after SpaceX (a company also under Musk's control) placed one into solar orbit in 2018 as part of the Falcon Heavy rocket's maiden voyage.

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New setback for the European Union's climate goals. The continent's economic engines, France and Germany, reached an agreement this Friday to soften the climate requirements for the automotive sector and maintain the manufacturing of combustion vehicles beyond 2035. This was announced by the French government in a statement, in which it details that the pact also includes tools to strengthen production conditions within Europe. This proposal has been a major demand from European manufacturers, who are currently working hastily to electrify in the face of strong Chinese competition.

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Enthusiasm in the Catalan PP for who will be enthroned this Sunday as the PP candidate for Barcelona in the upcoming Spanish elections. The mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, has been selected as the Populars' candidate for Barcelona with the fundamental task of being the antidote to Vox, especially considering the great growth of the radical right-wing party in the Principality. Once the elections were brought forward, it immediately became clear that the most beloved person within the Catalan PP is Albiol. Furthermore, La Vanguardia was already pointing out that the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, was considering betting on him as a candidate.

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The most common question these days among the journalists in Congress themselves is: "And you, what do you think will happen on November 29th? Who will win? It is curious to verify that, at first, practically everyone takes it for granted that the PP will prevail and that it will govern with the support of a few dozen Vox deputies, between 50 and 70. However, if the person being asked looks unsure, their interlocutor also begins to search for arguments to give consistency to their prediction, as if they needed to convince themselves that their forecast is well-founded and a foregone conclusion.

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The song Los niños del barrio was playing when the leaders of the Broad Front appeared this Saturday in Madrid before more than a thousand militants who were waiting to learn about the project that brings together the left in the State for the November 29 elections. But not everyone was there. Los niños from Podem were missing, with whom the possibility of running together in Madrid, Barcelona, and other territories vanished this Friday night after an "agonizing" negotiation, acknowledge some voices from this space, who arrived at the event having barely slept. Gabriel Rufián was also not there, who had risen as the unifying face of all the forces to the left of the PSOE to curb the threat of a PP-Vox government. Nor was Yolanda Díaz, who three years ago was the candidate for this space – then under the name Sumar – for the presidency of the Spanish government. This Saturday she had a parallel event at a university. Today, Ada Colau returns to the political front line, candidate of the Broad Front for the presidency of the Spanish government and number one for Barcelona – Ernest Urtasun will run as number two on the ticket in the Catalan capital –, and Emilio Delgado will be the number one for Madrid.

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The day of mobilization in France to protest against the rising cost of living has left images of authentic chaos, violence, and clashes between protesters and police in Paris and other cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Rennes, and Limoges. According to the organizers, 800,000 people have taken to the streets, a figure that the French authorities lower to 550,000. Across the country, more than 90 demonstrations and 500 protests were called, and many have ended in riots –especially serious in Paris–, on a day in which the police have arrested hundreds of people. Just in the metropolitan area of the French capital, there have been 855 arrests. Nationwide, the toll of detainees rises to 1,800 people, and there are 500 injured police officers.

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Neither the presence of European diplomats nor a press vest has prevented Israeli settlers from acting with violence again in the West Bank. This Saturday, a group of settlers attacked a European diplomatic delegation in Taybeh, a Christian-majority Palestinian town located east of Ramallah in the West Bank, a territory considered occupied since 1967 by the international community.

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The two worst moments in the relationship between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy have had a common denominator: they have arrived preceded by a telephone conversation between the United States president and Vladimir Putin, in which the Kremlin leader promised him major joint business deals. It happened in February 2025, before the public brawl between the American leader and the Ukrainian leader in the Oval Office of the White House, and it has happened again now, following the agreement for Moscow to sell diesel with Washington's permission, which caught Kyiv off guard. The Russian president has known at all times how to offer Trump what he desired, persuade him with his reasons, draw him to his positions, and pit him against Zelenskyy.

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Catalonia is once again suffering a critical rainstorm. The downpours this Saturday evening have fallen mainly in the Vallès Oriental and Maresme areas, where what is, for now, the most serious incident of this storm has occurred. A team made up of the Generalitat Fire Department, Mossos d'Esquadra, and Maritime Rescue is working on the search for a woman who, according to several witnesses, reportedly fell into the stream in Cabrera de Mar shortly before eight in the evening. The operation continued throughout the night and is continuing this Sunday morning, expanding the search radius to the river mouth at the sea.

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Unwanted loneliness has a direct impact on the well-being and health of those who suffer from it, especially the most vulnerable, such as migrants.

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Despite the advances, lung cancer remains the deadliest cancer in the world. Now Catalonia is taking another step to improve its prevention. Starting in 2027, the Department of Health will offer lung cancer screenings to people over 60 who have smoked at least one pack a day for thirty years. Later on, the measure will be extended to other population groups that could benefit from early diagnosis.

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Discussions about the housing crisis begin with economic arguments at vermouth time, move on to politics, social complexity, management in the historical sphere, and immigration. By dessert time, the conversation is still not over. Almost always during the conversation, morality, legitimacy, and values also come into play.

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On October 16 of last year, Banc Sabadell and BBVA definitively buried any possibility of a merger. After 17 months of open warfare and tug-of-war, a statement to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) confirmed it. The offer from the entity presided over by Carlos Torres had achieved only 25% acceptance from the capital of the Valles-based bank, below the 30% minimum threshold that the Basque-origin group had set to continue with the operation. The group presided over by Josep Oliu had won the battle. But twelve months later, time has shown that, after the failed takeover bid, the final outcome has turned out to be happy for both.

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Pimec has achieved one of its goals: to become part of the Economic and Social Council (CES), an advisory body to the Spanish government in the socioeconomic and labor sphere. The employers' association, which will hold the representation together with the organization for SMEs of the Balearic Islands (Pimeb), has received a letter from the Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, inviting them to appoint who will occupy their seat in the renewal of the CES promoted by Díaz. Ferran Bel, permanent representative of this business organization in Madrid and former senator and deputy for the PDeCAT, will take the position.

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Josep Aparici i Fins is one of the most important geographers of 18th-century Catalonia, and at the same time is surrounded by controversy. During the War of the Spanish Succession, the Austrianist authorities commissioned him to create the map of Catalonia, and after the war, he entered the service of King Philip V, who granted him the title of His Majesty's geographer. Furthermore, he was one of the main collaborators in the implementation of the cadastre, a measure that was detrimental to the Catalan economy. But, despite everything, his trajectory has been considered ambiguous.

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The AI has received its first Planeta award tonight in Barcelona. But it is not, in this case, a machine capable of generating a novel that has deceived the jury, but the initials of the winning author, Isabel Allende, the best-selling living novelist in Hispanic literature, with more than 80 million copies sold. The 84-year-old Chilean author entered the 75th edition of one of the best-endowed literary awards – surpassed by very little by the Nobel Prize, which offered 1.1 million euros to the winner, Anne Carson– to culminate her extensive career and star in an editorial scandal: Isabel Allende is changing houses.

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For several years now, Catalan readers have been able to savor the meticulous, introspective, and hallucinatory prose of Mircea Cartarescu (Bucharest, 1956). While Periscopi published Solenoid (2017) and the Blinding trilogy (2018-2022), novels translated by Antònia Escandell Tur, thanks to the Mallorcan publisher Lleonard Muntaner and translator Xavier Montoliu Pauli, the volumes of short stories Why We Love Women (2016), the poems of Nothing (2018), an extensive and essential anthology of his Diaries (2024) have arrived, and now, Travesti, which according to the Romanian author was "the beginning of everything that has come after." This short novel, published in Romanian in 1994, presents a 34-year-old writer who, with the desire to emerge from the crisis he finds himself in, recalls the summer of his adolescence spent in camps where contact with nature, music, and inquiries into his own sexuality changed his life.

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Espanyol is competing again. And they have discovered that they have a great goalkeeper. These are the two best pieces of news for the blue-and-whites, who this afternoon made Atlético de Madrid sweat hard. Even so, neither a good match nor Fortuño's saves were enough to get anything positive against the second-placed team, the only one that can keep up with Barça in the League. Another cruel goal, by Baena in the 89th minute, dashed the efforts of the parakeets, who improved on the image offered against Rayo, Elche, and Málaga, but have lost again (0-1) and have only achieved one point out of the last 12. The defeat adds even more doubts about the continuity of Manolo González, questioned for weeks and who now faces three consecutive away games that could seal his future.

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The best Barça of the season so far recovered from a 14-point deficit against Olympiacos, forced overtime, but could not complete the feat (100-105). The blaugrana team played with the passion of Pep Guardiola, who witnessed the match live, but lacked the necessary determination to overcome the EuroLeague champion. Justin Robinson, who forced extra time with a three-pointer, and Tyrese Martin had a great performance at the Palau Blaugrana.

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In the midst of the Barça assembly of delegates, the technical secretary, Deco, had already said that a principle of agreement had been reached for Raphinha to extend his commitment with the club until 2030. A few weeks later, all the details have been closed, the contract is drafted and only needs to be signed. Since it is not just any footballer, both the club – represented by the president Joan Laporta – and the player are trying to coordinate schedules to hold a formal ceremony with all the honors. Initially, it had been thought of for this Thursday, although it had to be postponed due to a calendar issue. At the club, they insist that everything is ready and that it is only necessary to set a day and time.

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The only thing missing was Ángela Carrasco blaring through the speakers with those shrieks that said “si tu eres mi hooombreee y yo tu mujeeeer, donde quieras que estés amooor, contigo estarééé”. Pedro Sánchez’s kiss to Begoña Gómez is one of the campaign’s images, and most newspapers included it on their front page. The scene, being prefabricated, had a touch of discomfort and, in the wide shots showing the crowd applauding that display of intimate affection, also a dose of political pornography. Perhaps that is why the headline in El País (“Sánchez puts Begoña into the campaign”) expressed a certain discomfort and was identical to that of El Mundo.

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This past week, the new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, made her debut in the briefing room in an appearance that was a failure. Nervous and overwhelmed, she only took three questions in fourteen minutes.

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We usually consider resignations an honorable (and rare) gesture but they are often more cosmetic than decisive. In the case of the socialists' spokesperson, it is obvious that it is an aesthetic issue: it looks bad for someone to come out making grand proclamations in favor of tenants while their partner is actively pursuing evictions in the courts and speculating in the real estate casino, where the bank also always wins. Now, I would bet a pea, or a penthouse in Madrid if I had one, that she must not be the only politician caught in this contradiction. The thing is not to get caught. From there, the day's press made it evident that the situation was a lose-lose for Sánchez. And the right-wing newspapers fell into amusing contradictions. For example, El Mundo headlined: “Hypocrisy over housing wipes out the PSOE spokesperson” and said in a subtitle that “Sánchez asked her to stay because she was 'a great asset' to the party”. According to this thesis, it is Montse Mínguez who decides to quit, knowing that she has become a burden. And the newspaper, of course, tried to attach this dead weight to the leader of the PSOE, to see if there is any luck and he sinks with her in the process. On the other hand, the ABCexecuted a different (and incompatible) strategy. On the front page they wrote: “Sánchez sacrifices the PSOE spokesperson to cover up the housing fiasco”. Here they did not buy that the Spanish president wanted to retain her and they portrayed him with the executioner's axe, merciless, capable of decapitating one of his own to survive another day and divert the focus from the umpteenth scandal.

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The week ahead, with Maria Labró Vila

Some of the things we hope not to miss in the next seven days

I will wait impatiently for the new episodes of La travessa to be published on the 3Cat platform, which after three seasons with anonymous contestants has incorporated familiar faces. I confess that I am enjoying it immensely watching them suffer while facing impossible challenges through the Tramuntana mountain range, and that I cannot get the song that The Tyets and Miki Núñez wrote for the journalist Raquel Sans out of my head.

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Our history can be explained through kings, wars, revolutions, and great inventions. But it can also be explained through the stones, sediments, volcanoes, and minerals that have conditioned human life throughout the centuries. Without all the resources that the Earth offers, many of the great civilizations would not have been possible. And without the geological processes that transform it, our history would have been very different. This is the perspective proposed by the geologist and popularizer Esther Lapaz, who invites us to retrace the past of humanity through geology in her new book Con los pies en la Tierra (Ediciones B, 2026).

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When Conchi found out that incandescent light bulbs, the classic ones, were going to disappear, she had an anxiety attack. Luckily, Dolors, her partner of many years, gave her a paper bag so she could breathe slowly and emerge from her distress. That same afternoon they went to Monsó i Benet, on Muntaner Street, their go-to hardware store, and inquired about the dramatic situation. Indeed, they had stopped being manufactured. Faced with that devastating news, they began to buy every incandescent bulb they could find to stock up for life.

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The Barcelona music scene has had an unexpected surprise: Madonna has discovered the existence of 23 Robadors, one of the most underground spaces in the city. The person responsible is the Venezuelan DJ and producer Arca: the singer has been collaborating with her for years, and she told her about the venue during one of their work sessions. In a fragment of a video posted on social media about the making-of of Madonna's album, the two artists talk about places to listen to good flamenco.

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Actress Hilary Swank announced this Wednesday on Instagram that she is pregnant with her third child. Swank is 52 years old and is expecting the baby with her husband, businessman Philip Schneider. The birth is scheduled for December. For the announcement, Swank recorded a video in which she shows her family dancing with the lights off and with glow sticks attached to their bodies. Then the actress appears with a belly to which a small, also luminous baby has been attached. In the text accompanying the post, the actress plays with the idea of a new project. "Many people have asked me what my next project is: it will come out in December," the performer wrote.

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The styling of Amaia Montero, the lead singer of La Oreja de Van Gogh, has stirred up controversy since the start of the Basque band's comeback tour. In fact, even before that, with the outfit she chose to perform on New Year's Eve. Her vocal abilities have also been called into question since the first day, due to the obvious problems she had with staying in tune and performing her own songs from start to finish, on a tour that celebrates the group's thirtieth anniversary.

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His story could well turn into a movie. In the seventies, when Robert Proctor (Texas, 1954) was investigating the reason why we get cancer –at a time when there was an intense debate about the role that tobacco, pesticides, and other pollutants played in it–, he delved into the secret archives of the big tobacco companies and discovered a chilling fact: for decades, they had manipulated science to sow doubt about the deadly effects of their products.

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It is May 7, 1959, and a tall, burly man with little hair on his head walks decisively into the Senate House, an 18th-century neoclassical building. This is Charles Percy Snow, a chemist, successful novelist, and advisor to the British government, recently named Baron of Leicester by the Queen for his services to the country. He is preparing to give the Rede Lecture, a prestigious conference held every year at the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom. He does not know it yet, but he is about to create a considerable stir that will awaken the wrath of many powerful people and generate a public debate that will last for years.

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This past week the Generalitat has announced that it will take charge of 75 million euros of the costs caused by the recent torrential rains. The figure is a small sample of the constant drip of public spending caused by the effects of the ecological crisis. But the climate problem does not only affect the public treasury, it also entails an economic drain for families and insurance companies. To know the monetary impact of these phenomena, the European Environment Agency has compiled the annual losses that extreme weather phenomena have meant in the European Union (EU). Although the economic figures only take into account direct expenses – for example, those registered by governments and insurers – and not indirect ones, the data are implacable.

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