41% of the Spanish population contributes more through taxes and fees than it receives in benefits. The proportion rises to 68% between the ages of 25 and 64, the active stage of citizens, and falls below 10% at the extremes of the life cycle, childhood and old age, which maintains a growing trend. The issue is that formulas must be devised to distribute the costs of population aging "in a more predictable and equitable way between generations" to "avoid them being transferred in a less visible way to future generations through higher levels of debt," according to a study by the economic policy center EsadeEcPol. One of the solutions they propose consists of increasing the proportion of the working population aged 55 to 64, which is below the European average, and which contributes the most in social security contributions and taxes.

Family-work balance takes precedence over salary as a factor that workers consider when choosing a job, or at least that is the conclusion of a report by Foment del Treball presented this Wednesday, which analyzes the challenges of the Spanish labor market. Specifically, work-life balance has positioned itself as the "top priority" among those looking for a job or having to choose a job offer to pursue. It is the main criterion (36.2%), ahead of salary (26.8%) and flexible hours or workplace (23.6%), according to the report. And it is a particularly relevant element for workers between 30 and 35 years old, but not for young people who have just entered the labor market: although work-life balance has grown as a criterion, salary continues to gain ground.

Although José María Aznar proclaimed the famous "whoever can, let them do it" against Pedro Sánchez, the former Spanish president is not pressuring Alberto Núñez Feijóo to register a motion of no confidence, unlike Vox. The former PP leader has warned his party that Junts cannot be counted on to bring down the head of the executive, no matter how much Carles Puigdemont's party gives their occasional supportto parliamentary initiatives, of a symbolic nature, against Sánchez's continuity. "Congress cannot manage a constructive no-confidence motion", lamented Aznar, who attributed it to the fact that the allies of the socialist leader's investiture want "to be able to consummate their plundering of the State". The former Spanish president and leader of the PP criticized that Moncloa has ended up being "a Madrid delegation of secessionism".

José María Aznar must always be listened to. Beyond the occasional strident declaration or the catchy soundbite that makes headlines, what he says usually reflects in depth the thinking of the dominant right-wing in Madrid. Not always coincident with what, by intuition, the Galician Alberto Nuñez Feijóo might think.

Vito Quiles assures that he will not surrender "to Pedro Sánchez's government" after the arrest order issued by a judge this afternoon. He announced this in a video posted on social media, where he accused the Spanish government of carrying out a "judicial and media hunt" against him since, months ago, he accosted the wife of the Spanish prime minister, Begoña Gómez. Initially, Quiles planned to go to a police station tomorrow to clarify the matter, according to sources from the firm representing Quiles, Ospina Abogados.

The testimony of those responsible for the covid vaccination of National Police and Civil Guard agents in Catalonia has been a cold shower for police unions that accuse former heads of the Health department of having "discriminated" against them compared to the Mossos d'Esquadra. The second day of the trial of former councilors Alba Vergés and Josep Maria Argimon focused on the statements of the commanders of these two forces who organized the vaccination of their agents stationed in Catalonia, and both stressed that they spoke daily with their interlocutor at Health, Xavier Rodríguez Guasch, about whom they said he always had a good disposition for coordination.

To Jonas Vingegaard, two-time winner of the Tour de France, the voice of Jordi Vidal (Barcelona, 1963) will surely sound familiar, as he is the announcer for the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, which the Dane won this year with a triumph in the general classification and two stage victories. Vingegaard has heard his name every day in the Volta while Jordi Vidal did his job as an announcer in front of the professional cyclists and the public at the roadside during the seven Catalan stages. The Volta has a lot to do with Vidal being the Catalan announcer for the three Tour de France starts in Barcelona, Tarragona, and Granollers this year, thanks to the recommendations of Rubèn Peris, the general director of the Volta. “Friend Peris recommended me to the Tour during my first year as announcer for the Volta in 2016, so that I would be the Catalan announcer for the arrival and departure of stages in Andorra,” Vidal explains to ARA.

We explain everything you need to know to enjoy the Tour de France that will cross Catalonia: from mobility impacts to activities organized by the cycling race.

Plataforma per la Llengua has filed a complaint with the Labour Inspectorate against the office and co-working space company Aticco "for having dismissed a worker for habitually speaking Catalan at work, in Barcelona", they explain in a statement. The entity hopes that an investigation will be opened into the Catalan company "to investigate whether it has imposed Spanish as the mandatory language of communication and has limited the use of Catalan" and, if appropriate, for corrective and sanctioning measures to be adopted. Plataforma will also take the case to the Síndic de Greuges of Barcelona and will report Aticco to the new Office for the Protection of Linguistic Rights of the Generalitat de Catalunya, as the signs and fixed information in the premises must be displayed, at least, in Catalan.

The therapy that Jonathan Andic and Isak Andic were undergoing to improve their father-son relationship is one of the elements at the center of the investigation to try to clarify how the founder of Mango died. In the middle of this therapy was a coach, J.L., who practiced a method inspired by Freud and his metaphorical theory of the death of the father. J.L.'s role is key to the point that the judge is investigating whether she was involved in the businessman's death, and this Tuesday she spent two hours and forty minutes testifying, leaving the courts as a witness and not as a suspect.leaving the courts as a witness and not as a suspect.From J.L.'s therapy, reported by this newspaper, the messages from Jonathan to Isak such as "I'm not surprised you thought I was capable of killing you" have emerged. Furthermore, the judge also indicates that the coach allegedly facilitated the founder of Mango giving a living inheritance to his son, with the aim of not losing their relationship. The entire process of handing over this living inheritance, according to the judge, was mediated by J.L. The magistrate also spoke of an "obsession with money" by Jonathan Andic.

This year's is the World Cup of blurred borders and that of the diasporas. Almost 25% of the 1,248 players who compete in it defend the jersey of a national team different from their country of birth. The most paradigmatic case is Curaçao, which only has one player originally from the Caribbean island. The rest are from the Netherlands, the territory of which Curaçao depends on, which is not an independent state. In the World Cup there are up to 67 Dutch footballers, a figure that only France, which has 98, surpasses.

Yesterday, the extraordinary regularization process for immigrants opened by the Spanish socialist government ended, and all forecasts have been exceeded: one million two hundred thousand requests have been submitted. If we do a rule of three with the initial forecasts, around 300,000 applications from people who already live here without papers may have been submitted in Catalonia.For Pedro Sánchez, the overflow of the figure shows that the idea was good, because it was necessary. But the Supreme Court has opened the door to taking this regularization of immigrants to European justice so that it clarifies whether European law is respected, as the processing of more than one million applications could not comply with the European migratory pact. The Supreme Court has gotten involved because the Valencian and Aragonese governments, both from the PP, have asked it to. But, as I was saying, yesterday Sánchez puffed out his chest and at an event to present an integration plan he said that without immigrants Spain would lose 19% of its wealth creation in the next 25 years. The slogan of the plan caught my attention: “Where do they come from? They come from building the country”. A slogan that emphasizes the most economic aspect of immigration. Without immigration there are no caregivers, or bricklayers, or bus drivers… and they are essential because they are jobs that keep the country running every day. But building a country is something more. It has to do with rights and duties, and in our case, with integration into a culture and a language that do not have the maximum protection of the State (in fact, they rather have the maximum aggression from some parties and State bodies). And here is where the slogan of making country, so Pujol-like, is a mockery. I read in the chronicle of ARA: “Regarding Catalan, sources from the Sánchez government indicate that knowledge of the language will not have special value”. It is devastating. And at the same time, it is not new; it is coherent with the state in which we live, where only Spanish is mandatory. The lack of ambition of the Illa government on this issue, with the interested appeasement of business sectors, is regrettable. Much effort to fight the battle (or so they said) so that Catalan can be spoken in the European Parliament, but no step to do something as normal as requiring people who come to a country to know the language. It is a harm to the language and to coexistence. And without the Catalan language, immigrants cannot build a nation in Catalonia. Immigration is used to instill fear and win elections with messages of hate. Look at what is happening in South Africa, with demonstrations against immigrants, blaming them for unemployment, crime, and the deterioration of public services. Sánchez, in the role of going it alone against the world on immigration, gives speeches of the type “in the face of hate, humanity,” but with humanitarian appeals we already know that we will not stop the hate speeches of the far-right. And demonstrating political leadership in immigration in Catalonia means that Catalan should be for everyone, especially for the newest Catalans.Good morning.

Temperatures have dropped coinciding with the start of July, thanks to the arrival of cooler winds from the north. This night has been cooler and very breathable in general, and even a jacket is needed early in the morning in parts of the Pyrenees, where the minimum temperature has dropped below 10 ºC. Only on the coast, in Empordà and Ebre, have tropical minimums been repeated, but no longer torrid. Yesterday it was full summer heat, but it was more moderate. Most values ranged between 30 and 35 ºC, nothing like the almost 40 ºC of Tuesday. But the exception was the coast of Tarragona, where the re-heated wind caused a warm peak. Notably, 36.4 ºC were reached in the city of Tarragona.

Quan el mes passat va arribar la primera onada de calor de l'any a Nova York, els bàrmans de tota la ciutat es van preparar per a uns dies de marató de preparació de spritzs. A Dante, el bar de Greenwich Village conegut per la seva carta de còctels, Linden Pride, un dels propietaris, esperava que tota la secció de begudes lleugeres del seu menú hagués de treballar de valent. Però després de l'allau de clients, el senyor Pride va revisar els informes de servei de la setmana i va descobrir que una sola beguda havia superat totes les altres en vendes, i no només al Dante original, sinó també als seus dos locals germans del barri, així com al Dante de Beverly Hills i al nou Dante Mayfair de Londres.

We have been living with this sticky heat for days. That puts us in a bad mood. That makes our children (and teachers, and monitors, and people who work in educational centers) finish the course inside boiling classrooms. The platform has denounced it Classrooms on Fire, and by moving its map of Catalonia you can see high school classrooms that reached 39 degrees. Also a chilling string of classes that have exceeded the legal range, which states that “The temperature of rooms where sedentary work typical of offices or similar is carried out shall be between 17 and 27 degrees”. And the course is already over and it seems we are forgetting about it, but it should not be so.

A customer enters A la Premsa d’Aquell Dia, a fascinating, captivating, essential shop at Joaquim Costa street 44, a Barcelona classic. He asks Àgata if she has any newspaper from June 28, 1957. She consults the volumes, handmade, indecipherable to anyone not from the house, and immediately finds that, from the requested day, they have the Diari de Barcelona, La Vanguardia, and Abc. The customer is unsure if the recipient of the gift will prefer La Vanguardia or Abc, and Àgata offers to show him both copies. We accompany him to the storage room. He climbs the two shelves – from floor to ceiling – where the newspapers should be. And, indeed, he finds them immediately.

The 1978 World Cup was held in Argentina during a military dictatorship. Some survivors recounted hearing goals being cheered through the televisions of their torturers or even shouts coming from the Monumental stadium, a few streets away from the epicenter of repression of Jorge Rafael Videla's regime.

Karla took fifteen years to make the move. Half her life. It was a long time of silence. Also of shame. Even of fear. Hours of psychologists to gradually put the pieces back in place. Until she was ready to report the man who sexually assaulted and tortured her when she was just a fourteen-year-old girl.

Salvador Illa will reach the midpoint of his term with the political stability he sought. This Thursday, Parliament will definitively approve the budgets that, weeks ago, he agreed upon with Esquerra and Comuns, the two investiture partners who this morning will add their votes to validate the first accounts of the socialist government. However, both formations warned this Wednesday that their support is not a blank check, but rather they demand further steps from the executive to fulfill the investiture agreements. Especially the Republicans, who are awaiting the materialization of their star pact, the new financing model, which at this time depends on the support that the socialists can achieve in Congress, where it must be validated.

Former Vox leader Iván Espinosa de los Monteros has confirmed with "sadness" that Vox communicated his expulsion from the party to him this Wednesday, but he warned that he will continue in "the defense of Spain" and that "the best is yet to come" in a video published on X.

Junts per Sabadell has expelled Lluís Matas and Katia Botta for not handing over the councillors' minutes after opening proceedings against the two militants for actions "contrary to the interests of the party" and for making "public statements that may have caused serious harm" to the party.

The PP, acting as popular prosecutor in the Leire Díez case, has requested more indictments from the National Court. It wants Judge Santiago Pedraz to investigate the director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, among other officers of the armed institute.

Hazte Oír has backtracked to end up being "totally" opposed to Begoña Gómez attending her daughter's graduation in London. Pedro Sánchez's wife requested this permission after Judge Juan Carlos Peinado confiscated her passport and prohibited her from leaving the country.

The consortium behind the project for Móra la Nova (Ribera d'Ebre) and San Fernando de Henares (Madrid) to host one of Europe's artificial intelligence (AI) gigafactories boasts unanimity. This Wednesday, Pedro Sánchez's government convened in Moncloa the representatives of who, for now, forms part of the consortium that has sponsored the project's candidacy for its first official family photo. For the Spanish government, the company that has been established for this technological project to become a reality in the State is an example of the "importance" of public-private collaboration, and it takes on even more "relevance" when considering that the companies that make up the consortium, and which hold the majority, are "leaders in their sectors," Moncloa highlighted in a statement.

When the Saudi operator STC entered Telefónica, the telecom company, then chaired by José María Álvarez-Pallete, argued that the "Spanishness" of the shareholding was not lost. It said so because a core group based in the State was maintained with historical shareholders such as Criteria, BBVA itself, and CaixaBank, which sold its stake in 2024. The State Industrial Shareholdings Corporation (SEPI), the Spanish government's investment arm, would later join them, acquiring 10% of Telefónica's share capital. Today, however, this Spanish core has been diluted. CaixaBank's departure two years ago is now joined by BBVA's reduction, which in the last few hours has gone from controlling 5.007% of the share capital to holding only a 1.965% stake, as confirmed by ARA from market sources.

Kerry Donovan, advocada litigant, tenia una carrera que exigia molt i no estava segura de voler tenir fills. La pandèmia li va fer replantejar-s'ho. Les seves jornades encara eren llargues i impredictibles. Ella era el sosteniment de la família. Es va traslladar a l'altra banda del país per ajudar a tenir cura dels seus pares després que el seu pare patís un ictus. Malgrat tot això, tenir fills de sobte li va semblar possible, gràcies al fet que les activitats laborals durant la pandèmia van alliberar de l'oficina els treballadors.

The Generalitat's flagship housing plan —and arguably one of the most significant of the legislature— is to add 50,000 protected homes to the public stock by 2030. Salvador Illa's strategy involves identifying plots of land ready for construction and then offering them to municipalities and developers. This Wednesday, the Government has put out to tender 16 of the 59 plots with capacity for fewer than 20 homes each that the executive has included in its plan. As ARA has learned, this week it will release 8 more of the same type, bringing the total to 24 plots.

The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) is investigating whether a group of brokers has agreed to fix mortgage prices and commercial conditions and, consequently, has infringed free competition in the market. Competition suspects that the alleged fraudulent practices took place within the framework of "an association of companies dedicated to mortgage intermediation", but does not specify which one.

Julia Aceituno first set foot in Girona in 1990. She had grown up in Talanga, a small town of 40,000 inhabitants an hour from the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, and at the time she was 36 years old and had three children. "I came for a holiday during the time of Felipe González," she recalls. At that time in Girona there were only nine of her compatriots: "We all knew each other!". Thirty-six years later, in the urban area of Girona alone, it is estimated that there are about 20,000 people of Honduran origin, and in the entire province, 40,000.

Agents of the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Guardia Civil again searched the IRTA-CReSA facilities yesterday as part of the investigation into the origin of the African swine fever (ASF) outbreak, as reported by El País and confirmed by police sources to ARA. According to a statement released this Wednesday afternoon by the center itself, "new judicial proceedings" ordered by the court handling the case – number 2 of the Cerdanyola del Vallès Court of First Instance – have been carried out to try to clarify the origin of the ASF outbreak in Catalonia. The search at IRTA on Tuesday lasted more than ten hours.

Almost a decade after the ambitious project to convert the central nave of the Can Batlló industrial complex into a large agora open to neighbors and the sole headquarters of all Barcelona's archives was presented, the municipal government has taken a step forward to unblock a long-claimed infrastructure. "With this announcement, what we have had to wait for so many years, we make it happen. Work begins in the first quarter of next year," highlighted the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni.

Catalonia has closed the month of June with more than 200 deaths attributable to heat, according to estimates of mortality attributable to heat from the Daily Mortality Monitoring System (MoMo) of the Carlos III Health Institute. It is the highest figure in a June since records began. MoMo is the only tool that allows us to map deaths that occur daily in the State almost in real time, which are calculated using the excess mortality indicator; that is, how many deaths that occur [observed] exceed those that were expected [estimated] in a given territory and period.

There is now a popular verdict. The Barcelona City Council made public this Wednesday at noon the results of the citizen votes to choose the future ombudsman of the Catalan capital, in which 2,707 people participated. David Bondia won with 2,064 votes (76%), ahead of Gemma Calvet, who obtained 643 (24%). Regarding entity adhesions, Bondia had the endorsement of 25 (81%) and Calvet that of six (19%).

United States pressure on NATO allies to spend more on defense and do it buying American weapons doesn't stop. Washington's ambassador to the Atlantic Alliance, Matthew Whitaker, has warned that Donald Trump's administration will carry out a new strategy to make its transatlantic partners believe: "It will bring benefits" to governments that spend more on defense and punish those that allocate fewer resources to it.

La dona del president Lyndon B. Johnson era propietària d'una emissora de ràdio rendible. George W. Bush formava part del consell d'administració d'una companyia petroliera mentre el seu pare era a la Casa Blanca. I Hunter Biden cobrava d'una empresa de gas natural ucraïnesa mentre el seu pare era vicepresident. Però mai abans en la història dels Estats Units hi ha hagut res semblant a Donald J. Trump, un president que, en el seu primer any de retorn al càrrec, ha ingressat uns 1.400 milions de dòlars provinents de negocis de criptomonedes que s’han beneficiat directament de les seves accions com a president. En total, els ingressos de Trump el 2025 es van disparar fins a almenys 2.200 milions de dòlars, en comparació als 622 milions de dòlars, com a mínim, que tenia el 2024, abans de tornar al càrrec. 

The presidency has become Donald Trump's most profitable asset, as reflected in his latest financial disclosure. During the first year of his second term, the Republican earned over 1.4 billion dollars thanks to cryptocurrency businesses. In total, Trump has raked in over 2.2 billion dollars since taking office on January 20, 2025. The sum far exceeds the at least 622 million dollars his companies generated during 2024. Currently, the Republican's fortune is estimated at 6.5 billion dollars. Before stepping back into the Oval Office and winning the 2024 election, the figure was more modest: Forbes estimated it at around 2.3 billion dollars.One of the catalysts for the wealth that Trump has accumulated this past year is the World Liberty Financial platform, founded in 2024 by his three sons and the son of special envoy Steve Witkoff, Zach Witkoff. In early January 2025, before the inauguration, an Emirati fund linked to the royal family of Abu Dhabi bought 49% of the business's shares. Shortly after, Trump decided to dedicate his return's first presidential trip to the Gulf petrostates, instead of following the tradition of visiting one of the neighboring countries, Canada or Mexico. Also, shortly after the entry of Emirati capital, the White House reached an agreement with Abu Dhabi to export artificial intelligence-powered chips to them, despite reservations from some national security officials.But this Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly again denied the existence of a conflict of interest following the publication of her boss's financial disclosure. “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people, and anyone calling themselves a “reporter” who pushes otherwise is recycling the same tired, false narrative that Democrats and mainstream media have been pushing for a decade,” she assured. GENIUS Act

World Liberty's plans, however, are even more ambitious: the company launched a dollar-pegged stablecoin last March, dubbed USD1, and has the backing of the U.S. Treasury. Although the president always excuses himself by saying he knows nothing about family businesses and that his children manage everything, very conveniently last year he signed the GENIUS Act. This is a law that creates the first legal framework for stablecoins like the USD1 launched by World Liberty. The rule establishes a series of protections for buyers of stablecoins to foster trust and use among consumers. A few months before signing the law, the Department of Justice dismantled the unit dedicated to investigating crypto-scams and crypto-crimes. The man who at the time scorned the cryptocurrency business as a scam, now signs regulations to promote its use while fattening a good part of his fortune thanks to this world. World Liberty Financial does not solely hold the title of the golden goose. The memecoin that the president launched shortly before his inauguration, $TRUMP, has resulted in the president pocketing 635 million dollars during 2025. No one overlooks the exclusive dinner that the president organized when he launched the coin, where the condition for attending was to be one of the main 220 buyers. The opportunity to dine behind closed doors with a President of the United States translated into a collection of 148 million dollars. Cryptocurrencies have transformed the president's fortune in a very short time. While during his first term, a large part of his fortune (then estimated between 2.3 million and 2.5 million dollars) was based on real estate, golf courses, and the classic businesses of the Trump clan. These sources of income continue to generate profits for the president and his family, but not at the same pace as cryptocurrencies.The release of the financial disclosure comes shortly after the Republican managed to get his own administration would reach an out-of-court settlement to grant him tax immunity for himself, his family, and the Trump Organization. In a statement signed by the current acting attorney general and former president's lawyer, Todd Blanche, the U.S. Tax Agency agreed that it was "forever prohibited" examine or prosecute "any" tax claim against Trump, his children and the Trump Organization.

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The Swiss city of Écône was the scene this Wednesday of a new schism in the Catholic Church. The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, known as the Lefebvrians, has defied the Vatican and ordained four bishops without the authorization of the Pope, who has exclusive competence to do so, meaning all four will be excommunicated. Swiss Pascal Schreiber, American Michael Goldade, and Frenchmen Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier are the four members of this ultratraditionalist congregation who have been appointed bishops, despite Pope Leo XIV's express request that they not do so.

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The Iranian delegation has concluded technical discussions in Doha to advance the peace agreement with the US. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi stated that a communication channel will be established to report and discuss violations of the memorandum of understanding.

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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.

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UNPORTAL and ARA make available to you a grade simulator that, from the publication of the Selectivity Grades and until the first assignment of places, scheduled for July 10, will allow you to make calculations around the score you would need to enroll in the degrees that interest you.

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Choosing a series to watch is often a difficult task due to the avalanche of offers currently available. To sift the wheat from the chaff, it is always interesting to listen to recommendations from friends or someone who understands. With this objective, 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, just 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.

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"I wouldn't trade this sailboat for any dinghy." Says Segimon Molist, from Vic, who is grateful to have been able to enjoy a swim at ses Ielles. It's not the first time he's sailed around Cap de Creus from the sea, but "it's a place that always surprises you," he adds. "I had never done this route before and I recommend it," says Jesús Conte, a journalist. "I loved it, it was a fantastic experience," shares Josep Maria Canyelles, a businessman from Vilanova i la Geltrú, happy to have been able to "get to know from the sea an increasingly protected area with restricted access".

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Besides the religious and political factors, the Pope's trip has had a spectacular media impact, to be studied academically; this is the space of the Reader's Advocate. I have received two complaints on the matter. The subscriber Teresa Maria Castanyer, who identifies herself as a linguist and interested in liturgy, begins with this phrase: “I am sorry to observe that there are often errors in information about topics of the Catholic Church”. And she gives very clear examples. Writing “cupons” (coupons), placed in quotation marks, instead of “copons”, that is, confusing lottery tickets or shares with the “valuable metal vessel in the shape of a cup for keeping the consecrated hosts” (IEC). The sender states that the error was corrected in the digital version. She also expresses that, in a photo caption, we say that Leo XIV was at a mass when in reality he was at the Vatican window praying the angelus. Finally, in another photo, we make cardinals of prelates who were not, based on a misinterpretation of the solidi. “These kinds of things –concludes the subscriber– denote a certain carelessness, little interest in providing accurate information. And I am sorry, because if I notice more errors than I would like in topics that I know... How many errors must I not detect in other topics?”Teresa Maria Castanyer is right. Journalism must be able to translate technical languages and transmit them correctly to readers, it is an ancestral divulgatory function of the profession. Liturgy is a non-verbal language loaded with meanings –Romano Guardini explains it in The Spirit of the Liturgy (Pòrtic, 2011) – and, faced with a media challenge of such magnitude as the papal visit, the media could have been more careful with ritual vocabulary and its hermeneutics.Xavier Albertí draws my attention to an Aena advertisement “with language that I don’t find appropriate enough”; he quotes and comments: "«Spain, meeting point. Four stops, one single destination (Madrid, Barcelona, Gran Canaria, Tenerife)». The text, intentionally or not, refers us to the well-known slogan of the unity of destination in the universal» and, at the very least, has an evident integrating and integrationist tone. Could the newspaper have saved itself from publishing it?"The CEO, Pablo Casals, responds to the reader: “At L’ARA, we clearly distinguish between editorial content and advertising spaces, which are the responsibility of the advertisers, but these spaces always go through a prior filter on the type of advertiser, product, or service advertised. This means we do not accept any advertisement: we have red lines linked to legality, non-discrimination, the absence of hate speech, respect for fundamental rights, and coherence with basic coexistence values. In fact, on other occasions, we have rejected advertisements or asked for them to be modified when we have considered them inappropriate for our medium, for example in areas such as gambling, dating, or certain services linked to addictions or practices not well aligned with L’ARA’s values. In this specific case, we understand that the reader may view it critically or feel uncomfortable with it, but we did not consider that the advertisement crossed any of these red lines in a clear manner”.The Pope as a media phenomenon is so evident that from the outset he has achieved hegemony – with non-ecclesiastical license from Antonio Gramsci – in most of the media. A mass leader who mobilizes crowds, with different scripts, dramaturgy, sets, scenography, costumes, actors... Without two thousand years of history, this ceremonial superproduction would be unthinkable, which culminated in the masterful audiovisual demonstration of the Sagrada Família, due, among others, to the director Paulí Subirà, the artistic director Igor Cortadellas, the composer Daniel López Pradas and the maestro Josep Pons, one of our great orchestra conductors, first-class artistic contributions. That ARA has managed the topic appropriately is evidenced by the mere two reported complaints and very few critical comments in the direct coverage of the digital articles. I emphasize, therefore, that our journalistic treatment of the papal visit has been factually correct, without falling into either the hooliganism that Mònica Planas properly points out regarding television, or into contempt, and that the opinion articles have offered a diverse range of visions of a topic that has always given rise to much controversy, between the opposite poles of our most ingrained anti-clericalism and the no less ingrained fundamentalist moralism. João Borges, editor of the opinion section, has counted about thirty articles, starting with José María Brunet's first one, "The Pope's visit and the virus ship" (May 9th). An exact figure is not necessary because there are pieces of interpretative journalism that border on information and opinion, and three editorials have been included in the tally, and not the three articles on the encyclical Magnifica humanitas signed by Ferran Sáez Mateu, Sebastià Alzamora, and Peter Singer.I have missed, however, enough journalistic echo from the civil part, which would have been a countermeasure for those who may have become imbued with the truce to the non-confessionality of the State proclaimed by their own representatives according to their political interests, based on who knows what constitutional interpretation that can absolve – let's say it ad sensum– their actions. I mention civil arguments:– its performance. I mention civil arguments:Le Monde, 1963, or the closure of intellectuals and artists in 1970, against the death penalty. The Pope enters Barcelona through the cathedral, from where the demonstration of priests against torture in 1966, harshly repressed, emerges. The Pope goes to Sant Agustí, where in 1970 the Assembly of Catalonia is constituted, the main unitary body for the fight against the dictatorship and for political and national freedoms. And the Sagrada Família is called Gaudí, but a very important interpreter of it was the architect Jordi Bonet Armengol, who directed the works for almost thirty years and was also a builder of Catalanism of great substance.All this has fallen out of focus, although the Catalan issue, unfortunately, has resurfaced “the Catalan problemAll this has gone out of focus, although the Catalan issue, unfortunately, has resurfaced “Monsignor Antoni Maria Oriol, who was a professor at the Faculty of Theology of Catalonia, collected and commented on more than nine hundred texts from contemporary pontifical magisterium on the national issue (Albert Bonet Foundation, 2014). The volume emphasizes the cultural factor that is based on language and that the Church has taken into account at least since the Second Vatican Council, which allowed religious celebrations in vernacular languages, and that John Paul II, the most traveled pope, developed and defended over a million kilometers and the twelve languages he spoke: the theological concept of "inculturation", which is the interpretation of Christianity according to each culture. 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 deontological codes.To contact the Reader's Advocate 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.

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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.

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The first time Marco Magazzu (Rome, 1990) swam in Thailand next to giant manta rays, he almost drowned. “Seriously, I started crying. I would do the same if I had the luck to find sharks in their natural habitat, in the open sea. I would do it out of emotion, not fear!”, he confesses. A marine biologist with a master's degree in Aquatic Ecology, he is part of the technical team of the Palma Aquarium Foundation, responsible for the Balearic Islands' cetacean stranding network. He also takes care of and rehabilitates turtles, but today he is here to debunk Spielberg and correct the bad reputation of sharks.

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The thirty or so Catalan practices participating in the UIA architects' congress, most as speakers, others as moderators, reveal the character of the new generations: rooted and at the same time with international ambition. Many of these architects entered the market in the midst of a crisis and had to diversify to get by. And all are more aware than ever of the sector's great social and environmental challenges. "The selection of practices is not a matter of individuals, but of contexts. There are certain practices that are at a professional moment of introducing new parameters that have marked a turning point," says Albert Bajet, the congress curator along with Maria Giramé, Carmen Torres, Pau Sarquella, Tomeu Ramis, and Mariona Benedito. "While forty years ago we talked about the autonomy of architecture and its undeniable capacity to transform spaces and the city, the practices represented at the congress, both Catalan and international, make us realize that there is a great diversity of phenomena and disciplines that interact with space." Previous generations, those of the architects who built Olympic Barcelona, are also represented at the congress, but on routes organized by the congress itself. "There is no tabula rasa; rather, the younger ones collect, with more or less significant transformations, built, geological, cultural legacies...", says Bajet.

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Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill conceived The Threepenny Opera in a specific context, Victorian London, and in a determined physical space, the underbelly of Soho, inhabited by traitors, murderers, prostitutes, and exploiters. The versions we have known among us — Mario Gas's, premiered at the Romea Theatre in 1984, and Calixto Bieito's, premiered precisely at the Grec Festival in 2002 — varied the context but maintained the physical space. Above all, they maintained the characteristics that define the characters (from stage presence to costume) and the brutality of the capitalist society they describe and satirize.

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Change at the helm of the Conservatori del Liceu. Maria Serrat, who has been its general director since 1999, hands over the reins to Iñaki Sandoval (Pamplona, 1974), who is currently the dean of the Hong Kong Music School. "I will join the conservatory in December," Sandoval announced at a press conference at the Ca l'Isidre restaurant, in Barcelona's Raval neighborhood. For Sandoval, this new responsibility is like "a return home." "My connection with the Conservatori del Liceu is intimate and foundational. I started my musical studies in Pamplona at the age of 8, but it was a scholarship from the government of Navarra that allowed me, as a young person, to travel to Barcelona. Here I supplemented my higher studies in classical piano at this very institution, and I began my training in jazz at AULA de Música Moderna. Years later, I had the privilege of directing it, of founding the Jazz Department of the Conservatory and of promoting its postgraduate studies. Barcelona is a city I deeply love and where I have experienced some of the happiest moments of my life," explained Sandoval, who has also undertaken academic work in Estonia.

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The National Art Museum of Catalonia communicated by letter this Tuesday to the Aragonese government that the transfer of the profane works from Sixena will begin on Monday, July 6, and will be completed this month, according to Efe. Unlike the murals in the chapter house, the profane works have less delicate conservation conditions and easier-to-move supports, so the MNAC has always stated to the judge that it could "deliver them immediately".

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Manuel Arjona, one of the four founders of the dance, glam and electronic pop music groupLocomía, has died suddenly in Viladecans, the city where he had lived for a long time, at the age of 58. "Today Manuel's light has risen to heaven, but his memory lives on with us," assured Luis Font, a group mate, on Instagram, along with Xavier Font – his brother – and Gard Passchier.

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Tatxo Benet definitively separates from Mediapro after reaching an agreement whereby he has sold the 5% of shares he still held in Southwind, the audiovisual company's main shareholder. In this way, the group's co-founder ceases to have any relationship with the company, and in a statement he pointed out that the operation "means the total and definitive separation" of the entrepreneur from Lleida.

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For the second consecutive year, and with the aim of it becoming a tradition, Girona kicks off the summer with a habaneras singing session overlooking the cathedral and Sant Fèlix. While on the Costa Brava the event is marked by the first Saturday of July in Calella de Palafrugell, in the capital of Girona it is brought forward to Thursday. The evening, organized by the cultural foundation El Foment, also includes a wide gastronomic offering of Catalan products and seeks to re-signify the Plaça Catalunya space.

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Europa has explained to its partners that the natural grass at the Nou Sardenya – an indispensable requirement to compete in the Primera RFEF – will not be ready until the summer of 2027. The Gràcia club will ask its partners what they want to do: play in the Primera RFEF away from home (Can Dragó or Nou Sardenya) or drop to the Segona RFEF.

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Joan Laporta is once again president of Barça. As the Blaugrana statutes dictate, the Barcelona lawyer took office this July 1st after winning the elections held in March, and he did so with an inaugural speech in which he called for the "unity of Barça followers" and promised an "exciting" future with the consolidation of the project his board began in 2021. His term ends on June 30, 2031.

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The president of Atlético de Madrid, Enrique Cerezo, has insisted that they are not willing to sell Julián Álvarez, who after the match between Argentina, his national team, and Austria, expressed his desire to leave the Mattress club to ""fulfill his dream".

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The name of Julán Álvarez is on everyone's lips, including the president of Barça, Joan Laporta, who spoke about him on the day he was sworn in again as the club's top official. In an impromptu press conference after the swearing-in ceremony, Laporta assured that the offer made by Barça about a month ago remains firm, but that "it is not unlimited in time".

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Barça has confirmed this morning the renewal of Andreas Christensen. The Danish defender, whose contract ended on June 30, will continue to wear the blaugrana jersey until 2028.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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In the bazaar of Khuyand, the second largest city in Tajikistan, until May of last year, women walked around with hijabs and abayas, others in European clothing with their hair uncovered, and others with scarves tied at the nape of their necks and colorful tunics. Now, however, one of these garments has been banned. In a country with over 90% Muslim population, one might think the state has banned uncovering their hair. But no. In Tajikistan, which is constitutionally secular, the fined woman is the one wearing a hijab.

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None of them are willing to have their real names appear in this report, and most prefer to conduct the interview by telephone. Some are minors, teenagers: their voices and manner of expression give them away. However, their ages are irrelevant because they all tell similar stories. Soraya is 20 years old, of Moroccan origin, and claims that her parents don't let her leave the house alone. She always has to be accompanied by her nine-year-old brother or her fifteen-year-old sister. Sukleen, 16, born in India but raised here, laments that her parents don't let her socialize with boys. And Laila, also 16 but originally from Bangladesh, was beaten by her father simply for wanting to study music.

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Four generations of Batlló lived on the third floor of Casa Batlló, this modernist gem on Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia designed by architect Antoni Gaudí that amazes everyone who visits it. The descendants of the Batlló family had lived in this apartment for more than a hundred years, until 2019, which is why had been preserved with an "exceptional authenticity" and now, the property has been opened to the public and you can have a meal there, after a meticulous renovation, in which all the original elements have been respected and restored – even a previously unknown handle designed by Gaudí has been discovered–. In the renovation, the talent of Italian architect and designer Paola Navone, from OTTO Studio, was chosen to make a proposal that was respectful of the place where it is located, but at the same time revised, as in the green mosaic counter that welcomes you.

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The Corpinnat sparkling wine brand extends for the first time to Baix Penedès: from July 1st, the Mas Vilella winery, owned by producer Albert Jané, will begin to label and market the two sparkling wines it produces, a rosé and a white, under the Corpinnat name. “I asked to be able to join Corpinnat in 2024, when I started producing them because my philosophy aligns with it, which means hand-harvesting, organic vineyards, integral winemaking, long aging, commitment to historical varieties, owned vineyards or long-term contracts with a minimum guaranteed price for the grape grower, and annual external audits,” explains Albert Jané, who adds that he will sell each of the two sparkling wines for twenty euros.

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I interview Karin Leiz (Seville, 1938) at the Flash-Flash restaurant in Barcelona, created by her late husband, Leopoldo Pomés, and Alfonso Milà. We look at the menu and count that there are currently up to fifty different omelets. During Leopoldo's lifetime, when she advised the restaurant, she managed to have up to one hundred and sixty. All different. We choose the Panadera (potato with bread with tomato inside) and the Gallega. We also eat peas with baby octopuses. And a bread with tomato that is perfectly dipped. It should be highlighted because it doesn't happen every day. When I pick up the cutlery to cut the omelet, she tells me if I knew that the journalist Nèstor Luján was allergic to metal. Karin has a prodigious memory, and the meal starts very well.

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Budget, time, knowledge, and experience. This is the blend that has made the Perelada winery possible, a RCR project that 22,000 people visit each year. It cost 47 million euros and took 20 years to complete. "A winery that will not go out of fashion," says Perelada's oenologist Delfí Sanahuja, who has been present in each phase of the winery's construction, inaugurated in 2022. "I knew zero about architecture, and they knew zero about wine. Now I could be an RCR intern after two decades with them," the oenologist jokes, "we understood each other very well," he affirms.

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There was a time when we ate mayors for dinner (Micromesistius poutassou).We fried them, turning them over and over, with flour, and placed them on a slice of toasted bread well rubbed with tomato. It was a white fish that fell apart, with an easily removable central bone, with soft flesh, which was a delight if we poured a good stream of extra virgin olive oil over it. It was a good dinner, and with many advantages: nutritional and economic, because the sardines were cheap.

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It was July 18, 1936, when Josep Ensesa Gubert inaugurated La Taverna del Mar on Sant Pol beach, in s’Agaró. It was a brilliant day, with a deep blue sky, when everything had to go well, because he had worked hard for the awaited day. By his side, the architect Francesc Folguera was happy with how that restaurant, which Josep Ensesa had named "tavern. Years earlier, he had not used the word hotel for the establishment with rooms in the s’Agaró urbanization; he called it Hostal La Gavina. As if he wanted discreet words for solemn establishments. The fact is that old Ensesa, as his friend and writer Josep Pla used to call him, went from joy to sadness in one day: the next day, July 19, the restaurant closed due to the start of the Civil War. Today, ninety years later, the Ensesa family, the four grandchildren, continues at the helm of their grandfather's tavern. They have been through thick and thin, but the present is full of novelties, such as the celebration menu they have devised to launch the summer, and which will be available all year round. It features seafood and Palamós prawn starters, and above all a fisherman's stew where the potatoes are as good as the fish, as it should be for a good stew.

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Summer means holidays, traveling and enjoying moments with your loved ones that daily rush often doesn't allow. But the company with whom we spend this time of leisure and pleasure can vary over the years. While children normally spend their holidays with their family, there comes a time when, as adolescents, they start looking elsewhere. There's always that first summer when they propose to their parents their desire to go on a trip with friends, away from the family. Although it's a totally normal situation, sometimes it's not perceived that way by parents, who have to learn to manage a role change in their relationship with their children.

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Many parents do not talk about money with their children because they are not very happy with what they do to earn it. Surely it is not what they had projected for their lives and, in this renunciation, there is a kind of shame. This often makes them not want to talk about money, seeing it as something dirty that has forced them to betray their lives.Wow, I had never looked at it that way.

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Pau was within the top 10 (it was ninth) of the most given boy names in Catalonia in 2024. But its peak popularity was in 2003, when it was the third most common name. In fact, between 2000-2009 it was given to over 9,000 newborns and between 2010-2019 to almost 5,700.

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On social networks, the word journaling often goes hand in hand with stickers, glitter, and fluorescent markers. But in reality, it is the habit of writing experiences, thoughts, emotions, or memories in a notebook through writing, drawing, lists, collage, or questions. Many companies have seen a commercial vein in this and the practice has adapted to new audiences, such as children. However, beyond its marketing aspect, is it a tool that works? For Èlia López, doctor in educational sciences at the University of Barcelona (UB), the answer is yes. “"Oral history"}journaling can become an educational, pedagogical, and emotional tool of great value. Beyond aesthetics, it offers children a personal space for expression, awareness, and emotional regulation,” says López, who warns that “it should not be seen only as a creative or decorative activity, but as a pedagogical and emotional resource that can significantly contribute to children's well-being”.

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The last weeks of the school year have been intense for the first-year ESO students at Institut Teresa Pàmies (Barcelona), who have managed to complete the co-creation project of a public-use plot of land on which they had been working all year. They did so within the framework of the workshop Architecture and senses, a plot for everyone, one of the 400 architecture workshops that 130 architects have taught in 25 educational centers in the province of Barcelona between May and June, coinciding with Architecture Week. Although this year the workshops are part of the program for Barcelona 2026, World Capital of Architecture, the initiative is not new, as the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) has been organizing it since 2019. Over these eight years, more than 55,000 primary, secondary, and high school students from more than 200 educational centers have participated.

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In childbirth classes, they talk a lot about sleepless nights, cracked nipples, postpartum blues... but little is said about a topic that will haunt you every year and is much worse than having to put cabbage leaves in your breasts to relieve milk engorgement: summers with children. Schools close in June. But, Oh, surprise!, your children still exist.

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"Even if our sole concern were national economic growth, we would have to protect humanistic education." This is stated by the American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum (New York, 1947), according to whom, in schools and universities worldwide, the exact opposite is happening: the humanities (literature, history, philosophy, etc.), as well as the arts, are increasingly scorned, if not directly eliminated. What is happening to us? Nussbaum is in no way against hard sciences or technological knowledge. But she warns against the error of despising humanistic knowledge and the critical thinking associated with it. And she warns that, at the same time as the curriculum is being stripped of humanistic elements, the pedagogy of memorization is being reimposed (obviously, this does not mean she rejects all memorization).

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Guillem Agulló was an 18-year-old Valencian nationalist, anti-fascist, and independentist who was murdered by a gang of Nazis in April 1993 in Montanejos (Alt Millars). His only crime was being known for his ideas by his murderer, Pedro Cuevas. Cuevas stabbed him in the heart. Death was almost instantaneous. The murderer and his gang left the scene singing the Cara al sol. This detail is important because, in the subsequent trial, a witness was forced to sing the well-known fascist anthem, theoretically to prove that it identified him correctly. It is just one of the many surreal elements present in the whole affair.And it is that the crime against Agulló opened the doors to an unspeakable process that masked the facts, excused the assassins and criminalized the Valencian nationalist and anti-fascist movement. All this is what the professor, writer and musician Rafa Xambó has been patiently investigating the professor, writer and musician Rafa Xambó for four long years. The result of this research is The murder of Guillem: lies, fascists and robes, a huge volume of more than 400 pages, with dense lettering, which explains how the Montanejos crime was treated in the precarious and colonized Valencian media ecosystem and what the judicial outcome of all this was.This volume is the culmination of a series of initiatives of different types that have kept the case hot over the last decades. I am talking about the novel Guillem, by Núria Cadenes (Amsterdam Llibres, 2020) or the film La mort de Guillem, by Carlos Marqués-Marcet (2020). This latter title was broadcast by the televisions of Catalonia, Valencian Country, and the Balearic Islands, and achieved figures of more than 600,000 viewers in total.Xambó, however, does not fictionalize. His has been a work of newspaper archives and of looking closely at the judicial summary. His conclusions are unassailable: after the crime, the main local newspaper, Las Provincias, launched a brutal campaign to excuse the assassins, attributing it all to a “youth brawl” (sic). The other media outlets (including Canal 9) also played an incomplete and unprofessional role, but the newspaper from the capital city took the prize.The end of a convulsive transition in the Valencian Country

For those who do not know the history of Las Provincias, it will be necessary to explain that the newspaper founded in 1866 by Teodor Llorente (patriarch of the Valencian Renaixença) was the main agent, since 1979, for the promotion of anti-Catalanism in Valencia and the criminalization of nationalism. Agulló's episode, in reality, was the cherry on a rotten cake that had been poisoning Valencian society for twenty years. At its head, the sadly famous María Consuelo Reyna.In reality, the stab in the heart against Guillem Agulló represents, in a way, the end of the convulsive Transition in the Valencian Country. A period of unpunished crimes (the bombings of Joan Fuster and other intellectuals, aggressions against democratic authorities...) which Xambó takes care to recall so that we are not at all surprised by the ridiculous conviction of Pedro Cuevas with which the trial that took place in Castelló de la Plana was settled.As a sardonic epilogue to this story, it will be necessary to note what Pedro Cuevas did – the kid who claims he killed Agulló for esoteric, juvenile, and testosteronic reasons – after serving the four years in prison to which he was sentenced. He immediately joined the FAS (Antisystem Front) and was implicated in Operation Panzer. In this raid, the Civil Guard dismantled a neo-Nazi cell with weapons and propaganda that was dedicated to the hunt for anti-fascists and immigrants.This is how history is written, undoubtedly...

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The Tàpies Museum has presented the third edition of the Extramurs project, which this year will feature the artist Dora García (Valladolid, 1965). She will present Timelines / resurrection, a proposal that will occupy public space with performances, public debate, memory walks, posters, films, and an intervention on the museum's facade. García, who lives between Oslo and Barcelona, aims to reinterpret the concept of resurrection by turning it into a political and critical tool. All this, to give voice to silenced people and rethink issues related to gender, violence, or memory in a collective action of struggle and resistance.

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This Friday, July 3rd, arrives in theaters Magellan, the new film by Filipino Lav Diaz, one of the most radical directors of contemporary auteur cinema. The film, starring Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, narrates, from the perspective of the colonized peoples, the adventures of the Spanish expedition to the East that the Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães led in 1519. It is an international co-production, winner of the Seminci of Valladolid in 2025, which has the participation of the producer by Albert Serra, Andergraun Films.

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The American singer and songwriter Victor Willis (Dallas, 1951), leader of the group Village People, died this Tuesday at the age of 74 after a "brief but aggressive illness," as reported by the band on their Facebook page. Willis was the singer and co-author of some of the group's greatest hits such as YMCA, Go West, Macho Man, and In the navy. The musician embodied characters such as the policeman and the Navy officer within the group's visual aesthetic, based on interpreting male archetypes on stage. Willis's role was fundamental to the configuration of the sound and image with which Village People became an international phenomenon during the 70s and a symbol of queer culture.

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The new era of Teatre del Raval under the direction of Pep Tosar and Evelyn Arévalo is based on the premise of artistic excellence and humanistic commitment. This was evident in the magnificent inaugural show about Federico García Lorca, which just ended its run last Friday and has been succeeded by L’enterrador (The Gravedigger). It is a monologue written by Gerard Vázquez and performed by Pepe Zapata that has toured much of Spain and speaks of the Francoist mass graves through the true story of Leonci Badia Navarro, better known as the gravedigger of Paterna.

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L’equip olotí encapçalat pels arquitectes Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem i Ramon Vilalta és avui un dels màxims representants de la cultura catalana. Amb una llarga trajectòria, de gairebé quaranta anys d’activitat, estan deixant un llegat de projectes i obres summament representatives que abracen molts camps. Els RCR, de fet, no solament es mouen en el camp de l’arquitectura. Des del principi van treballar l’escala del paisatge i estan molt pròxims a l’art i al pensament. La seva iniciativa més ambiciosa i personal, per exemple, és La Vila, una finca de 140 hectàrees a la Vall de Bianya, a prop d’Olot, impulsada per la Fundació Bunka i l'RCR LAB·A, pensat com un laboratori viu i en constant evolució, com un lloc de reflexió i inspiració cosmopolita, endinsats en la natura, la història i la creativitat compartida. Al mateix temps, s’han dedicat al disseny de molts elements que faciliten la vida quotidiana, pensats amb una mentalitat minimalista i futurista, d’eficàcia i performativitat.

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Summer has arrived in La Garrotxa: the gold of the harvested fields and the green of the forests coexist on the route between Olot and La Vall de Bianya, on the way to La Vila, the estate where Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta, the RCR, are building their dream place, a pioneering research center on space. More specifically, as they themselves have reflected, it is "a living and thinking space to transmit new awareness directly and concretely through nature and architecture". "This is an exceptional project: we are used to working on commission, and here what we want is to build an idea," says Ramon Vilalta, on the way. The RCR set out to make the dream of La Vila a reality after winning the Pritzker Prize in 2017, the Nobel of architects. They already knew it because they had built a small pond for the previous owner, but when they acquired it, they conceived a much more ambitious project, where they want to bring together, in addition to architects, artists, thinkers, scientists, musicians, engineers, philosophers, psychologists, designers, filmmakers, students, and entrepreneurs, to "highlight hybridization". "We have always thought that culture is the most precious value we have as a country," says Vilalta. "In Catalonia there are very creative people, but we don't know each other, we don't connect. Just by making it possible for people to meet transversally, the La Vila project would already give a lot," he emphasizes.

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Our interview takes place in Olot’s old Barberí foundry, converted into the studio and beating heart of RCR Arquitectes. Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta discuss returning to Olot, the decision to always work together, landscape as an ally, the Pritzker Prize as freedom and responsibility, and their Vila as a cultural and life project.

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Once upon a time, footballers seemed to have only one dimension: when they weren't sweating it out on the field, they were always seen in tracksuits. People programmed solely to perform athletically, as if there were no boundary between athlete and person. And when they appeared in street clothes, they conveyed the same discomfort as men who only dress up for weddings: outfits that seemed to wear them rather than the other way around. Times that, seeing the national teams' arrivals at the World Cup, seem absolutely past. But this transformation has taken several World Cups to crystallize.

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Cows are very important to Rwandan culture and symbolize wealth, prosperity, and identity, and are still used today to pay a bride price or to give as a gift. Since Paul Kagame's government implemented the program called Girinka in 2006, after seeing the extent of malnutrition and stunting among Rwandan children, milk production and consumption have doubled. The program was established with the central objective of reducing childhood malnutrition rates and increasing the household incomes of poor farmers. These goals are achieved directly through increased access to and consumption of milk, by providing a cow to families.

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Eat more protein, you need it! How much? Look it up and calculate. Make sure it's quality because your muscles and bone mass will thank you, I promise you by the Virgin of Conscious Menopause. But don't just eat protein, eat everything but eat well. Attention: raw vegetables at night, no. Processed foods, never! Gluten in moderation. Alcohol... Nye.

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In one of the industrial estates of Essen, in northern Germany, there is a street named Max Keith. It is the way the city has found to remember the man who, in the midst of World War II, had to solve an unexpected problem: German Coca-Cola factories could no longer make Coca-Cola. The trade blockade had cut off the arrival of the concentrate that the company sent from the United States and without that secret syrup, the plants could not operate. Keith, who managed the multinational's German subsidiary, had to find a way to get by.

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If we speak of Israel Beer Josaphat, it is likely that this name will not mean anything to us, but if we refer to Paul Julius Reuter – his other identity – the surname will resonate with us. Indeed, the German Jew Reuter was the founder of the news agency that bears his name and which today is one of the most important in the world. The son of a local rabbi from Kassel, before he was thirty he converted to Christianity and married the daughter of a Berlin banker. Prior to all this, he had already had his first banking experience when the family sent him to Göttingen to work in a financial institution owned by his uncle. The bank job did not satisfy him much, but, at least, his presence in Lower Saxony would serve him to meet a fascinating character like Carl Friedrich Gauss, known as the Prince of Mathematics, but also a physicist and experimenter in the transmission of electrical impulses. For the moment, this last field was only a curiosity, but the seed had been sown.

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Changes at CaixaBank. The long-standing Director of Communication and Institutional Relations, Maria Lluïsa Martínez Gistau, is stepping down. She has been at the helm of the entity's communication for 25 years and for the last 10 years has also been a member of the bank's management committee. Her position will be filled by Jordi Soldevila, who until now was in charge of the entity's real estate business. In addition, the Spanish government has rushed to find a name to replace Cani Fernández to chair the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC). The Council of Ministers approved proposing Juan José Ganuza Fernández to assume the position.

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The debate is on the table as to whether fuel discounts will be extended until the end of September. We are talking about 21 cents per liter of gasoline and 29 cents per liter of diesel. This discount combines a reduction in VAT and another reduction in the hydrocarbon tax. With the current reduction, Spain is already at the lower limit of taxation allowed by the European Union. Why can the Government influence the price of fuel so much?According to the CNMC, approximately half of the price we pay corresponds to the costs and margins of the companies in the chain, while the other half consists of taxes: VAT and the hydrocarbon tax. In fact, gasoline bears a higher tax burden than diesel. The most striking thing is that VAT is calculated on the base price plus the hydrocarbon tax. In other words, we pay a tax on another tax. Therefore, any increase in price is immediately translated into more revenue for the State.As the holidays approach, the decision is more relevant than ever. An increase in fuel prices would drive up inflation in the coming months, which already stands at a worrying 3.2%. Let's not forget that energy is the raw material of all raw materials: when it becomes more expensive, it ends up making almost everything more expensive. Private car fuel consumption always rises during summer months. The price of fuel, moreover, conditions our perception of inflation. Few people consult the CPI every month, but everyone who drives knows how much it costs to fill the tank. When gasoline approached two euros per liter, it made headlines. Deep down, it's also a political climate decision. And, if not, there's always that joke that says no matter how much the price goes up, we can always put in 20 euros of gasoline.

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A few days ago, the governor of the Bank of Spain, José Luis Escrivá, warned that housing is a true national emergency. He is not wrong. This problem, which is a growing concern for citizens, has become the main source of growth in social inequality. Whichever data you look at, the diagnosis is always the same: there is more demand than supply, expensive and practically inaccessible for a large part of the population. And of the supply that exists, some is in the hands of non-residents or are apartments used for tourist rentals. In total, there are about 900,000 across the country, according to data from the Bank of Spain.

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Sateliot appeared at the center of Catalan public life in 2021, thanks to InfoK. The company, created three years earlier by a group of veterans from the telecommunications industry, was one of those responsible for Enxaneta, the first Catalan nanosatellite. At that time, it was still difficult to explain the idea of going to space to connect to the Internet of Things and send one message a day to receiving devices. Half a decade later, the company is already an aerospace benchmark, and aspires to fill space with 5G connectivity satellites for security forces, defense units, and strategic infrastructures. The executive director, Jaume Sanpera, receives Empreses in the company's brand new offices to talk about dual-use technologies, satellite constellations, and how to become friends with Elon Musk again.

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The latest study from the Coyote Radar Observatory in Spain carried out by the company Coyote based on data from the DGT during the months of May 2025 and 2026 shows how Catalonia, despite representing just over 6% of the entire Spanish territory and 16% of the State's total population, is, by far, the autonomous community with the most speed cameras installed and in operation, with a total of 936 cameras out of the 3,621 in operation across Spain, which represents 25.8% of the total. The 936 speed cameras in operation in Catalonia far exceed the 273 cameras currently in service in the Community of Madrid, accounting for 7.53% of the total speed cameras installed in Spain. In fact, the province of Barcelona alone, with 632 speed cameras, more than doubles all the speed cameras installed in the Community of Madrid. The comparison is even more striking if we compare the total number of Catalan cameras (with special incidence in Barcelona and its surroundings) with the 462 cameras installed in Andalusia (a territory that triples the surface area of Catalonia), the 236 cameras in operation in the Valencian Community, or the 257 existing in the Basque Country, among others. A notable increase in the last five years

The study also concludes that the growth rate of new speed cameras has increased by 37% in the last five years, and that in Spanish territory there are currently more than 1,000 new speed cameras compared to 2021. The decision to install speed radars or other types depends on different administrations. The DGT (or the Catalan Traffic Service in the Catalan case) is the one that decides to implement radars on interurban roads and motorways, but it is still relevant that 44% of the radars and traffic light cameras in operation on the Spanish road network are located in urban areas, under the competence and decision of town councils and local entities, with the Barcelona City Council leading the implementation of new radars and traffic cameras in the Catalan capital. In this regard, the study indicates that 70.39% of the new radars have been installed by local administrations.Finally, the study by the Observatory of Speed Cameras in Spain warns about the rapid growth of section control speed cameras, which have increased by 86% in the last five years, and of traffic light cameras and urban traffic cameras, which have increased by 53% between 2021 and May 2026.

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If the council of ministers convened for Monday, June 29, does not decide to extend the exceptional fiscal measures regarding VAT and fuel taxes, filling the tank from July 1 will be significantly more expensive for Spanish consumers. The war in Iran and the tension of the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz sent the price of a Brent barrel soaring in mid-March, causing the Spanish government to react through a royal decree-law that, among other measures, reduced the VAT rate from 21% to 10%, a move that generated some criticism from the European Commission, which has never approved this decision.The reduction in VAT and the tax on hydrocarbons allowed for a reduction in the price of diesel and gasoline, which at the peak of the crisis had reached over two euros per liter, down to the current average of 1.42 euros per liter for gasoline and 1.47 euros per liter for diesel. This move also helped to somewhat control the inflationary trend in the Spanish economy and stabilize it around 3%.An increase of up to 30 cents

The provisional calm in the Middle East and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz have allowed the price of a barrel of Brent to be positioned around 78 dollars per barrel, far from the peaks of 120 dollars per barrel of crude that were paid at the height of the crisis. This more favorable international scenario and community pressure to recover the tax rates on hydrocarbons prior to the Iran war would be two decisive conditions for not extending the extraordinary measures for individuals approved in May. For instance, Germany has taken clear leadership at the European level and has already announced that it will not extend the temporary fiscal measures on hydrocarbons.However, this reduction in the price of the Brent barrel has not been very noticeable at petrol stations, which warn of the dire consequences for the Spanish economy if these temporary measures are eliminated. The Spanish Confederation of Employers of Service Stations (CEEES) has calculated that the return to VAT at 21% and the end of the reduction in hydrocarbon taxes will have a combined effect that could increase prices by up to 29 cents per litre for petrol and 22 cents per litre for diesel. This would place the average price per litre of petrol at around 1.74 or 1.75 euros per litre for petrol and diesel, respectively. In practical terms, this would mean that filling the tank of a vehicle with a capacity of 60 litres would go from the current 85.2 euros to 105 euros, an increase of more than 23 euros that would have a direct effect on inflation on the eve of summer, the time of year that, by far, registers the most private mobility.Experts point out that the price of fuel will take several more months to regularize and to notice the drop in the price of the Brent barrel due to the depletion of strategic reserves that countries have used as an emergency measure to guarantee fuel supply. Finally, it is worth remembering that the different administrations do not look favorably on subsidizing a polluting fuel and that the advice of the European Union must be followed, which advocates concentrating aid and tax incentives on zero-emission electric vehicles.

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As every year, the month of June marks the start of the hottest weeks, and vehicle air conditioning systems become indispensable elements when traveling by car, especially during the central hours of the day. Curiously, however, the air conditioning system is one of the great unknowns for most car owners in our country, as are the basic functionalities needed to optimize its performance.

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First, the president of Extremadura, María Guardiola, had to go through Vox's address book, despite the difficulties; then it was the turn of Jorge Azcón's Aragon and Alfonso Fernández Mañueco's Castilla y León. But the greatest exponent of the PP moderates, the Andalusian president, the "Sorayist Juanma Moreno Bonilla, who will also yield to Vox's demands, as he himself has admitted and as the state leadership wants. The agreement is being finalized, but the only doubt remaining is the timing, that is, whether he will capitulate for this Thursday's investiture session or postpone it further, playing hard to get for public opinion. In any case, according to sources familiar with the negotiations between the PP and Vox consulted by ARA, the dilemma was clear from the start: "Either you accept the conditions or elections," said the Vox negotiating team.

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June began in Parliament with a heated control session in which the opposition tried to surround the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, for the cases of alleged corruption affecting the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez's circle. And the first control session of this July has started the same way, with one more step from the Junts politicians. The president of the Junts group in the Catalan chamber, Mònica Sales, demanded this Wednesday that Illa ask for "forgiveness" for the judicial cases and stop "hiding himself". "When Catalonia has a problem, you disappear; when the PSOE has one, you are always there," she said. "This weekend you had the opportunity to ask for forgiveness on behalf of your party," she retorted, referring to the PSOE federal committee, in which the president said that socialists have "no fear" of anything. Illa, in turn, reiterated that he fears nothing and that he has already given the necessary "explanations".

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“Fifteen days earlier I was sitting at a table where decisions affecting an entire country were being made. Fifteen days later, I was alone, in nine square meters, trying to understand how I had gotten there”. When it has been exactly one year since he entered prison, Santos Cerdán has published La caída. Poder, relato y destrucción en la era del juicio político, the book in which he breaks his silence. Throughout 164 self-published pages, he recounts his experiences during the almost five months he was in Soto del Real, explains how he lived the days that led to his downfall, and offers a long philosophical dissertation on Justice and the media. He complains, for example, that public opinion is a “permanent tribunal without guarantees” that has imposed on him an “anticipated social condemnation” and attributes the investigation into him to “something that was not seeking the truth”.

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For some time now, the regime of Vladimir Putin has initiated a hybrid war against European partners. Disinformation campaigns, support for destabilizing political movements, computer hacks, and, lately, especially incursions with drones into the airspace of the European Union and NATO countries. Faced with this type of attack, which is becoming increasingly frequent, European allies are accelerating the development and industrialization of unmanned aircraft.

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At least five people have died this Wednesday and sixteen more have been injured in a fire in an apartment building in the city of Antwerp, Belgium. According to the Belgian police, more than 200 people lived in the building, which has now been evacuated, although it is not known how many people were inside at the time the fire broke out. The mayor, Els Van Doesburg, specified that the lives of none of the injured are in danger. The local fire department received the alert at 9:53 a.m., reporting a fire of "high intensity" in a ten-story apartment building located in the Linkeroever neighborhood.

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While Washington on Tuesday fueled expectations of a new diplomatic breakthrough with Iran, Doha strove to lower the tone. "It could be an important meeting. We will know later," stated the President of the United States, Donald Trump, before assuring that the United States is making "very good progress" in its efforts to dismantle Iran's nuclear program. Hours later, Tehran specified that there are no direct negotiations with Washington and that any contact is being conducted through Qatar's mediation. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not deny the movements or the continuity of contacts, but insisted that there are no direct talks between both parties.

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Ferran's boulevard in Lleida has become this Wednesday the scene of one of the most serious traffic accidents ever remembered in the city. A bus with 55 passengers, which covered the route between Lleida and La Granja d'Escarp, lost control shortly before a quarter to eight in the morning and ended up crashing against the facade of the Diputació de Lleida for reasons that are still being investigated.

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The workers of the third social sector are called this Wednesday to a 24-hour strike –called by the majority unions CCOO and UGT– to demand that wage parity with staff hired by public administration be applied. The protest is the first act of mobilization, as 15-minute partial stoppages are planned at workplaces on Wednesdays, July 15 and 29.

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The final stretch of the extraordinary regularization process for migrants promoted by the Spanish government is coming to an end with an open judicial front. Given the doubts raised by the Supreme Court about the measure's compatibility with European law, experts consulted by ARA agree that it is unlikely to have immediate effects on the applications submitted. While the legal world points to possible shortcomings in the processing, organizations and groups that have helped migrants with paperwork – often fighting against misinformation and lack of resources and suffering from administrative collapse– are now focusing all their efforts on ensuring that applicants can complete the procedures before the deadline expires this Tuesday.

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The European Union launched this Tuesday the new tax of 3 euros per product on low-cost packages from outside the community bloc, a measure that directly impacts platforms such as Shein, Temu, and AliExpress. The decision, which marks a change in the model of massive online purchases of small value, is part of a reform of customs controls with which Brussels aims to respond to the explosion of international e-commerce. According to data from the European Commission, last year the EU received nearly 5.9 billion packages of this type, four times more than three years ago. The vast majority, 90%, come from China.

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Grifols reorganizes the structure of its biopharmaceutical business, which contributes the most to the company's revenue. As announced in a statement, it will create "differentiated organizations" for biopharma for the United States, the Catalan company's main market, and for the rest of the world. According to the pharmaceutical company, this move serves to "further strengthen the operational and financial independence of the subsidiaries." In this way, plasma collected in the United States will be used to cover the country's market, while that extracted in the rest of the world will go to the European market and other environments where the company operates.

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The 22@, Barcelona's technology district, has a new building with open-plan offices, modern spaces, and multilingual workers. This time, however, it is the largest coworking space in Southern Europe by surface area. It is located just a ten-minute walk from Plaça de les Glòries and covers 20,000 square meters, including a gym, swimming pool, climbing wall, terraces, a restaurant, a games room, and a slide that goes from the first floor to the ground floor.

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Published in 1976, Génie la boja is the best-known novel by Inès Cagnati (1937-2007), a French writer of Italian origin little known among us and who, now, thanks to the good work of the Balearic publishing house Quid Pro Quo and an impeccable translation by Marta Marfany, we have the opportunity to start reading it in Catalan. Among other titles she left behind, this harsh and dark story, like the world it portrays, stands out on its own merits: a rural and impoverished France that we can only imagine in black and white and shrouded in a fog that suffocates everything. The rivers, the wind among the willows, and the daisies growing on the edges of the paths have the same weight and receive the same treatment, exquisite and brutal at the same time, as the most unconfessable family secrets.

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Art historian and cultural manager Maribel López (Barcelona, 1973) has been chosen to direct the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona through an international competition. Having served as director of the Arco art fair in Madrid for the past eight years, she will return to her hometown, where she took her first professional steps. Maribel López will thus succeed Marko Daniel, who has been director of the foundation for eight years, until this past June, after the board announced four months ago, surprisingly, his end of stage just one month after renewing his contract for three years. López's name is a departure from the trajectory of the center's directors, who had always been experts in Miró and the avant-garde (Francesc Vicens, Rosa Maria Malet, and Marko Daniel), whereas his profile is more linked to management. López will have a four-year contract, extendable by two more, and a salary of 115,000 euros annually.

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In one of the first scenes of Normal, characters joke about the disaster that could happen if the rifles decorating the walls of a rustic restaurant were loaded. At that precise moment, the viewer understands that the film tacitly commits to making this bloody desire a reality, and one only needs to try to guess in what context the massacre will occur. This is the dynamic that keeps the film going: anticipating the arrival of violence while looking for unexpected ways to make it explode. The person in charge of orchestrating it is Ben Wheatley, a British filmmaker who over the past decade earned a reputation for the joy with which he violated the physical integrity of his characters. The interest in contemplating the consequences that weapons (blades or firearms) have on the human body is, in fact, the most recognizable staging gesture we can detect in Normal, which has its authentic creative strength in the tandem formed by Bob Odenkirk's anti-star charisma and the writing of Derek Kolstad, author of the John Wick screenplay. Both had previously worked together on Nobody (2021), where Odenkirk clashed his ordinary aura with extreme beatings. Normal prolongs their alliance by lowering the dose of pure action in favor of a farce steeped in black humor that, if it surprises for anything, it is for the understanding permissiveness it applies to the moral opacity embraced by those who feel scorned by the system.

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The women's football league continues to take steps to grow, be sustainable, and "become independent" from other institutions like the Spanish Federation. At a time when England is attracting all of Spain's talent –Alèxia Putellas, Ona Batlle, and Mapi León have been the latest to leave–, Pau Gasol has decided to fully back the F League with an investment of 55 million euros through his company Gasol16 Ventures and the company Fortified Partners. “It was time to take another step, and for that, an economic injection was needed. The moment to invest was now,” says Beatriz Álvarez, president of the competition.

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Barcelona is warming up its engines for the start of the Tour de France, which will start from the Catalan capital for the first time. The race will begin on July 4 with a team time trial finishing in Montjuïc, covering 19.7 km, starting from the seafront and passing through iconic city points such as the Sagrada Família, Passeig de Gràcia, and Barceloneta beach. The second stage will be on Sunday, July 5, starting from Tarragona and arriving in Barcelona after 178 km, passing through Torredembarra, Sitges, El Garraf, an demanding uphill section to Begues, and three short but explosive climbs to Montjuïc Castle after entering Barcelona with a route modified due to the swine fever outbreak in Collserola. The third stage, on Monday, July 6, will start from Granollers and head through Centelles, Vic, Ripoll, and will reach the Pyrenees with the Collada de Toses as an attractive point, before seeing the cyclists head towards French territory, with the destination being the finish in Les Angles.

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Barça has presented the new jersey for the upcoming season with an event at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA), where dance and music were the protagonists under the slogan "Blaugrana heartbeat. The passion that moves us". A daring proposal, where the jersey maintains the iconic vertical blue and garnet stripes, reinterpreted through a chromatic gradation. In addition, it debuts a new typography for names and numbers.

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In 2017, five women accused comedian Louis C.K. of sexual harassment. They accused him of masturbating in front of them in a professional context. The stand-up comedian admitted it in a statement and expressed his remorse for the events. From that moment on, the distributor of his new film canceled the premiere of the film and Stephen Colbert canceled the invitation to interview him on his show. HBO removed his stand-up specials and the magnificent sitcomLucky Louie from its catalog.

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Iñaki Gabilondo has found himself embroiled in a controversy as the host of the program La gran aventura de la lengua española, on La1, by stating that Spanish was never imposed in Latin America through conquest. It is true that the great Hispanization of these territories came later, when, once they became republics, they opted to promote a state language, and Spanish was the best positioned considering its implementation in structures such as administration, school, or church. I wonder why, of course. Perhaps because from 1550 to 1782, the different kings issued a minimum of 32 decrees that urged education in Spanish for indigenous communities? The will to Hispanize was unequivocal, as a way of imposing religion, even though the harsh reality was that there were not enough personnel to do so, so in the end the priests sent to the New World understood that it was more practical for them to learn the local languages.

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After the big presentations in June and learning what the future of video games will offer, we look at the shorter term and review the most imminent releases. Action, rhythm, nostalgia and fantastic creatures: there's something for everyone! And we haven't forgotten about the frantic trains of Denshattack!, by the Catalan developers Undercoders, which were supposed to arrive in June, but have suffered delays until this July 15.

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Building a career sometimes involves great sacrifices. Balancing personal and professional life often seems an unattainable challenge, but the fact is that we must move forward on this dual vital scale and, most importantly, we must do so by giving each of the areas the time and attention they deserve, understanding, from the outset, that we cannot say yes to everything. Starting from this premise, Joris Van der Schoot and Agustín Peralt have collected in their book Work like a northerner, live like a Mediterranean (Plataforma Editorial) what they consider to be the ten essential commandments to better organize our lives and achieve balance between work and personal life.

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The ascent to Mount Fuji does not begin at the summit, nor even at the trail that climbs up the mountain. It begins much earlier, when it is still pitch black at the fifth station and the air retains that dry, biting cold that surprises those who have just left behind the mugginess of midsummer in Tokyo. At that hour, groups form almost in silence. Headlamps are adjusted, backpacks are checked, and the final preparations are made before starting the climb.

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EL ARA suggests some plans across the country for this weekend.

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Since Shakira broke up with Gerard Piqué, the singer's romantic life has always been one of the topics that have generated the most intrigue worldwide. While in his case we soon got out of doubt with Clara Chia, in her case there have been hints, but no confirmations whatsoever. In any case, the four years –yes, it's already been four!, since the beginning of June– that this couple ended their 12-year relationship have been eventful, and finally, it seems the artist has found a moment to stop billing and start creating new content for a hypothetical future album.

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Wedding bells are ringing in the world of entertainment, but also in sports. Taylor Swift is preparing her wedding to NFL player Travis Kelce, and it seems that it has surpassed the place where one of the most anticipated events of the year could be held. It would be none other than Madison Square Garden in New York, the arena where the New York Knicks, recent NBA champions, play and where the biggest global music stars perform. The New York Times has been able to confirm that the pop superstar has rented the iconic venue for the July 4th weekend.

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It has always struck me as surprising the stance of those people who are firmly against the tabloid reporters of the gossip press, who ask celebrities questions on the street. People who argue that society in general and the media in particular should "let celebrities live." The truth is that when I see them so worked up against the gossip press, I think how I wish there was a way to suddenly and completely make the fame of these so-hunted celebrities disappear. It would be very, very funny to see how, perhaps a month after failing to make a living on their own by any chance and not feeling recognized anywhere, they would do anything to regain their lost status. They would beg to get back the unbearable company of the paparazzi.

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New or classic

Mom is going to Antarctica, by Anna Cabré Albós and Mariona Tolosa Sisteré (Zahorí Books, 2020).

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The geroscience aims to understand the processes associated with human aging in order to design mechanisms to circumvent the senescence of cells and organs. Aging is a normal physiological process, but if we could unravel the mechanisms that regulate it, perhaps we could extend our lives. This is an attractive principle that receives public but especially private investment, as people with many resources wish to live for many years.

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If nature was the answer, what was the question? It is the quote that appears at the beginning of La respuesta (Destino), the book that paleontologist and co-director of Atapuerca Juan Luis Arsuaga has just published. It is more than 500 pages where there are some answers – let's not confuse them with certainties – and especially questions that help us to fascinatingly retrace the history of evolution and to understand ourselves, humans, in comparison with the rest of the animals.

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