While more foreign tourists than ever arrive in Catalonia, domestic tourism is falling. Excursions and trips by Catalans within the territory are down 25.6% compared to before the pandemic, 2019. According to data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) compiled by ARA, trips are down 19.1%, and day trips are down 28.3%.

Héctor and Magnolia work in luxury hotel establishments. He holds a position of responsibility in the kitchen of a well-known hotel in Barcelona, and she cleans rooms in an exclusive tourist establishment near the city's beach. Despite living daily with tourism, Magnolia is part of the 28.8% of Catalans who, according to Idescat, cannot afford to take a week's vacation away from home, and until six or seven years ago, Héctor was also one of them.

Multiple fires continue to hit different parts of the State. The two main centers of concern are the flames that have affected 90,000 people and have burned 77,000 hectares in Madrid, Ávila, and Toledo, and the fire in Vall d'Uixó, in the Castellón region of La Plana Baixa, in the Valencian Country. In this second front, 450 firefighters are working, and the authorities have evacuated nearly a thousand residents from the Texas neighborhood and 113 people from a residence in the early morning. This Sunday, two more municipalities, Assuévar and Almedíxer, totaling about 600 inhabitants, had to be evacuated.

The most serious fire plaguing France, southwest of Bordeaux, continues to burn uncontrolled in "very unfavorable" conditions, according to the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez. This Sunday, the flames had devoured 42,000 hectares — practically 10,000 more than in yesterday's assessment — which places this fire as the most serious in the last fifty years in the country. Evacuation figures also continue to grow. Counting the nearly 20,000 people evacuated during the night, the number of displaced people in the southwest of the country now exceeds 220,000.

The German government pledged this Saturday to bring to justice those responsible for the fatal run-over at a Pride event in Berlin on Friday night, which left at least one dead and twenty-nine injured —some seriously—. The Interior Ministry is treating the incident as a terrorist attack and the police continue to search for the driver, whom they accuse of having ties to Islamist circles. "Everything we see here indicates that we are dealing with an Islamist attack," stated the Interior Minister, Alexander Dobrindt.

The three lines affected by the collapse of the tracks this Wednesday in Montcada i Reixac are now running again. The R2, R2 Nord, and R11 have resumed service this Sunday morning between the stations of Sant Andreu and Montcada i Reixac, which had been stopped since the collapse of one of the shafts from the works to bury the tracks on the border between the two cities. Temporarily, a speed limit has been set on the affected stretch.

A Convergència la sang mai arribava al riu. En un espai tan ampli com el de la ja extinta formació nacionalista, les lluites de poder eren constants entre famílies, però al final tothom es quadrava davant del líder. Primer Jordi Pujol i després Artur Mas. Amb Carles Puigdemont i l’assemblea de fundació del PDECat tot canvia, ja que aquell dia les bases prenen el control i l’espai convergent va implosionar en l’elecció del nom, la cúpula, l’estratègia... tant és així que l’experiment no va sortir bé i Puigdemont va acabar fundant Junts per Catalunya.

Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida was a totem for many years of Catalan and Spanish politics. The best-rated leader in Catalonia and with influence in Madrid, he was abruptly removed from politics because he did not secure representation for Unió in the Spanish elections of 2015. He had already planned to gradually retire, but that defeat, which he experienced as a tragedy, relegated him from public life. Now, eleven years later, he gives thanks every day for not being there. Thanks for not having experienced the peak of the 'Procés' firsthand, which he always considered to be going down the wrong path, nor the current Congress hemicycle with its polarized atmosphere. He does deeply regret the demise of CiU, as he believes that both Catalonia and the State as a whole have lost out. However, this does not mean that Duran i Lleida is retired. At 74 years old and a grandfather, he continues to be hyperactive and his schedule is packed. The difference is that now he does it out of the spotlight.

In sexuality, normality does not exist. And, what's more, people lie quite a lot about what they do and don't do in bed: we come from a historically taboo subject that, at the same time, gives a certain status. Saying you have a lot of sex continues to be on the rise. Many times this creates what "is expected" to be a kind of "collective mirage" created from lies and exaggerations.

What could be an architect's favorite place? A spectacular natural space? A construction visited by millions of people every year? Pol Casellas, architect and cultural communicator, is very clear about it: the Bogatell breakwater in Barcelona: “It's close to me and I go there often. It's not idyllic, but for me it's special, I've always been very connected to the sea, and I feel that breakwaters give me a lot of calm”.

When I returned to work from Girona four years ago, after years covering political information in Madrid, I set out to understand the cycling boom that the city has experienced. One of the first people I spoke to was Anna Gibert Sau (Riudarenes, 1977), a police officer specialized in sexist violence and co-founder of Girona Gravel Girls, a community made up exclusively of women that today already exceeds 430 members.

Heat waves don't just affect humans. High temperatures, heat, and tropical nights can also take a toll on our pets, which is why it's important to adjust their environment and daily activities so they can have the best possible summer. As veterinarian Jaume Martínez, from the El Masnou Veterinary Center, who has been caring for the health of pets for nearly forty years, explains, heat, "if they didn't live with us, they would experience it very well, because they would be still during the day, they wouldn't do anything, they would be in the shade, in a cool place. And even more so for cats, who are specialists at finding the coolest place to take refuge." As Martínez reflects, they would spend the day resting, trying to hydrate themselves when they could, "and it's at night that they would be more active: they would go to eat, they would go hunting, they wouldn't be making useless efforts." With us it's different: "Things change because we, obviously I'm thinking of dogs, take them for walks in places that can be asphalted or with surfaces that get very hot, and that makes them suffer the heat in a very different way."

Historically in Catalonia, masovers were peasant families who lived in a farmhouse that did not belong to them in exchange for working the land, feeding the livestock, and guarding the property. However, for some years now, a new form of masoveria adapted to modern times has emerged: masovers are responsible for rehabilitating and renovating a dilapidated farmhouse that is not their property and, in return, can live there for years without paying rent. This formula of mutual exchange allows families who do not have the necessary resources to fulfill their dream of living in the countryside, while at the same time preventing ancestral homes, often inherited, from deteriorating and a valuable architectural heritage from being lost. A true win-win. win-win in every way.

The theater director Àlex Rigola does not conceive of summer readings as light readings. "Light literature just doesn't get to me. Books like The Girl on the Train seem unbearable to me, very hard to read, because there are only actions," he explains. What seduces him is more the "how it is told" than the "what." That is, the style, the voice, in short, high-flying literature. "I look for art in the narrative of writing more than in cinema. Sometimes emotional cinema takes me away, and on the other hand, in literature, I need the text itself to have quality," says the director of the Heartbreak Hotel theater.

In Gerard Quintana's life there have been many special nights, but none like that one in the summer of 1977 which, he assures, "changed his life and career forever".

"There have been five major extinction crises on the planet so far. The last one was caused by a meteorite that fell to Earth. That's when the dinosaurs went extinct. Now we are immersed in the sixth: animals are going extinct at a faster rate than usual due to climate change and human action," explains Carles Lalueza-Fox, director of the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona, an expert in ancient DNA recovery techniques and evolutionary genetics. Lalueza holds a doctorate in biology and is a world authority on paleogenetics (the science that studies past genomes). This extinction, the current one, is the first that is our fault, humanity's. It is due to a few factors: habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, climate change... It is estimated that there are currently about 47,000 species in danger of extinction. Yes, it is an outrage.This is why this museum, which should become the National Museum of Natural Sciences of Catalonia – something that is progressing at a snail's pace – has promoted several biobanks, facilities where biological samples and even stem cells of endangered species are kept cold. For example, samples of amphibians currently threatened in Catalonia are being collected. The DNA is preserved in the biobank and can thus be the subject of genetic studies later on, in the next century, for example."Furthermore, we collaborate with CrioZoo, where cell cultures and animal stem cells are stored in liquid nitrogen," Carles explains to me. "We also work on biodiversity conservation, mainly in collaboration with the Generalitat. When a road is built that affects endangered native plants, they call us and we take them to the botanical garden of Barcelona, where we replant them or store their seeds in our germplasm bank"."We are currently in the process of genetically 'understanding' living beings in the context of the current biodiversity crisis," Carles explains to me while walking through the Biography of Earth area of the exhibition Planet Life. "Threatened species must be preserved for future generations," he adds.We enter a very well-made recreation of a collector's cabinet, the Salvador Collection. It is one of the so-called "islands of science". This collection contained, for both collecting and curative purposes, animals, herbaria, soils, minerals... and quite a few fossils. Since evolution or past life was not conceived of before, some people thought that fossils were "copies" that nature "made", and thus God tested believers. "God deceives the unbelievers, they thought", comments Carles while touching a pyrite (golden in color, cubical in shape). Museums have long not only "allowed" touching but "invite" touching, and this one is no exception.A long time ago, in museums everything was protected with display cases. Here there are indeed display cases, with naturalized animals. But they are display cases "in the open air". In front of me is a naturalized lion, inside a display case, sharing the space with many other predatory beasts. Next to the lion is Urko – in this case in a display case for him alone –, a gorilla, son of the mythical Floquet de Neu and Ndengue from the Barcelona Zoo. He died at 25 years old as a consequence of peritonitis. "Shouldn't he be white?", I ask Carles. "No. What causes albinism is a recessive gene. I participated in the study that obtained Floquet's complete genome. We discovered that the parents were consanguineous, that is, they were related", he explains.The architects Herzog and De Meuron took charge of the museography, and designed these display cases "in the open air". Furthermore, they adapted the building, which had been built for the Forum of Cultures and which remained empty after its celebration. "This is one of the curses of natural science museums: they are installed in buildings that were not designed to house them. It is a strange building for a museum: labyrinthine, with changes in levels... and dark: you have to illuminate the pieces; this makes the visit an immersive experience," says Carles. Herzog and De Meuron, authors of the renovation of the Tate Modern in London and the Beijing Olympic Stadium, had to squeeze their knowledge to adapt it into a museum. One of the peculiarities of this museum is that it has a visitable green roof, with species from the Mediterranean area.Another "science island" that catches my attention at the museum is the one dedicated to how living beings are classified. To introduce it, it talks about the various ways we can classify buttons. "Now living beings are classified according to their evolutionary context. Without evolution, the natural world cannot be understood," emphasizes Carles. That's why the museum doesn't show living beings ordered as we did in school (birds, mammals...) but by concepts like flying or avoiding being eaten. That is, taking into account everything that has allowed them to survive throughout evolution. Lalueza's head is buzzing with projects. "I would like one day to hold an exhibition of historical meteorites in Catalonia." The Museum of Natural Sciences has samples of four meteorites that fell in Catalonia between the 18th and 19th centuries. They are small fragments that tell us about the characteristics of the origin of the solar system. One is officially known as the "Barcelona meteorite", which fell in... Terrassa!, on Christmas Day in 1704, in the middle of the War of Succession. Some said it foretold great misfortunes. Anyway, Catalonia lost the war.A third exhibition that Lalueza would like to hold – this one is underway – is about a mammoth found in 1920. "Our paleontologists are studying it (they want to determine its sex, age, and are also reconstructing the bones it is missing)". It will be held in 2028. The mammoth was found in the Barcelona neighborhood of Pedralbes. Yes, long before building high-standing houses, mammoths roamed there.A spectacular 19th-century whale skeleton I remember having seen it at the Castle of the Three Dragons, in the Ciutadella, where the Museum of Zoology was located, from which part of the pieces of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona come. Fortunately, it has been preserved. It is a spectacular whale skeleton. The visitor entering the museum passes underneath it: it is located above the entrance stairs. This skeleton is of a cetacean that ran aground on the beach of Llançà in 1862. It weighs one ton – the skeleton alone! – and is almost twenty meters long.

Rosa Boladeras (Terrassa, 1972) is an actress driven by passions. Enthusiasm led her at a young age to make the stage her calling, and since then, she has built a very long career made up of shows and television projects that have made her one of the most outstanding performers in our country. After being away from theater for seven years to dedicate herself to municipal politics, at the Terrassa City Council, Boladeras is now experiencing one of the most recognized moments of her professional career thanks to the Margarida Xirgu award, which received on Monday at the Teatre Romea for their work in the show I have a forest in my brain, by Guadalupe Sáez and directed by Alícia Gorina at Sala Beckett.

For the vast majority of Americans, artificial intelligence has appeared in their lives in the form of a chatbot. For others, however, it has also materialized in concrete bunkers, full of servers and cables, that they can see from their own windows. When one of these giants appears, in many municipalities the water pressure drops – or the supply fails altogether – and residents begin to notice health problems.

The euphoria that followed the stock market debut of SpaceX, Elon Musk's aerospace and artificial intelligence giant, has completely deflated. The company, which staged the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history on June 12, has seen its value plummet in recent weeks. The IPO price, it should be recalled, was set at $135 per share, and within just a few days, it soared to over $200. However, by Friday, the tech company was trading around $115, leaving all its investors in the red.

Cristian Fàbrega Gallego is a professor in the Department of Electronic and Biomedical Engineering and coordinates the master's degree in renewable energies and energy sustainability at the University of Barcelona. He speaks to ARA to explain the environmental impact and energy consumption of artificial intelligence data centers, which are multiplying worldwide.

Remodeling the Camp Nou from top to bottom was not only aimed at repairing possible damage to a stadium built in 1957. The world of football has changed a lot since then and stadiums are no longer just meeting points where one goes to watch a match every two weeks. They are business spaces open 365 days a year and are commercially exploited beyond competition. UEFA and FIFA have also modified their regulations. Football can be played almost anywhere as long as the pitch has the regulation dimensions. But the big tournaments, the big finals, are reserved for the best stadiums. And the old Camp Nou had become obsolete.

The years go by and Queralt Casas maintains her passion intact. After seven seasons at Valencia Basket, the Bescanó player will strengthen the Spar Girona project, where she arrives eager to prove herself. “I have very good feelings and I am very happy to be able to return home. I am convinced that we will enjoy this season a lot and that we will experience many magical moments at Fontajau,” admits the shooting guard, who will reunite with Roberto Íñiguez, with whom she already coincided at Sopron.Casas, who is training these days at ExtraTime in Fornells de la Selva, has now fully recovered from the fracture of the ulna and radius she had in her left arm. “Injuries are the toughest part of sports, nobody wants to go through them, but once you have them and accept them, you have to work to return as soon as possible. The truth is that I recovered very well, I have good feelings and I have already forgotten about it,” she acknowledges.

Longer and more relaxed days lend themselves to reading at leisure. To meet this need, ARA already has its summer supplement ready, which this year arrives more renewed than ever with completely new sections that mix information, entertainment, and knowledge. Ara Estiu kicks off this Sunday in the print edition (Saturday on Ara.cat) and will be published until Sunday, August 30. On the web, all the supplement's content will be gathered in a special site that will have a prominent space on the digital cover.

The passage of a trough at high altitude has caused the weather to change in the last few hours. Thunderstorms have discharged with intensity due to the generation of large convection clouds fed by cold air that has descended from more northern latitudes. This clash of air masses with very different conditions has contributed to intense downpours, accompanied by electrical activity, hail, and sleet (for example, yesterday afternoon, in Arbúcies). By mid-afternoon on Saturday, we had already accumulated up to 35 l/m² in Sant Llorenç Savall and between 15 and 30 l/m² around the Montseny massif.

Forceful response from school principals in the face of an error that will make the PISA test results in Catalonia incomparable with other territories or previous years. The association of school principals issued a statement this Saturday in which they blame the error with the tests, warning that it will have a "devastating consequence": "Catalonia loses the possibility of comparing the evolution of its education system with the rest of the world," they warn in the text.

Eight people were injured in an accident this Saturday afternoon in the city of Mataró. Five cars and a motorcycle were involved in the incident. Among those affected is a minor in critical condition and another minor in serious condition.

The Mossos d'Esquadra arrested on July 16 two men, aged 43 and 44, allegedly linked to a strong-arm robbery inside a delivery van committed in the Sants-Montjuïc district of Barcelona. They allegedly stole 70 packages after forcing the vehicle's lock.

This Friday, the Government announced that an error in the sample of selected students has resulted in Catalonia's PISA test results being invalidated for comparison with other territories or previous years. The error by Education means that the sample is not representative and it will not be possible to know if the Catalan educational level has improved or worsened. L'ARA interviews Francesc Pedró, who has worked for a decade with the OECD in the educational field. He is also a professor at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and co-director of the 2026 Yearbook of Education in Catalonia from the Equitat.org Foundation.

The Catalan education system has experienced a real upheaval: an error in the sample of students who took the PISA tests will make Catalonia's results in the OECD tests unrepresentative and incomparable with the scores of other countries or with the results that Catalan students achieved in previous editions. In other words, the PISA tests will not serve to know if Catalan schools have improved or worsened compared to the last report in 2022, which was a disaster for Catalonia, nor to know the level of Catalan students compared to that of boys and girls from other territories. Broadly speaking, the problem is that there was an error in deciding which students should be excluded from the tests due to learning difficulties: Catalonia exempted 23% of the students who were part of the sample, when the OECD sets a maximum of 5% of participants to be exempted. But what is the process for deciding which adolescents take the PISA tests?

The Catalan socialists deny any relationship with the media Crónica Libre, the supposed informative "instrument" of Leire Díez's plot in the PSOE. The collaborator and shareholder of the newspaper directed by the late Patricia López, operated under the leadership of the then organization secretary Santos Cerdán, according to the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard. There is no trace in the summary of a relationship between the PSC and the plot – although the UCO does not rule it out – and only a specific link with a town hall governed by the socialists. The municipal government of Salou, headed by the PSC-Sumem coalition, paid for an advertising campaign to Crónica Libre.

The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, warns that in the 2027 municipal elections the city will face the challenge of "crushing" the far-right. With the municipal barometer placing Aliança as the fourth force, he asks progressives to be aware of the "historic moment" and not to look "so much at their navels".

The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, met this Sunday with the People's Committee of Da Nang, the executive body of one of the seven cities with provincial status in Vietnam. It is his first institutional meeting in Southeast Asia.

A total of 35 deputies out of the 135 in Parliament, 26%, have signed up for the linguistic advisory service to improve their Catalan since the initiative was launched almost a year and a half ago, as the ACN has verified.

Salvador Illa teams up with the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, after the Government made public "the error" in the PISA tests. "All the support", expressed the President of the Generalitat from Vietnam, where he is on an official trip. It is the first time that Illa has spoken about this fiasco, which the Department of Education made public on Friday and for which Niubó is scheduled to appear in Parliament on Monday to give explanations. In fact, Illa has assured that the minister will "make things clear" in her appearance. The "technical incident" that the Generalitat spoke about on Friday will not allow Catalonia to compare the results that will be made public in September with other territories or with previous years.

In a gloomy basement of a destroyed building in Druzhkivka, a soldier pilots a small drone against a Russian antenna somewhere in Ukrainian Donbas. The pilots take twenty-hour shifts to fight Russian positions sixteen kilometers away, and fatigue does not prevent them from being optimistic about the new army commander-in-chief, Mikhailo Drapati, after his predecessor was sacked this week by President Volodymyr Zelensky, amid the most significant protests the country has experienced since the Maidan revolt in 2014.

Saudi Arabia exported 19.5% more crude oil during May, despite geopolitical tensions and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz due to the war between the United States and Iran. This is according to Saudi government data, which has not explained how it managed to achieve this.

A terribly familiar war rhythm has returned to prevail in Iran: bombed highways, a sinking currency, threatening messages from President Trump on social media, and incendiary rhetoric from religious leaders of the Iranian regime. But when Behnam, an unemployed musician from Tehran, calls relatives or friends to see how they are, he never starts by talking about the war. "The first question we ask each other is: have you eaten?"

Unlike the idea one might have of countries like Mauritania, from which the main migratory routes to the Canary Islands depart, a large part of the young people in this country do not want to leave their homes and are looking for solutions to continue living where they were born. “You always have to have hope”, says Yacine from a multipurpose room where she was able to watch the documentary "Ebre Trarza, in which he has participated. The project, which will be seen soon at festivals in Catalonia, summarizes more than a year of letter exchange between young people from the Trarza region, in Mauritania, and from the Ebro Delta, two territories that are experiencing the effects of climate change but whose young inhabitants are resisting leaving. “If the Delta dies, we will die with it,” says Jordi Parés, of the Sediments Association in the same documentary.

It has been more than two years since the publication of the Letta report ("Much more than a market") and, in September, it will be two years since the publication of the Draghi report ("The future of European competitiveness"). These reports are the two essential pieces of the diagnosis that warned that Europe has been falling behind in the global economy.

"We fell here as we could have fallen anywhere else. And then came this whole story: an Argentine named Leo who is Lamine's first coach. It's as if it were already written," smiles Leo Giordanella (Cipolletti, Patagonia; 1992). Leo Messi and Lamine Yamal first crossed paths in the World Cup final, with a victory for the Spanish national team and the young star from Rocafonda, but their relationship is full of precious connections and incredible coincidences that have united them for years.

"I want to live with Luis for the next 30 years, even if the last ones are, as they popularly say, with a bit of a struggle", assured the Catalan journalist Susanna Griso – presenter of the morning magazine Espejo público on Antena 3 – shortly after announcing her wedding to the businessman and economist from Madrid, Luis Enríquez. Although they have known each other for more than two decades, it wasn't until a year and a half ago that the two friends became a couple, and they have chosen the Costa Brava as the setting for the double celebration of their wedding.

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.

Laura Casals has professionally enjoyed being an early childhood education teacher, director of the Pràctiques school in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona, and a trainer of teachers and directors. She has recently retired, but her schedule is very full, especially since last Christmas when she became a member of the ARA's Club Prèmium. "I have been a subscriber to the newspaper for years and from the beginning the activities of Club Prèmium. caught my attention. I was looking at them. "What if I joined?" I thought. But I kept putting it off until later," she explains. "I like culture, staying up to date with the theatre listings, film premieres, and especially the world of dance. I doubted if I could fit the Prèmium proposals into my schedule. But finally, I signed up, with the idea of trying it for a year... I have no doubt that there will be many more!" assures Laura.

We live surrounded by notifications, photos that disappear in 24 hours, and messages that are forgotten in seconds. But this summer, we suggest you take a break. How? By sending us a postcard. We want you to write to us from wherever you are and tell us how you are experiencing your holidays. We will read them one by one.

Choosing a series to watch is often a difficult task due to the avalanche of offerings currently available. To separate the wheat from the chaff, it's always interesting to listen to recommendations from friends or someone who knows about it. With this goal in mind, ARA has launched La seriòfila, an Instagram channel where series lovers can find good recommendations, but also information related to the audiovisual world. The channel is managed by Alejandra Palés, a writer specializing in series for ARA. To subscribe to La seriòfila, you just need to go to the ARA newspaper's Instagram profile and enter the channel through the tab below the profile's biography. Another option is to subscribe through this link.

The subscriber Teresa Maria Castanyer rightly pointed out that we made a mistake in a photo caption according to which the Holy Father was at mass, when in reality he was at the window of the apostolic palace from where he recites the Sunday angelus. But it turns out that, upon seeing the chronicle where I echoed it on the digital version, which is uploaded on the afternoon before the paper, there was a new error in the photo caption, again with Leo XIV as the victim of the secular sacrifice of journalism. The deputy director on duty, David Miró, fixed it and saved me the embarrassment of seeing that the practice I had identified as incorrect was reproduced in the pantheon of my page of June 14th.Miró, who carries a lot of journalistic experience in his professional backpack, told me the phrase that inspires my headline: “Photo captions are loaded by the devil”. If another pope, Paul VI, already warned that Satan's smoke had entered the Church, let's imagine the press, and what's more, in this case it enters to play tricks on its highest dignitary. But the curse continues and the same reader Castanyer alerts me again about a blunder in a photo caption: “Today, Thursday the 18th [of June], a photo caption in the paper edition, page 12, shows little rigor in whoever has to marry text and image. That it is not a press conference is obvious. And that it is not Évian can be suspected. And that it is Versailles can be deduced if it is known that yesterday the two presidents [Macron and Trump] were having dinner in Versailles. In short... aliquando dormitat Homerus". The quote from Horace means “from time to time, Homer sleeps”, that is, sometimes wisdom falters. I have received more criticism about the photo captions. Paola Jubert writes: “I am reading today's newspaper, Sunday [June 21 and following days], and on page 21 there is an article about an award received by Eurecat. I imagine the article is subsidized, but the signature says 'Editorial Staff'. The surprise, or indignation, is about the photo caption where the three men are identified by name and their position, and the female figure is belittled, as if she were a figurant. Who is she? What is she doing at the award ceremony? Does she not deserve to be mentioned?”. The subscriber Andreu Suriol, in an email ironically titled “Vision of the future”, points out that in a photo caption from July 5, the second day of the Tour, it read: “Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) in action with other cyclists during the 14th stage of the Tour 2026”. Suriol, citing AI, specifies that it was the 2025 stage that took place on the mountain in the photo. And it turns out that in the cover photo of that day, the Tour was where it really was: at the foot of the Sagrada Familia.To validate readers' perception of photo caption errors, the Defender also addresses the omission ex officio: on the digital front page, it is very common to have photos without captions, and when they are of unknown people, the reader has to enter the article to relate a face with a message so important that it is highlighted in the newspaper's letter of credence.I have forwarded the complaints to the head of Photography at the newspaper, Ferran Forné, who gives me his opinion:“The photography section does not affect the editing of captions in the print version, the permissions we have in the print newspaper's editing and layout program are limited only to graphic content. It is true that normally, when reviewing the content, if we detect an error, we inform the editor or the person in charge of closing the print edition or a proofreader."Regarding the absence of photo captions on the web homepage, it is an aesthetic decision made by the web designers to maintain a cleaner image and to maximize the digital space available for layout, especially on mobile device formats. Errors in photo captions affect us in the strictest journalistic sense, just like the rest of the professionals at ARA who strive to offer a rigorous product. But above all, we are very attentive to the correct assignment of the image, in order to maintain the authorship of the photographers or the agency and to be able to verify the source of information that we show the reader.”Finally, I have completed the view of the subject with the assessment of Teresa Ferré i Panisello, doctor in communication sciences and postgraduate in contemporary history. She is a professor at the UAB, has an abundant research curriculum on photojournalism, and has been curator of several exhibitions. She says:“The photograph-text binomial in journalism must be understood as an inseparable unit, since no informative medium can fulfill its objective solely through the image, due to its polysemic nature. The caption, if perfectly crafted, can answer five of the six questions of a news story (what, where, when, who, and why), but it does not communicate the how. Only when we have a photojournalistic piece in front of us, with a longer caption, is there room for the interpretation of facts and allows for a non-informative headline. And, obviously, any caption should never describe what is obvious and perceived by looking at the photograph."The reflection on the importance of the caption dates back a long time. Walter Benjamin, in the 1930s, said it would be the most important element of journalistic photography to prevent the reader from focusing solely on the aesthetic value and realizing the political and social value. Forty years later, Gisèle Freund analyzed how the meaning of a photograph can radically change depending on the caption that one newspaper or another decides to put on it, which shows that it is the main tool for ideological contextualization in the press".The Defender's conclusion, to avoid being seen as an exorcist, is to bend the devil civilly. The relationship between a writer and a photographer who do a chronicle, an interview, or a report together is obvious and can become intense depending on the topics or characters. This in situ interaction should be prolonged in the editing, to maintain the "inseparable unit" pointed out by Dr. Ferré. When the photos are from an agency, the Head of Photography is the one who could oversee this relationship, taking on the functions of the picture editor that the Americans invented, imported by César Lucas and Marisa Flórez at the dawn of El País and brought up to date by Carlos Pérez de Rozas and Pepe Baeza when La Vanguardia changed its design with Milton Glaser.Regarding the absence of photo captions on digital front pages, I believe – I have communicated this to the newspaper's management – that aesthetics or functionality should not prevail over information. The academy, which sets the pace for applied science, prescribes that in its indexed publications or papers each image must be accompanied by the source and an explanatory text. As a corollary, I advocate for paying attention to photo captions and not dismissing them routinely, given that they are the most read element after headlines, according to research from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a true benchmark of journalism. I thank Teresa Maria Castanyer, Paola Jubert, and Andreu Suriol for making us reflect on a text as unjustly undervalued as photo captions, but with a powerful semantics inversely proportional to its scarce syntax.The Reader's Advocate takes note of doubts, suggestions, criticisms, and complaints about the newspaper's content in its digital and paper editions, and ensures that the treatment of information is in accordance with the deontological codes.To contact the Reader's Ombudsman you can send an email to eldefensor@ara.cat or record a message of no more than one minute to the WhatsApp number 653784787. In all cases, identification with name, surnames, and DNI number is required.

The Christmas and January holidays represent a peak in household spending. Given this reality, the key is not only to have planned ahead, but also to take advantage of the start of the year to establish a solid monthly budget. We're often told to cut back on "small expenses"—like coffee at the bar—but the goal isn't to deprive ourselves of little pleasures, but rather to better manage the big picture. To improve our financial health, there are only two paths: increase income or reduce expenses.

Emaya's water tariff, applied for years to hotel establishments, uses a specific calculation technique that modifies how progressivity is applied in the case of the tourism sector. The analysis of current tariffs, published in 2016, by a former company technician assures that the methodology, "designed for the hotels of Platja de Palma" establishes a consumption recalculation system "two rooms at a time", and generates a false division of expenses that significantly reduces the amount it would have to pay if progressivity were applied.

In just over a decade, Morrissey has gone from playing at Sant Jordi Club, and his visit being a major event, to performing at Poble Espanyol with little cultural relevance. Nowadays, everyone knows the reasons why this has happened: this grumpy old man no longer makes particularly good records and, above all, insists, day in and day out, on behaving like a complete cretin, whether by skirting (or directly crossing) red lines with racism or cancelling concerts left and right. But the songs, alas, the songs are still there, intact, glorious. So when Morrissey, the frontman of The Smiths, the great English pop singer of the eighties, blows his own trumpet, he always has a congregation ready to listen to him once more.

What you will read here, more than an interview, is a gastronomic manifesto that the cook Ada Parellada (Granollers, 1967) let go of on Wednesday, in a disordered, fun, and captivating way, at the ARA summer party, in front of 200 newspaper subscribers. Born into the family of the mythical Fonda Europa in Granollers, owner of the Semproniana restaurant in Barcelona, author of a dozen books, and disseminator of traditional Catalan cuisine on Instagram, Ada Parellada will collaborate again with ARA after the summer by publishing two weekly recipes on video.What does returning to the PRESENT mean to you?

Venezuela is the paradigm of theoretically rich South American states subjected to historical political disjunctions between left-wing spaces that, wrapped in the flags of revolution, promise and do not deliver, and right-wing spaces abducted by the rules of maximum profit that promise and also do not deliver, between the defense of identity —they call it patriotism— and selling out to the highest bidder. Today's Venezuela is the Venezuela between, on the one hand, the inoperative and incapable Chavista dictatorship sold to the American mafia by the executors of utopia and, on the other, the siren songs of an opposition led by a candidate who trusted the same gang that doesn't even let her return to her country.

The Share Festival, which focuses on urban music, has broken its record and brought together 60,000 attendees between this Friday and Saturday at Barcelona's Parc del Fòrum.

The title, Visions de la Palestina. Notes d’un pelegrinatge, by Miquel Costa i Llobera (Pollença, 1854-Palma, 1922), suggests a narrative travel diary written in prose, but it is a collection of autonomous poems linked by theme (different biblical episodes from the Old and New Testaments, the history of the Jewish people), the setting (the landscapes, the arid and venerable light and atmosphere of the Middle East) and the formal choice (the Hebrew verse), a very long Hebrew verse, which various scholars have mistakenly considered prose. The inspiration for the book was a cruise through the Mediterranean that Costa took in 1907, which took him to Rome, Greece, the Holy Land, and Egypt.Although Visions de la Palestina is not as well-known or central as Costa's two canonical titles, Poesies (1885, 1907) and Horacianes (1906), it is a valuable and important work, in which the poet demonstrates his majestic command of the language and his versatile formal virtuosity. The agile magnificence and imposing grace with which Costa, like Verdaguer, poeticizes matters both human and divine, the sacred and the profane, underscores his condition as a highly cultured and inspired priest-poet. It is for all these reasons that it is very good news that now, fifty-five years after it was last reissued as an independent book, the Lleonard Muntaner publishing house has produced a new edition, complete and impeccable, with paratexts (preface, notes, letters) of all kinds and origins. The critical edition, edited by Carles Cabrera Villalonga, is headed by a preliminary study by Gabriel de la S. T. Sampol which is so good that it not only exhaustively explains and contextualizes the work it presents but even functions as a partial but detailed and in-depth introduction to the overall costalloberiana work.Sampol, poet and translator, leaves nothing aside. He explains the circumstances of the work's writing; he reasons the why of the literary genre –lyrical poetry, not diariestism– and the why of the title –they are literal visions and also a vision of spiritual transport–; he points out the crucial fact that, with this book, Costa completed his cultivation of “the three formal possibilities” that he had mentioned a few years earlier in a conference at the Ateneu Barcelonès (classical, modern poetry and Hebrew versicle); he lists the main thematic axes of the poems (landscape, sentiment, spirituality and metaliterature); he unravels the rhetorical architecture and the most common rhetorical resources of the Hebrew versicle and Costa's adaptation of it, and indicates the scarce following that Catalan poetry has made of it later... What I said before: a very complete preliminary study. Meticulous and substantial erudition.It is evident, in any case, that most of the poems in Visions de la Palestina do not reach the category of Costa's best poetry. There is more deliberation and painstaking craft here than inspiration and grace, the rhythm flows with a somewhat affected and hesitant musicality, and the profusion of geographical and biblical references becomes burdensome. There are also, however, powerful poems, such as Llatzèria and Jerusalem, where we find, among others, these grandiloquent and inflamed verses: “Oh city of glory and terror!, your fate can only be explained by Calvary: the true Ark of your sanctification is this Sepulchre where Death was conquered”. A little-known but important book by one of the fathers of modern Catalan poetry.

Besides being one of the most popular footballers of the moment thanks to the goal that gave Spain victory against the Argentine national team in the football World Cup final, Ferran Torres has also inspired the Oceanogràfic of Valencia, the largest aquarium in the European Union, to name one of its sandbar sharks, of the species carcharhinus plumbeus. The decision was made in recognition of the footballer's connection with marine conservation and to raise public awareness about the importance of protecting these cartilaginous-bodied, rough-skinned fish. "We want to reinforce the message that these animals are emblematic and indispensable for the functioning of ecosystems," the institution states in a press release.

90 years ago, about six thousand athletes arrived in Barcelona to participate in an Olympiad that never took place. Many of those athletes, instead of competing at the Olympic Stadium, ended up fighting against Franco and, in some cases, lost their lives. They were the athletes of the People's Olympiad, a competition designed to combat Nazism that was to be held in Barcelona from July 19 to 26, 1936.

Tired of the few future options he saw in Senegal, Awa Fam's father traveled to Alicante, where he had a friend who helped him process his papers and find work. His wife arrived shortly after and the family settled in Santa Pola. His parents, Madoumbe and Arane, ran an African craft shop, but when she was born at Elche Hospital they closed it to dedicate themselves to street vending.

Martina Fernández returns home to strengthen the defensive line. Barça has exercised the buy-back option it held on the central defender from Ordis. This season she has played all league matches with Everton in England (22) with two goals and two assists.

Cinc anys després del temporal Glòria, que va provocar ventades de fins a 80 km/h i onades de 7 metres d'alçada que van arribar a engolir platges, el Col·legi d'Enginyers de Camins, Canals i Ports fa una advertència: les infraestructures i estratègies pensades per pal·liar els efectes dels fenòmens meteorològics al litoral català estan obsoletes i cal una planificació pública urgent. Segons el grup de treball sobre el litoral, costes i platges de l'ens col·legiat, Catalunya necessita repensar i aplicar mesures inspirades en el comportament de la natura per protegir els entorns de costa del país –la majoria en retrocés– per tal que resisteixin els embats de la crisi climàtica, que s'espera que cada cop siguin més greus i freqüents.

What is the secret to a long and healthy life? Catalan supercentenarian grandmother Maria Branyas, who until passed away last August She was the longest-lived person in the world, she had it clear: "order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, not having worries, regret, being positive and staying away from toxic people."

Eva Tenorio Álvarez, 47, says that she only drank with friends, at social events, when she went out to party… She didn't do it every day and she didn't have alcohol at home either. In fact, her acquaintances didn't consider her to be an alcoholic, but rather a drunkard.

Turning 18 means, according to pre-established social canons, "entering adulthood", even if that age is de facto, still a stage of adolescence. This is explained in the ARA by Marcela Herrera, professor of performance psychology at UVic and member of the Catalan Association of Sports Psychology. Despite the maturity that Lamine Yamal has been able to display in some aspects, the psychologist consulted affirms that this new "freedom" that coming of age will grant him is "a variable to take into account." "In the locker room, he has an ecosystem that allows him to develop his personality, which sets limits and accepts certain attitudes. Outside, his closest environment is a testament to the player's adjustment to the adult world. He must be supported so that he takes responsibility for the results of his decisions and actions and becomes aware of what this entails," he concludes. Lamine Yamal has become the master and lord of his life, but who is who in his immediate surroundings?

In early 1993, Pedro Masaveu Peterson died. He was the man who had amassed the largest fortune in the history of Spain: some 350 billion pesetas, which, converted to euros and without adjusting for inflation, would have been more than 2.1 billion. His name was (and still is) unknown to most people, and his image is even more so, as no one would have recognized him on the street (he was known to be a heavily built man with a 19th-century beard). To get an idea of the size of his estate, it's worth knowing that a few months after his death, another major financier of the time, Emilio Botín-Sanz de Sautuola y López, president of Banco Santander between 1950 and 1986, died. His heirs had to pay half of what they had earned in inheritance tax. A tax bill of that amount could not go unnoticed by the public administrations, so the autonomous communities of Madrid and Asturias spent more than a decade litigating to keep the loot, in a fight that the Asturians ultimately won.

The so-called society post (post-Fordist, post-industrial, postmodern, post-analog and, also, post-COVID) in which we live, confronts us as individuals continuously with ambiguity, the new defining substance of the character of urban life in the 21st century.

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The week ahead, with Jordi Garrigós

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

I will finish McCartney: the hunt for the lost bass, about the mysterious disappearance and recovery of Paul McCartney's first bass, a Höfner 500/1 bought in Hamburg in 1961 for only 30 pounds. This marvel sounded on the original recordings of Love me do, she loves you and the early Beatles classics. A road movie musical about the greatest pop group of all time.

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There are people who have the talent to make you feel expected. Jordi is one of them. It's not just a way of serving tables or learned cordiality; it's also a way of looking, listening, and always finding the right word. In his restaurant, hospitality is not a gesture: it's a way of understanding life. That's why, when you cross the door of Can Facundo, you feel like you've been there before, even if it's your first time.

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Fashion is political. When we decide to wear flat shoes instead of heels, put on ripped jeans, or tie a tie, we are making a statement about how we want to position ourselves in the world. As feminists proclaimed in the seventies, drawing heavily on countercultural thought, the personal is political. It is no wonder, then, that throughout history institutions, ideologies, and parties have tried to appropriate the symbolic power of clothing to persuade, construct identities, and, at times, also dominate.The latest episode has been starred by Pedro Sánchez's government, which a few days ago presented DMOCRACIA, a graphic campaign built with all the codes of a streetwear brand, with a slogan that leaves no room for doubt: "When you dress, you position yourself". The initiative, framed within the acts commemorating fifty years of democracy, aims to bring this political system closer to the younger generation, with an urban aesthetic and the accompaniment of a battalion of influencers. The first reaction, I confess, is to look around for the hidden camera. It's hard to decide if we are facing an institutional campaign or a parody of gigantic proportions. But, once the absurdity is accepted, it's worth asking: is it a genuinely Spanish extravagance, or does dressing political ideals have a history older than it seems?The Neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David, known for works such as The Death of Marat or The Oath of the Horatii, played an active and committed role in the French Revolution. Convinced that, in addition to establishing a new political and social order, it was also necessary to give it a visible form, he designed various outfits to define the appearance of the new republican citizen. Through the three colors of the flag, references to Republican Rome, and inscriptions such as Liberty, Equality or French People, he aimed to create a new visual code for a society governed by revolutionary ideals.However, the project did not prosper. History has shown that, apart from regimes that impose a certain appearance – as in the People's Republic of China, where the Zhongshan suit (Mao suit) became hegemonic attire under strong pressure – fashion is not adopted by decree. People do not simply wear what a government prescribes, but what emerges from a complex network of desires, identifications, aspirations, and social dynamics. Politics can try to dress an ideology, but not decide what society will wear.

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It is hard to find someone who conveys as much passion when they speak as Irene Cordón. When she explains everything she has experienced in Egypt, the interlocutor needs to go there. "When I am in a special place, I cry," she says, recalling a trip to Ethiopia to visit the sources of the Nile. She has also cried in Egyptian burial chambers and when visiting the room where Alexander the Great died in Babylon. She cries when she arrives at places where history has been written. Her life has been like this for years, although for a good period of time it seemed it would be quite different.

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News at various levels in the Catalan wine sector. Just weeks after the renewal of the presidency of the Regulatory Council of Cava, which placed Marta Vidal at the head of the designation of origin (DO) of Spanish sparkling wines, the employers' association of producers will have to change its president. The direction of Barcelona Wine Week, the main wine event in the country's capital, is also being reshaped. Outside the vineyard, PepsiCo is undertaking an appointment in its human resources department, and Ikea in Spain seeks to build "an increasingly relevant, close, and accessible brand".

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The Catalan education system is worse than it seems. Or not. Rivers of ink have been written about it. For those not versed in the subject, like myself, figures can help us organize our thoughts. A recent OECD study requires us to qualify the diagnosis and, above all, to review the necessary responses. In fact, the study proposes recommendations that connect with challenges shared by many other sectors that, like education, are immersed in accelerated and profound transformations.One of the elements that draws attention to the Catalan education system is the decline in PISA results. Catalonia started from a relatively advantageous position, but it has accumulated a persistent and pronounced setback, and now it is below other benchmarks. These headlines help to foster a sense of decline. However, there are aspects that have received less attention and that qualify - if not change - the diagnosis. The first: the decline in results is generalized. This forces us to look for part of the explanation in phenomena shared with other countries, probably beyond the direct reach of our education system. Something has changed that hinders learning.One piece of data gives us clues: the proportion of students with special support needs has gone from less than 10% in 2017 to almost 40% this year. You read that right: four out of ten students require differentiated attention. This is an average for the whole of Catalonia; in some centers it is lower and in others, higher. Among the factors that are growing the most is autism, with an increase of 155%. However, part of these increases are due to a better capacity to detect the support that each student needs, and the educational system intends to offer more personalized attention, quite the opposite of the narrative of a decadent system. Data like this should trigger debates and research that go beyond the educational sphere.Socioeconomic factors

Second, the decline in PISA results is more intense in Catalonia than in the OECD countries as a whole or in other reference regions. However, if the change in the socioeconomic composition of the student body is taken into account, the differential is substantially reduced. In other words: the decline is greater because the proportion of students with unfavorable socioeconomic conditions has increased. The OECD, and other academic studies, link this in part to the increase in child poverty and migratory flows. Once again, it is advisable to avoid simplifications: it is not that these students have less academic potential, but rather that they find themselves with more difficult economic and family conditions, late incorporations into the system, and linguistic barriers. The sum of these factors makes teaching difficult and affects school performance. The results of students from affluent socioeconomic backgrounds are similar to those of other reference regions.The focus, therefore, must be on how to adapt the educational system to an environment that has changed rapidly and become more complex. Thus, the specter of decline is dispelled, the need to flee simplistic headlines is recalled, and at the same time, action is called for. The stress under which the educational system lives requires more resources and, according to the OECD report, the effectiveness with which they are used also needs to be improved. Support for each center must be adjusted according to its changing needs and, at the same time, stable teaching teams must be guaranteed who know and can support the students.This same environment also demands a boost to the professional training system and the creation of mechanisms to detect and disseminate best practices. These are challenges that are not exclusive to education. No sector escapes the accelerated social and technological transformation we are experiencing. No company can avoid rethinking its processes, identifying good practices, or keeping employees trained in a context of change and limited resources. We are all familiar with the confusion and anxiety that this situation generates, and which often fuels resistance to change and distrust.However, the education system is not just another sector. It is the cornerstone upon which society is built. If we want it to remain prosperous, just, and free, it must take a step forward: assume leadership and set the path. We need the education system to teach us a lesson again.

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The food company Pastas Gallo, born in Rubí in 1946, is the paradigmatic example of a complicated family succession. With a widely recognized brand, innovation as its hallmark, and consolidated results, the disagreements among the five children of the founder, José Espona, led the heirs to divest their majority stake in 2019 and sell it to the Madrid private equity fund Proa Capital. Although three of the five brothers later returned to the group – albeit with lower participation than initially – the company lost part of its essence. Two years after the operation, Pastas Gallo moved the production of dry pasta from Granollers to Córdoba, and during the last two available financial years – with the asterisk of having faced investments of more than 50 million euros – it has registered losses that have exceeded six million euros.

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A bag of salad, some cookies, cat food, or the plastic label from a water bottle. It's hard to find a supermarket without some kind of flexible packaging. They are present, on average, in half of the products, even up to 80%. But behind these wrappers lies an industry practically invisible to the consumer, yet essential for products to be promoted on shelves. From Riudellots de la Selva, in the urban area of Girona, Comexi has been developing the technology for over seventy years that allows for the printing and transformation of this type of packaging, a global market where it competes with some of the world's leading manufacturers.

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Can you imagine if the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, or the French president, Emmanuel Macron, quadrupled or quintupled their wealth during their term in office? Many of the corruption cases we are experiencing in this country, despite being extraordinarily serious, might seem like amateur games compared to Donald Trump's practices since he arrived at the White House. This first year in office, he has continued doing business (he and his family, directly or indirectly), despite being president and applying a very mercantile diplomacy and international policy as well.

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Chef Gessamí Caramés (l’Ametlla de Mar, 1992) finished her degree in audiovisual communication and realized it wasn't her path. She saw her classmates dedicated with a passion she didn't share. Without realizing it, cooking was becoming the center of her life. She dedicated her free time to cooking, watching gastronomic programs and recipe books, and investing her savings in kitchenware.

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Joan Pera (Mataró, 1948) has one of the most recognizable and beloved voices in Catalonia. Sixty years on stage and a long history of memorable characters and voice acting do not prevent him from assuring, with laughter, that he is not "a very good actor." A defender of authenticity, in conversation, on stage, and at the table, the actor sees in wine a magic similar to that which he sees in theater.Where is this magic found?

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The chef Moha Quach, from El Terrat de Tarragona restaurant and Revelation Award of the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition, has cleaned for the second time graffiti that appeared on one of his restaurant's signs. A year ago, the word Vox was painted on the sign indicating that the restaurant adheres to the Slow Food movement, which was difficult to remove; the second time, a week ago, on the sign indicating it has a Repsol Sun. “Repsol has just sent me a new plaque so I can remove the old one, which again had the word Vox on it,” explains Quach.

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The story that the restaurant La Caleta in Sant Vicenç de Montalt is experiencing has three protagonists: Adif, the State Coastal Demarcation (in Barcelona) and the Casado family, who have been serving seafood dishes there since 1955. Since Albert Casado's grandfather, the current generation in charge, opened the restaurant located between the beach and the road, they have paid a semi-annual rent to Adif, who represented that they were the owner of the land. However, without the Casado family knowing, in 2017 the owner of the property passed to the State Coastal Demarcation in Barcelona, an agency that depends on the Ministry of Ecological Transition. And this is where the big mess begins.

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It is Wednesday at noon, and at the bar of the Hermós fish bar, located inside the Llibertat market, in the Gràcia neighborhood, there are two couples sitting and talking about whether to choose clams, mussels, or cockles. At the six-number stall (which means six meters) that the Hermós bar occupies, chef Alexis Peñalver and chef Alejandro Serdà are experiencing farewell days. They tell their regular customers that this Saturday will be the last day of Hermós, the fish and seafood restaurant in the Llibertat market, which has been four years full of joys and also “losses, especially linked to the restaurant's hours, which can only be from 12 to 4 p.m.”. And they also inform everyone that there will be a new restaurant, which will be directed by chef Carles Ramon, who will cook new fish and seafood dishes with other techniques and will do it very well. And what will happen to all the dishes that Alexis had made during these four years at Hermós? They will not disappear: “I am returning to La Pubilla restaurant, which is about to turn sixteen, and there we will continue making them,” he says.

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We begin a five-week journey through Brazil with gastronomy as the common thread. If I tell you to close your eyes and imagine a restaurant in Brazil, it's possible your mind will take you to Rio de Janeiro. It's a magnetic city and a unique enclave in the world. However, despite being the most popular image, it's not representative of a large part of the country. Gastronomically (and sociologically), what does Rio have to do with the miner cuisine of Minas Gerais, the Bahian cuisine of Salvador, or the ancestral cuisine of the Amazon? Very little.

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The Gramona winery, from Corpinnat, began this morning the earliest harvest in the history of Penedès, on July 22nd. A unique and exceptional event that has broken all records, if one can say so, that there had been in the harvests in the territory. If in 2023 the same Gramona winery started it on July 26th, a date that was already very advanced because we came from a tradition of harvesting in mid or late August, this year it is still four days earlier. And that's despite the fact that last year it seemed like this advancement was slowing down, because July 31st was the first day of harvest in Penedès. Climate change has broken all our schemes, and if this year it is July 22nd, it could be that soon everything will change again.

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It's almost a classic in the family imagination: sooner or later we end up heading to the famous Parisian park to experience a few days of pure fantasy. The excitement in the children's eyes when they see the big castle or hug their favorite character is an image that remains etched in the retina forever, and that is undeniable. It's one of those places you have to go to once in your life. However, once the dream is fulfilled, parents also know the fine print of the experience well: budgets that require financial engineering, hours of queuing that test the limits of our patience, and the feeling of being in a constant traffic jam of people and strollers.

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There is no doubt that summer is a time for rest and disconnection. The heat does not help with work, and studying while friends are at the pool is a more than complicated challenge, especially when there are no retakes in September. But if there are suspended (not achieved) subjects in the report cards and you want to start the course better than you finished it, many families consider combining the necessary rest and disconnection with this "catching up". How many hours should be dedicated each day? A private tutor or should we let them do it freely? Should other summer activities be given up? We talk to the managers of L’Acadèmia, a study center in Mollerussa that accompanies students all year round but which also has its doors open in the summer for all those families who find themselves in similar situations.

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We want to recommend a range of activities for the coming days, such as the community life that is reviving in the Barcelona neighborhood of Vallcarca, summer activities at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) or discovering the interior of the monument to Columbus, among others.

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“The beaches, which should be a place of tranquility, have been transformed into a space where you have to keep an eye on mobile phones and try to guess if a person is using it to look at Instagram or if they are actually taking photos or videos of your children,” explains Laura Ferrer, a specialist in conscious and emotional sexual education for children, youth, and adults. The widespread presence of mobile phones, cameras, and social networks has changed the way many families experience children's swimming in public spaces like the beach. What a few decades ago could be experienced with more naturalness – small naked children playing in the sand or entering and leaving the water – today coexists with a new concern: what if someone photographs or records the child without permission? And where could that image end up? Ferrer's practice is increasingly receiving families who have suffered or are suffering unpleasant situations on the beach and who live in fear of the non-consensual dissemination of images of their children. “It’s not paranoia, it’s real, it’s happening and it’s very sad. We are moving to ensuring that our privacy is not stolen from the sand,” warns Ferrer. According to the therapist, these concerns have reached her from families she works with from various parts of Catalonia, Galicia, and northern Spain. Children's privacy, more exposed

Although there is no comparable data to measure the extent to which this habit has changed, many families and professionals perceive a change in the way childhood is lived in public spaces. “A daily photograph that may seem innocent at first glance – for example, at the beach, in a bikini or swimsuit – can end up being reused with artificial intelligence tools or circulating in criminal environments for the exchange of child sexual abuse images,” warns Irene Montiel, professor of Law and Political Science at the Open University of Catalonia and researcher at the VICRIM group. The current regulations on data protection do not establish specific regulations for spaces such as beaches or swimming pools, but rather apply the general framework on the right to one's own image, privacy, and data protection. There are situations in which a person may appear incidentally in a photograph taken in a public space, but the general principle is that the capture and, above all, the dissemination of identifiable images require special caution, even more so when minors are involved. “In the case of minors, it would not be permitted to photograph them, as the aim is precisely to protect their image and privacy. Since these are public spaces, we must be aware that people may appear in our photographs at any time, but the general principle is that no one should be able to take a photo of someone else without authorization,” explains Francisco Pérez Bes, deputy of the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD). In the case of minors under fourteen years of age, if a photo is to be taken of them, authorization must always be given by parents or legal guardians.More eyes: when it's no longer just the mobile phone recording

But the challenge, adds Pérez Bes, is no longer just mobile phones. “There are increasingly more devices with a conventional appearance that can be used for recording. For example, smart sunglasses that incorporate photographic and video cameras. This threatens our right to privacy and makes it increasingly difficult to identify whether we are being recorded or not,” he warns. For Ferrer, the debate should not fall solely on families, but also on how we protect shared spaces. “Perhaps we will have to start implementing mobile-free beaches, as is already done in some nightclubs, to regain freedom and avoid digital exposure,” he suggests. The line between protecting and scaring

Faced with this situation, many families opt to put swimsuits or some piece of clothing on children. “Families cover them with sun protection clothing, using it as a shield so they are not so exposed to a sexualizing gaze. But, of course, the internal moral dilemma as parents is there: ‘I want my son to be able to go naked, calm and relaxed, but at the same time I am teaching him that his body is not to be shown’,” reflects Ferrer. For his part, Montiel considers that measures must be taken and the most vulnerable protected by setting limits if necessary: “Thirty years ago it was not common to see so many mobile phones or electronic devices and we did not feel so exposed. Now, anyone can take a photo or record a video without you noticing. We have to have a little more awareness and set limits, we should not fall into collective panic, but we must transmit values of care and respect for our own body”.Ferrer recommends looking for less crowded beaches and quiet spaces and, if nudism aligns with family values, opting for contexts where this practice is lived more naturally. Precisely, recent information on nudism in Catalonia suggests that the naturist collective perceives a reduction in the practice and links it, among other factors, to shame and fear of exposure on social media. "Any public space can be a risk context, considering that there are people looking for this type of images. It's not about living in fear but about being aware of it," explains Montiel, also a professor in the criminology degree at the UOC.

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Eugènia Broggi (Barcelona 1974) founded L’Altra Editorial in 2014 and in just over ten years it has become a benchmark for Catalan literature.

Grew up in the center of Eixample, in Barcelona. “There have always been a lot of tourists, a lot of people coming and going. And I do remember shops, a shoe store, a farm... but soon everything ended up being absorbed by gentrification and there was really little neighborhood life”.

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I didn't have it easy when, at eighteen, I dropped out of university to study dramatic art at the Institut del Teatre. My father opposed it and tried to make me change my mind, but I carried on regardless. Over the years, he ended up accepting it. At home, we have always tried to pass on to them that the most important thing is to do things out of vocation. We have never told them what they should study, nor have we tried to guide them towards a specific profession. And what path have they been taking?

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If summer is "the promise that life can begin again", as Francis Scott Fitzgerald assured, a good way to accompany this restart can be reading. The good health of the Catalan publishing sector makes it possible for us to undertake a multitude of journeys – geographical and temporal – without leaving home. We select ten intrepid books that have arrived in Catalan bookstores in recent months.

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A year and a half after Anagrama "indefinitely suspended" the publication ofEl odio,, in which Luisgé Martín (Madrid, 1962) collected the letters he exchanged with José Bretón, who is serving a prison sentence for the murder of his two children, the Madrid-born author has announced the publication of a new book with Altamarea in which he will give his version of events and which will arrive in bookstores on September 30.

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With La gran família (Club Editor, 2025), the writer and editor Antònia Carré-Pons (Terrassa, 1960) has won the last Òmnium award for best novel of the year. An avid reader of new releases and classics, Carré-Pons is clear about which book to recommend for this summer: Cosdiví, by Theodore Sturgeon, which Males Herbes has published in Catalan with a translation by Josep Sempere.

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This summer, which many of us have seen fires ravage our forests and where we don't know for sure if what we are experiencing is nature becoming unbalanced or, on the contrary, doing its best to rebalance itself; this summer Editorial Barcino has published a new edition of Liliana, by Apel·les Mestres (Barcelona, 1854-1936), and has given us the opportunity to re-evaluate a writer whom we should all know better. Personally, I would swear I had never read anything by him, although I had seen illustrations by him at the MNAC. I delved into his life a few months ago, when I was preparing the script for a podcast about classic authors that I present, La contracoberta. And since then I have been amazed not only by his pen, but also by everything he knew how to do well: drawing, painting, writing poetry, theatre, prose and music, translating and giving graphic illustration the artistic category it deserves.

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The audience rose to their feet, applauding Josep Pons's final performance as musical director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. The work chosen for the occasion could not have been more fitting, as a statement of principles: the last symphony Mahler would premiere in his lifetime, the Eighth (he still had the profound restraint of the Ninth, premiered posthumously), popularly known as the Symphony of a Thousand, which is a hymn to optimism and the return to the natural through Faustian beauty. We could debate whether it is truly a symphony or a cantata. It matters little, because Mahler's genius is showcased from beginning to end of a score that sometimes borders on excess, but never leaves one indifferent.

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I wonder who picks up a book in a beach library or pool library (and which book) and I dedicate myself to finding out by visiting the service that every summer, since 1992, opens on Castelldefels beach. I don't want to be mysterious, spoiler alert: nobody. I didn't see any book loans this Thursday afternoon. However, all the other things that also happen in libraries and are often invisible and as appreciated as this sea breeze happen here: knowledge, community, and Catalan. The three Cs that matter to us.

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Although it was already a publicly known secret since last April, it has not been until last week that it was a publicly known secret since last April that Geely and Ford have signed a historic agreement that will allow the Chinese brand to manufacture several models at the Valencian plant in Almussafes, the factory most highly valued by the Chinese giant's top management thanks to its location, the ease of communication with the rest of Europe, and the proximity of battery manufacturing centers and other suppliers. The agreement between the two automotive giants will allow the Almussafes facilities to go from producing a single model, the Ford Kuga, to five. This is because the roadmap shared by the two companies foresees adding three new models by the end of 2028 and another already planned by the oval brand, the all-terrain Ford Bronco, which will land on the European market during 2027.Two important models in China

The first car that Geely will manufacture in Europe will be the new Geely E5, a compact SUV that is marketed in a fully electric format with a 218 HP engine and a range of 628 kilometers in urban environments (around 450 kilometers in mixed driving cycles). The Geely E5 has a fast-charging system that allows it to charge the batteries from 30% to 80% in just twenty minutes.The second Geely model to land in the Valencian Community – and which has all the makings of a sales success in Europe – will be the Geely E2, also known as the Galaxy Xingyuan in China, an electric B-segment SUV, equivalent to the European utility vehicles it will have to compete with (Renault 5, Cupra Raval and Volkswagen ID Polo). 

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A few months ago, a group of Spanish businessmen led by entrepreneur and adventurer Edu Blanco announced an agreement with Chinese automotive manufacturers to resurrect the legendary Santana all-terrain vehicle brand, headquartered and with a factory in Linares, in the province of Jaén. After announcing a van or pickup called Santana 400 – which also used the base of Chinese models – the Andalusian brand has surprised everyone with the announcement of its second model, an old-school 4x4 called Santana Cajal, in honor of the Spanish Nobel laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal.

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Summer concentrates the months with the highest road accident rates of the year. To the excesses of major festivals, revelry, and alcohol consumption, other risk factors must be added that multiply with the arrival of good weather, such as distractions while driving and speeding. But the increase in accidents during the summer months is also explained by the onset of heat, one of the factors that most influence driving safety, as it slows down drivers' reaction and concentration capacity. However, it is relatively simple to keep this summer factor under control by following a series of tips that we will now explain to you.

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The defense strategy of businessman Julio Martínez Martínez has become a new headache for José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The friend and alleged frontman of the former Spanish government president has put it into practice this week, advised by lawyer María Dolores Márquez de Prado. It is with whom he was accompanied this Tuesday when he appeared as an investigated party at the National Court, a scenario that Márquez de Prado knows very well. This renowned criminal lawyer worked as a prosecutor there for seventeen years. A period in which she earned the nickname "indomitable." Precisely for being a headache for another former socialist leader, former Spanish president Felipe González during his time in Moncloa.

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Alhora, the party founded in 2024 by Clara Ponsatí and Jordi Graupera, has begun to deploy its municipal strategy with the aim of presenting itself in some forty town councils in the 2027 elections. Currently, Alhora has no councilors of its own: it had never run in municipal elections before. But the party has already made public, in Sant Cugat del Vallès, its first confirmed candidacy: it is the one that will be led by lawyer Maria Vila.

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When on February 21, 2024, the Civil Guard arrested him, Víctor de Aldama was president of Zamora CF and his name had never appeared related to the Spanish government. Two and a half years later, his “active” collaboration in the judicial investigations that tarnish Pedro Sánchez has turned him into a ticking time bomb for the PSOE. Not only because of the “full and continuous cooperation” with justice that has led to the "condemnation of José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García, but because, boasting of the benefits of stretching the blanket, it has become a path to follow for other people. And it is a weak point of the defense that Moncloa, under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, puts up. This very week we have had some examples. 

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The West Bank has experienced one of the most explosive days in recent months. A shooting in the village of Tell, southwest of Nablus, in which at least four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers died, triggered a massive wave of settler attacks against several Palestinian communities early this morning. Israeli authorities have arrested seventy Palestinians, who have been taken to an interrogation center set up in a house in the village where the incident took place. The army and settlers have organized raids in which they have carried out more arbitrary arrests, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised "forceful measures," such as demolishing the house of one of those involved in the riots and building new settlements in the area. Israeli settlers have attacked several Palestinian villages, including Urif, Surra, Far'ata, Jit, Imatin, Khirbet Imreiha, Iraq Burin, and the Masafer Yatta area, in the north and center of the West Bank. In Urif, a home was set on fire and at least one Palestinian was injured. In Far'ata, settlers burned agricultural land and shot a man in the chest, who is in critical condition. Other videos shared by residents of various localities show homes, businesses, and vehicles on fire, excavators uprooting olive trees, as well as the word revenge painted on the walls. In some of the incidents, according to local sources, Israeli troops dispersed Palestinian residents with tear gas.The incident that precipitated the escalation occurred after a group of Israeli settlers entered a restricted military zone without authorization or coordination with the army, according to the Israeli army. From here, the versions diverge. The army maintains that the settlers were on an unauthorized excursion when they were attacked and that a Palestinian snatched the weapon from one of the security members before opening fire. Palestinian witnesses, on the other hand, assure that it was the settlers, with the support of the soldiers present, who began to shoot at the inhabitants of the village.A video recorded during the events shows an armed settler trying to push two Palestinians away by pushing them with his rifle. A struggle for the weapon then ensues, while shouts of revenge in Hebrew are heard in the background. Moments later, one of the Palestinians appears holding the rifle and at least a dozen shots are heard coming from different points. Be that as it may, the result was four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers dead, one of whom was also a settler, according to the Efe agency.A pretext to intensify the offensive

After the events in Tell, the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister, Israel Katz, announced that they would intensify military operations in villages that Israel considers "a hotbed of terrorism." They announced new military deployments, the demolition of homes of suspects who may have participated in the Tell incident, the confiscation of weapons, and the withdrawal of work permits for the inhabitants of this village.Netanyahu also ordered the acceleration of the construction of new settler outposts in the area where the events occurred and the legalization of those that already exist, even though the settlements are considered illegal, according to international law and by the majority of the international community.

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France continues to be immersed in a fight to extinguish various active fires across the country. 98,000 hectares have been scorched since the beginning of the year, figures that the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, has described as a "historic record".

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Péter Magyar took the helm of Hungary's government on May 9 and has not eased up on the accelerator since then, aiming to leave the autocratic regime built by Viktor Orbán over the last sixteen years behind as quickly as possible, to leave the autocratic regime behind as quickly as possible. The prime minister has christened this democratic transition operation with the name purifying fire, whose top priority is to dismiss Fidesz loyalists holding public office who could hinder the process of reconstructing the rule of law. The first to fall has been the country's president, Tamás Sulyok, whom Magyar described as Orbán's "puppet." This express democratization process has further boosted the popularity of the new government, but it has also raised eyebrows among some organizations and analysts who warn of the risk of overdoing it and falling into the same trap of power concentration as the previous regime.

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Three days after the collapse that on Wednesday swallowed a crane at the R2 line's underground works, Adif and Renfe have announced key steps to restore traffic on the affected tracks, but without yet specifying when the R2, R2 Nord, and R11 will return to normal operation. This Saturday at noon, Adif declared the sinkhole repaired after finishing filling the hole that opened on the border between Barcelona and Montcada i Reixac with concrete. Once all safety checks were completed, Renfe began conducting empty test runs, with empty trains, before restoring service.

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A worker who was carrying out maintenance on the train tracks near Sant Mori (Alt Empordà) died early this Saturday morning. According to police sources, he suffered an electric shock while maintaining the railway line, halfway between the Sant Miquel de Fluvià and Camallera stations. At the latter, Adif has been carrying out works for some time. The victim is a 66-year-old man.

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Serious setback in the Catalan education system. The results of the PISA tests in Catalonia, which will be made public in early September, will not be comparable with other territories or with previous years' editions. In other words, the PISA report will not allow us to see if the level of Catalan students has improved or worsened. The reason is what the Department of Education has described as a "technical, isolated, and isolated incident." Broadly speaking, Catalonia has not correctly applied the criteria set by the OECD – the initiators of the PISA tests – to justify that a student should not undergo the tests, which has resulted in the sample of students who did take the exams not being representative of Catalan students aged 15. The Government received an alert about the error in March and communicated it this Friday, July 24. An investigation has been opened to clarify the causes of this fiasco.

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It is a season not only for receiving tourists, which happens all year round, but also for being tourists, within or outside the country. Looking at the data, however, we have seen that Catalans travel less and less within Catalonia. What has happened?

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In his conviction to maintain the trade war, Donald Trump has announced a new tariff package that replaces the universal taxes that the Supreme Court annulled in February. The US president has signed a new executive order establishing levies of between 10% and 12.5% on more than 60 countries, including members of the European Union, China, and Mexico. The leader justifies this as retaliation against these states for not having taken sufficient measures to control imports of goods produced through forced labor. Furthermore, hours later, Trump also accused the EU of harming American companies through multimillion-dollar fines and threatened to impose a new tariff "as soon as possible".

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The Catalan car manufacturer Seat is experiencing a sweet moment amidst a complicated period for its parent company, the German group Volkswagen, which is considering severe staff cuts. Between January and June, the Martorell-based company tripled its operating profit, reaching 122 million euros, as reported this Friday in a statement.

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Suffocating heat. Chained waves of heat. A lot. We don't stop drinking liquids and we'd spend the day in the water: the sea, the river, the pool, under the shower. We'd like to live soaking wet. Are we clear about the privilege of opening the tap and always getting a good stream? Millions of people suffer from water scarcity in urban environments. And at the same time, they feel the recurrent threat of cold drops (DANAS). Viewed globally, water is not a scarce resource: it is simply poorly distributed. Technology helps a lot, but it's not everything. Everywhere, agriculture-livestock-fishing, tourism, and urban planning generate needs that are difficult to balance. AI has just been added to the intensive demand for water.

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The art historian, critic, and exhibition curator Joan Maria Minguet Batllori (Cornellà de Llobregat, 1958), a retired professor from the UAB, is a restless and incisive mind. He assures that his new book "Contra l'obediència. Per acabar amb els consensos de l'art" (Raig Verd) is a summary of his career and how he began to rethink it about fifteen years ago. "I go very much against things that I myself had said," he states.

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Roland Schimmelpfennig is one of the most performed German authors in the world, and his work has begun to emerge among us since the premiere of The Arabian Night (2006) at the Sala Beckett under the direction of Toni Casares. His theatre shuns conventional dramatic conventions and, consequently, explores new ways of explaining reality. He does so through a play of social and personal tensions within a hyper-fragmented and repetitive narrative, which illustrates very well the accelerated, nervous, almost convulsive nature of today's society. All of this is seasoned with corrosive humour. They are always demanding works for the performers but also for the spectators, confronted with a stage development where the information, scarce but sufficient, is admirably mixed with an often stark poetic lyricism where the characters elude logic.

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After almost a decade as Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola decided to stop. "I know it's time," he said, without clarifying the reasons for a decision made with his heart, but also with his head. He still had a year left on his contract with the English club, but in his last renewal, he had already added a possible second course, which was a maneuver to gain time and peace of mind. He had been thinking about stopping for a while, but he didn't want to spend more than half a season with the press asking him if, as it would turn out, the last one would be his final campaign on the bench of a team with which he won up to six Premier Leagues and the first Champions League in the history of the "sky blue entity, among many other titles and records broken in a football as competitive as British. In total, he has won forty official trophies between Barça, Bayern Munich, and City.

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Vicky Losada (Terrassa, 1991) returns to Spain. And she will do so with Badalona Women. The former Barça captain arrives on loan from Bristol City thanks to Mercury13, an investment fund that owns both the English and Badalona clubs. “After five years away from home, I was really missing being able to play the football that is played here. Also my family. I'm returning to a place where I know I'll be very happy,” she confides to ARA.

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Frenkie de Jong, for the moment, will not go to the operating room, even though the worst forecasts about his injury are confirmed. Barça has communicated that the tests carried out on the Dutch footballer have determined that he suffers from a tear of the internal lateral ligament of the right knee. It has been agreed that the player will continue under medical treatment and monitoring, pending his evolution in the coming weeks. In other words, De Jong prefers, for the moment, to avoid the operating room. In this way and according to what this newspaper has been able to learn, the four months of absence that the first examinations depicted are confirmed when, despite having vacation permission, the footballer traveled to Barcelona to undergo tests at Sant Joan Despí to determine the extent of his injury.

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The United States Department of Justice has waived its attempt to subpoena journalists from The New York Times to reveal the sources that provided them with details about the replacement Air Force One that Qatar gifted to President Trump. Some are given jewelry, others planes worth $400 million. In this retraction, one should not see the American president's return to the paths of common sense, which in fact he has never trod, but rather surely the fear of putting someone in the White House in an uncomfortable position with the capacity to lift carpets and point out piles of dirt, or the remains of some cadaver. In fact, Trump has initiated a multitude of lawsuits against journalists and media outlets, but most have fallen by the wayside because he himself has withdrawn them or had them withdrawn. The objective has never been to seek justice, but rather to instill fear in professionals. Not only those who see themselves facing the threat of having the entire State machinery—and what a state!—against them, but also the press as a whole, so that the oppressive climate favors self-censorship. In this specific case, FBI agents showed up at the reporters' homes with great fanfare. In other cases, the request for information also affected their immediate family members, which constitutes blatant blackmail. 

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The United States commemorates the 250th anniversary of its independence while observing its democratic foundations in crisis. Platforms also celebrate this with some productions that revisit the nation's history with the subtle intention of reclaiming the values that are being undermined. On HBO Max, Barack and Michelle Obama have produced a series of comedic sketches together with Larry David. The actor, besides being the main protagonist, is also co-creator, co-writer, and producer alongside Jeff Schaffer, his collaborator on Curb your enthusiasm. The series Life, Larry and the pursuit of unhappiness: An almost history of America can be read allegorically. The title parodies the formula of the Declaration of Independence: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.Larry David introduces his curmudgeonly and killjoy character into emblematic moments of United States history. The production is cinematic and features cameos from a large cast of celebrities such as Jimmy Kimmel, Kaley Cuoco, Jon Hamm, Sarah Silverman, or Rob Reiner, to whom a posthumous dedication is made. Life, Larry and the pursuit of unhappiness pays homage to history with a sense of humor while always seeking a biting contemporary reading. Not all sketches are successful, some are too long, but it has wit. Obama makes the initial presentation recalling the petty characters who have tried to prevent the progress of the United States, in an allusion to the protagonist, but it is inevitable to also think of Trump, who will become the absent and unmentionable protagonist. The past calls to him as a bad future that is inconceivable to exist. The sketch in which George Washington decides to set a limit of two terms for future presidents of the United States to guarantee the democratic health of the nation becomes visionary considering Trump's challenge this week in which he assures that he wants to run for a third term.One of the best sketches is the one that recreates the Rosa Parks episode on the bus. Traveling next to Larry David will blow up all the epicness of the woman who refused to give up her seat to a white man and became the symbol of the civil rights struggle. The whole series summarizes an alternative history of the United States where, for example, Bob Woodward will end up begging deep throat not to call him anymore to inform him about the Watergate case, we will discover the particular sense of decency of Senator McCarthy in his fall or the uncomfortable first airplane flight of the Wright brothers. Also the overwhelming pride of the mother of Jonas Salk, the discoverer of the polio vaccine. The television exercise is fun, and it turns out to be a bit paradoxical. While Donald Trump is destroying the values of the nation's founding spirit, the Obamas are rewriting its history with humor. Perhaps it's the saying that it's better to laugh than to cry.

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(As every summer, ARA dedicates a series of Sunday Media articles to reviewing television history. This year we rescue some of the most notable channel changes that historical fictions experienced.)

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El ARA suggests some plans throughout the country for this weekend.

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How do plants and animals know what time it is? What role do the Sun, the Moon, the stars, and the weather play? Why is the water clearest in June and at midnight on New Year's Eve does the star Sirius shine directly south? These are some of the questions that navigator, adventurer, and naturalist Tristan Gooley answers in Las estaciones ocultas (Ático de los Libros), a fascinating book that collects all the keys to decipher nature's calendar. By investigating the inner workings of the seasons, he explains how we can know when, how, and why things change. The researcher points out that every day of the year contains subtle signs (in the sky, in plants, in water, or in animals) that reveal the infinite changes in the landscape, from those first buds that announce the arrival of warmth or the flight of some insects that anticipate rain. An approach to nature's rhythm that is done with scientific precision, but with a literary language that invites you to wander through nature observing all that the signs that nature offers us every day tell us.

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Since the hip prosthesis operation, Mercè has a new wheelchair, and it has changed her life. Hers and Ricard's, her son's. Now she walks too, but with the wheelchair a new dimension has opened up. After many years, Mercè will be able to travel down all those streets she hasn't been down for years, because they are pedestrian-only and she couldn't go there walking or by car.

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She was unique in life and also after death. This would be the sentence that summarizes the figure of the Duchess of Kent, Katherine Worsley by birth, Kate to most of those who knew her throughout her long life. She was related to the most central core of the Windsor family since she married in 1961 the Duke of Kent, grandson of King George V and a prince with the consideration of royal highness who, besides being Duke, was also Earl of St Andrews and Baron Downpatrick. Her presence in this controversial and problematic family was always valued. And this, despite representing what for a large part of the aristocracy at the time was a sacrilege: a commoner in the palace!

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For some time now, footballers have stopped being simply athletes to become style icons, very often through association with renowned fashion brands. But finding the perfect styling is not an easy task, and it's most common for celebrities, when dressing, to receive advice from expert professionals who know much more about fashion than they do. Lamine Yamal, Barça's great star and one of the standout footballers of the 2026 World Cup, has also decided to rely on someone external to choose the pieces for his wardrobe. The chosen one to advise him is a person almost as well-known as he is, Pilar Vila, Rosalía's sister.

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It was expected news but no less happy for that. Joan Manuel Serrat is now a great-grandfather twice over. This Thursday Luna Serrat, granddaughter of the Noi del Poble-sec, and Real Madrid player Dani Ceballos announced the birth of their twins via Instagram. The couple shared a carousel of three black and white photographs on the social network in which the newborns can be seen. The images are accompanied by Alejandro Sanz's song La fuerza del corazón.

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“Fallen from the sky”, John Naylor (Akal, 2005)

This guide is an essential classic for anyone who wants to understand the firmament and know how to observe its natural phenomena. It has some chapters focused on the night sky, but what truly makes this book special is the attention it pays to observing the daytime sky. The descriptions of the phenomena are suitable for all audiences and are complemented by illustrative photographs. The author expands on scientific concepts with historical and mythological notes, offering a broad and contextualized view, but without ever losing the rigor that underpins this work. Furthermore, as it focuses only on what we can see with the naked eye, we will not need any equipment to enjoy the spectacles the sky offers us!Pioneer

On August 12, 1919, Margaret Burbidge was born

Astrophysicist, astronomer, and one of the founders of modern astronomy. Her career was marked by the fight against gender discrimination: she was often denied the use of telescopes for being a woman. But by overcoming obstacles, she was the first author of the paper demonstrating that most of the known chemical elements are formed inside stars. From this came the inspiring phrase that "we are made of stardust".Agenda

Solaris Citizen Science Project

Available on the app, from July 12

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Josep Masalles (Barcelona, 1956) is known as the eclipse hunter. Or Mr. Eclipse Spain. He holds the record for being the person in Spain who has seen the most eclipses - a total of 43 - and is the president of Aster, the Astronomical Association of Barcelona.

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If we saw a monkey eating dirt, we would probably think it was strange or accidental behavior. But what if this behavior were actually an adaptive response to a problem created by humans? This is the question that anthropologist Sylvain Lemoine and his collaborators, from various English, French, and Catalan universities and research centers, with the participation of researchers from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) at the Rovira i Virgili University, have posed after studying the macaques living on the Rock of Gibraltar. The results, recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, suggest that these primates deliberately eat dirt to alleviate the digestive effects of a diet altered by constant contact with tourists.The Barbary macaques, also known as the Gibraltar apes (Macaca sylvanus), constitute a unique population. They are the only non-human primates living in freedom in Europe. Although their origin is in North Africa, they have inhabited Gibraltar for centuries and today they are an inseparable part of the place's identity. Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors come to the rock to observe them. Although feeding them is prohibited, many tourists continue to offer them biscuits, crisps, sweets, ice cream, or other processed products. In addition, these monkeys have also learned to appropriate visitors' food, and they take it from them when they have the opportunity.

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