Pedro Sánchez has tried to send a message this Sunday in response to the pressure from the streets for the Spanish government to approve the new housing decree this very Tuesday. In fact, he addressed Maricarmen Abascal directly, the 87-year-old woman who was evicted on Wednesday and who this Saturday asked him directly—through a video recorded from the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in Madrid—to approve this regulation to prevent a case like hers from being repeated. "Maricarmen, I have a message for you: we are working against the clock to bring the royal decree on housing on Tuesday," affirmed Sánchez. "It is not a matter of ideology, but of humanity," he added at a PSOE event in Madrid in Getafe to present his mayoral candidates for next year's municipal elections. Furthermore, the Spanish president also promised that on Tuesday the Council of Ministers will approve an extension until the end of the year for the measures that include the social shield that was approved a few months ago to deal with the war in Ukraine.

The pressure on the streets for the Spanish government to approve the new housing decree to curb evictions has increased this weekend. The citizen mobilization has been an indisputable success. As the promoters of the demonstration and the encampment at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid have said themselves, it cannot be compared to the 15-M of 2011. There is less underlying ideological movement and more concrete demands. In reality, the current cry has a perfectly describable objective: to resolve access to housing, which has become the main cause of precariousness and inequality. And it responds to a very generalized malaise that is interclass and intergenerational. The image of Maricarmen Abascal, 87 years old, being evicted on a stretcher from the apartment where she has lived all her life, has made an impact on public opinion: many elderly citizens have imagined themselves in her situation, and many young people and adults have projected their own grandmother or mother onto her.

The protests over the housing situation that have sparked an encampment at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid will extend to Barcelona this Monday. The Tenants' Union (Sindicat de Llogateres) has announced a day of mobilizations in the Catalan capital that will begin with a surprise action at 8 in the morning and will be completed with a demonstration in the evening, taking advantage of the visit to Barcelona by the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez. Spokesperson Carme Arcarazo has called to “paralyze” Barcelona.

The Puerta del Sol in Madrid woke up this morning with the usual hustle and bustle of tourists, but with an unprecedented image not seen for fifteen years: the tents of the housing rights protesters have been pitched since this Saturday night in the middle of the square, emulating the 15-M movement of 2011. They intend to stay at least until Tuesday, which is when they demand that the Council of Ministers presided over by Pedro Sánchez approve a decree-law that solves the housing problem.

Barcelona said goodbye this Sunday to the 2026 La Mercè Festival with the traditional Piromusical, which this year featured several novelties. On one hand, after years of having Avinguda Maria Cristina as the stage, this year the fireworks and music show was held for the first time from Nova Icària beach. On the other, another novelty was television-related: Dulceida, influencer and presenter of La gran cita, was in charge of hosting the broadcast on TV3.

The war between Iran and the United States is entering a phase of high tension once again. After weeks in which indirect contacts have kept a diplomatic path open, Washington has rejected Tehran's proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran is hardening its military discourse and warning that it is prepared for a new American offensive.

Portbou has the last train station in Catalonia before crossing the administrative border with France through the Belitres tunnel. The station and the entire complex of tracks occupy nearly a third of the surface area of this small municipality on the Costa Brava, linked since the 19th century to the country's railway history. Inside the Portbou facilities there is a workshop, the only one of Renfe in the Girona region, where maintenance and repair tasks for locomotives and freight trains are carried out. Over time, however, this base has been losing weight and personnel, until, finally, Renfe has decided to stop its activity.

"We took Paula to the emergency room at least a hundred times," state Germán and Beatriz, the parents of Paula Baquedano Martínez, who for five years fought for someone to help her get out of the pit she was in. She suffered from borderline personality disorder, and self-harm became her daily life.

It is a done deal. It only remains to be officially confirmed who will replace Cardinal Joan Josep Omella as Archbishop of Barcelona and when. Before it is made public, however, the apostolic nuncio to Spain, Piero Pioppo – the envoy of Pope Leo XIV – was in Tarragona last week, from Tuesday to Friday, to meet with the archbishop of the diocese and primate of Catalonia, Joan Planellas.

"If you don't help us, we will kill you. Do you know what it is to be a gangster? We will cut off both your hands so they can make an ear out of them." It is November 15, 2022, and alleged members of the Casuals, the criminal group that was born from the Boixos Nois, held a man in a house after kidnapping him by force and placing him inside a car. He was a friend of a caretaker of a marijuana plantation who owed money to the feared Casuals. They tied him up in a house and threatened him: "Nobody plays with the Boixos Nois," they warned him. Finally, they released him and this illegal detention was one of the starting points of a major judicial case by the Mossos d'Esquadra against the Casuals.Last Saturday afternoon, some men disguised as police officers kidnapped another man in the middle of the AP-7, in front of many drivers who witnessed how they pulled him out by force, assaulted him, and took him away. Later, they released him a few kilometers away. Apart from coinciding in the method, this latest illegal detention also coincides with that of the Casuals because everything points to it being related to a marijuana plantation that the victim was supposedly guarding and that the police discovered in 2025. On Monday, a man was also kidnapped in Barcelona, beaten up, and left at liberty near a gas station in Salt.

Era un dimarts al matí estressant a San Francisco. Christina Lacourte va anar a l'habitació del seu fill per despertar-lo perquè anés a l'escola. La porta estava tancada amb clau, de manera que va haver de fer palanca per obrir-la. A dins va veure el seu fill al llit, sota el rètol de neó "Open" que havia volgut pel seu aniversari quan feia sisè. La cara se li estava tornant blava i se li veien les venes. Un líquid negre li sortia del nas i de la boca i havia tacat els llençols.

"Order is needed, legal entry routes must be recovered. A country must control its borders. Based on rights and obligations," stated Gabriel Rufián in an interview on Salvados, on La Sexta. A discourse with which the ERC spokesperson himself in Congress has admitted that the left could accuse him of "buying the right's framework" in the migration debate. "It is completely bought, I only aspire to compete," he answered himself. Rufián's words highlight the debate the left is having when it comes to forging a discourse on immigration, and also that the republican spokesperson, just like his party, ERC, have made a turn to try to stop the far-right's discourse.

iLerna Lleida pulled off the big surprise at the Roig Arena, where they defeated Valencia Basket for the first time (100-105). The Lleida team overcame a 9-point deficit to spoil Nikola Mirotic's debut. Gerard Encuentra, the youngest coach in the Liga Endesa (he will turn 37 in January), moved his pieces with great intelligence. James Batemon and Darius McGhee combined for 44 points on the court of the reigning champion.

"I am the concrete one", assures Miguel Pita, geneticist and professor at the UAM, with a laugh. On WhatsApp, his profile picture is a fragment of an abstract painting by his father, the architect and painter Juan Pita. The scientist has published El cerebro enamorado (Periférica, 2025), an informative book about the biology of love, from the first sting to the last argument.

The weekend has been marked by fairly quiet weather, with temperatures losing strength and this Sunday "only" reaching 31 ºC in parts of the Ponent region and the interior of the Ebro valley. An "only" in parentheses because we are talking about values that are still very high for this time of year, but lower than those of Saturday or previous days. The coming week looks more unsettled and cooler, with rain that will end up making an appearance in practically every part of the country.

"Cities can end up paying a very high cost if no one worries about a more equitable distribution of resources." This is the statement of one of the most influential voices in territorial planning in Europe, architect and urban planner – and former City Councilor for Urban Planning in Milan – Alessandro Balducci (Rome, 1954), who visited Barcelona in July within the framework of presentations organized by the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB). Taking into account the invisible, that which politicians often do not want to see and which we are leaving "in the hands of algorithms," has become his firmest defense. In conversation with ARA, he asserts that institutions must begin to cooperate and "stop working like in the last century."

After over half a century of a prolific career, the film and series adaptations of Stephen King's books are rapidly approaching one hundred. We have selected the most outstanding ones from each platform for those who wish, taking advantage of the proximity of Halloween, to catch up with the television (and cinematic) adaptations of this benchmark of the horror genre.

André Breton played the role of Pope of Surrealism with great forcefulness: he did not tolerate any of the movement's members deviating from the path of aesthetic and political radicalism he had set. And when they did, he would exclude them or subject them to public scorn, as happened to Joan Miró in 1926 with the sets and costumes for the Russian Ballet's production of Romeo and Juliet, created in collaboration with Max Ernst. André Breton and Louis Aragon led a group of surrealists who burst into the premiere with whistles and shouts and handed out a pamphlet titled Protest, in which they accused Miró and Ernst of having betrayed the principles of surrealism by creating commercial art. "It is not acceptable for thought to be in the service of money," said the authors, for whom that collaboration meant "domesticating dreams for the benefit of the international aristocracy."

The brutal death of two women, murdered by their husbands, triggered a mechanism in the mind of journalist and writer Nathacha Appanah (Mahébourg, Mauritius, 1973). She decided to silence the murderers, stand by the victims, and tell her own story as well. In The Night at the Heart (Angle/ADN), translated from French into Catalan by Andreu Gomila, the writer weaves together the three stories to confront the ghosts, to not let anyone erase who these women were, and to reflect on a society where femicides are all too frequent.

What Sharon Stone explained on Mayim Bialik's podcast could perfectly well be the beginning of one of her rawest films. According to the artist, while she was hospitalized for a severe stroke that almost killed her, she opened her eyes on a gurney moving through a hospital corridor toward the operating room. As she regained consciousness, a jolt of the gurney finished waking her up and gave her the strength to ask what was happening to her and where they were taking her. If all that already gives you goosebumps, the answer the doctor gave her then was worse: she was going straight to the operating room to have exploratory brain surgery. A surgery that, according to her testimony, she had never authorized.

Reading and understanding the labels of the food we want to buy is basic to knowing what we are eating. I have seen elderly people using a large magnifying glass to read them by enlarging the small print. Let's do it however we want, but let's do it. The other day, a friend told me that he had bought a Cadí cheese, DOP Urgèlia, which is semi-cured and with a washed rind, very good, and he sent me the image of the labeling. It indicated the origin of the milk, which is from the State. The ingredients: pasteurized cow's milk, salt, lactic ferments, stabilizer (calcium chloride) and rennet. On the rind there is a preservative, E-235 (an antifungal). And, attention, in the list of allergens, the labeling indicated that it could contain gluten, egg, sulfites, soy, nuts, celery, mustard, fish and crustaceans. And my friend asked me: "Why can a cheese from the Pyrenees contain traces of fish and crustaceans?"

If there is one thing that has remained intact since the 16th and 17th centuries in Madrid, it is the mentideros. They are no longer at the Gradas de San Felipe, but rather information comes and goes in the corridors of Congress, the Senate, Moncloa, and beyond. And, as it could not be otherwise, at the point we have reached in the Spanish legislature, the great topic of conversation now is when the future elections will be. In reality, only Pedro Sánchez knows, since he is the one who has the prerogative to press the red button and he has only said two clear things: that they will be in 2027 and that he will not make them coincide with the municipal and regional elections on May 23rd. However, the scenarios are multiple if one takes into account the unknowns that remain to be resolved in 2026 and that next year is packed with decisive elections on both sides of the Atlantic. Before the end of the year, it will be determined whether a return of Carles Puigdemont changes the stability –for the better, Moncloa hopes– of the plurinational majority; whether the crisis in Ceuta is resolved and how the judicial calendar is configured, with the jury trial for Begoña Gómez as the culmination.

The National Police have evicted this morning several dozen immigrants who were in the settlements around the Ceuta desalination plant, adjacent to El Trampolín beach.

At the beginning of April 2024, few people knew Juan Carlos Peinado. His name rose to fame when on April 24th it became known that he had opened a case against Begoña Gómez, the wife of Pedro Sánchez, following a complaint from Manos Limpias. A decision that led to the five days of reflection during which the Spanish president considered resigning, although in the end he decided to continue. Last Monday, five days before his retirement—this Saturday the BOE already publishes his forced retirement at 72 years of age—, the controversial judge put the finishing touch on his career by sending Begoña Gómez to trial before a jury for influence peddling and embezzlement.

The eviction of Maricarmen Abascal has triggered a wave of indignation that was visible on Wednesday in the streets of Madrid, Barcelona, and various cities across the State, and it was repeated this Saturday in a demonstration in the center of the Spanish capital that ended in an encampment. Under the slogan Not one more Maricarmen, thousands of people gathered at the Puerta del Sol, where the seat of the government of the Community of Madrid is located, to walk to the Madrid City Hall and finish at the Congress of Deputies. In total, 25,000 people took to the streets, according to the Spanish government delegation – 300,000 according to the organizers. The Madrid Tenants' Union ended the demonstration by calling for an encampment at the Puerta del Sol, and tents spread across this square in the center of Madrid throughout the night.

In current politics, hyper-leadership proliferates, but what is valued most is a personal brand that exceeds the party brand. This is what characters as disparate as Gabriel Rufián, Carles Puigdemont, Ada Colau, or Juanma Moreno Bonilla have in common.

The American political scientist Susan Stokes explores in the book The Regressors: Leaders Who Erode Their Own Democracies (Galaxia Gutenberg) the causes behind the democratic backsliding that the world is experiencing in the 21st century. She points to economic inequalities as one of the key factors and describes the process followed by leaders of different countries and ideologies to dismantle the democratic system from within. We talk about it in a conversation in Barcelona, where she has participated in a debate at the CCCB.

There are only a few weeks left until the Israeli legislative elections scheduled for October 27, elections that will determine the country's future for the next four years, and it seems difficult for there to be significant changes in the dynamics of the century-old conflict with the Palestinians. During the long campaign underway, we are witnessing a continuous evolution of attacks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition leaders; a bellicosity that will continue to grow until the polls open and that periodically reaches intense isolated clashes.

There is a strait south of the Red Sea that helps explain why the Houthis have ceased to be just an actor in the Yemen war: Bab el-Mandeb, the maritime passage that connects the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea and through which 12% of global trade passes. In recent weeks, the group, aligned with Iran, has advanced along the western coast of Yemen and has consolidated positions at strategic points in the strait. At the same time, has resumed attacks against Saudi Arabia and has announced a blockade against ships linked to the kingdom.Now, the Houthis have a position that allows them to threaten one of the main maritime routes between Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. And they do so while the war between Iran and the United States has turned the Strait of Hormuz into the other major focus of maritime tension in the region.“The Houthis have a real capacity for pressure. They cannot indefinitely close traffic through the Red Sea, but they can certainly increase costs, generate uncertainty, and periodically interrupt commercial and energy flows,” explains Neil Quilliam to ARA, a researcher at the Middle East and North Africa program at the international analysis center Chatham House. According to the expert, they do not need to close the strait: it is enough for them to increase the risk.If sailing through the Red Sea is too expensive or unsafe, companies can divert ships around the Cape of Good Hope, on the Atlantic coast of South Africa, with more days of navigation and higher costs. Thus, Tehran and its allies can exert pressure from two different points on two key routes for global trade and energy.The Houthis, who officially call themselves Ansar Allah (Partisans of God), are part of the so-called "axis of resistance," the network of armed and political actors linked to Iran, and they receive military and technological support from Tehran. A 2024 UN report documents transfers of military material, assistance, and training linked to Iran and other actors in the axis to the Zaydi Shia group. Although Iran denies supplying weapons to the group and claims its support is only political, the Houthis have gone from being a local militia in northern Yemen to possessing about 350,000 fighters and a significant arsenal of missiles, drones, and anti-ship weapons.The role of the Houthis in the US-Iran confrontation

Various reports from the analysis centers Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chatham House point out that the Houthis can now act as a negotiation instrument for Iran before Washington, in a war that has already been going on for seven months. But this does not mean that Tehran controls the group's decisions. The movement has a command structure, territorial interests, and its own political agenda. Control of the coast, in fact, responds to its own interests: it gives them more capacity to pressure Saudi Arabia, strengthens their position ahead of future negotiations regarding Yemen, and expands their control over the oil and gas in the areas they dominate.

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Pope Leo XIV celebrated a mass for 150,000 people at the sanctuary of Lourdes, a sacred place of Christian pilgrimage. At the mass, the pontiff called for "penitence" in the face of "a world that is going wrong" and "where increasingly widespread conflicts" are destroying so many innocent lives.

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Two years after the death of Hassan Nasrallah, his face is still everywhere in Dahieh, the vast southern suburb of Beirut, which for decades was the main showcase of Hezbollah's power. On the walls, in the shops, on the posters remembering the dead leaders. But the city that Nasrallah left behind is no longer the same.Nasrallah died on September 27, 2024, in an Israeli bombardment on Haret Hreik, in the heart of Dahieh. For more than three decades, he had led Hezbollah and had turned the movement into much more than an armed organization. Under his leadership, the party built an extensive network of institutions, schools, clinics, media outlets, and social services, in addition to a powerful military and political structure.Dahieh was the natural setting for this power. But reducing it to a "Hezbollah bastion" is an understatement. It is a densely populated part of Beirut that grew from ancient villages, fields, and informal settlements to become a huge urban extension of the capital. A Shiite majority lives there, but also other communities. And its streets physically blend with other neighborhoods of Beirut.It is enough to travel a few kilometers for the city to change. In Gemmayzeh or Mar Mikhael, restaurants, bars, galleries, and terraces project an image of a cosmopolitan Beirut. In these neighborhoods, other urban codes and a different political history predominate. In Hamra, universities, hotels, offices, and shops are concentrated. In Dahieh, on the other hand, Hezbollah built for years a much more visible and daily presence. It was not just a party that was voted for. It was part of the life of the neighborhood.The 2024 war broke a good part of this landscape. And the 2026 one has done it again. In March, the southern periphery of Beirut, once again, emptied out. Closed shops, deserted streets and families displaced to other areas of the capital. Some residents returned during the day to check the state of their homes, collect belongings or feed their pets. At the Camille Chamoun stadium, the same setting that months earlier had hosted the massive funeral of Nasrallah, tents were set up for displaced families.The image summarizes well to what extent Hezbollah's territory has changed. The organization survived the death of a large part of its leadership, including that of Nasrallah and his designated successor, Hashem Safieddine. Naim Qassem assumed leadership in October 2024 and Hezbollah began to reorganize. There is no longer the charismatic leader who for decades concentrated much of the movement's identity. There is a more battered and more decentralized structure, and a different relationship with its regional environment.But the loss of power does not mean the disappearance of its social base. In March of this year, when Dahieh was being bombed again, some residents continued to say that they supported Hezbollah and that they would return to their neighborhoods. At the same time, others expressed something that a few years ago was much more difficult to hear publicly: weariness at the price of wars and questions about the role of Hezbollah and its disarmament.The burial and the cult of a symbol

Perhaps that is why Nasrallah's anniversary continues to be of great importance to the movement. His death has not closed an era; it has become one of its main symbols. Due to the war, the funeral had to wait. Nasrallah was initially buried provisionally and when conditions allowed it, on February 23, 2025, almost five months after his assassination, the great farewell arrived. Hundreds of thousands of people went to the sports complex to pay tribute to him and then accompanied the funeral procession to his mausoleum in Dahieh.That day, the stadium stands were filled with yellow flags and portraits of Nasrallah. Delegations from Iran, Iraq, and Yemen attended, and thousands of people followed the ceremony from outside the Sports City. Afterwards, the crowd accompanied the coffin to the place where he was finally buried.In September 2025, his followers gathered again for the first anniversary of his death, this time around his mausoleum in Dahieh. Days earlier, Hezbollah had also brought his image to the center of Beirut. His portraits and those of Hashem Safieddine were projected onto the Raouché rock, in a ceremony that sparked criticism and a dispute with the capital's authorities.And this Sunday, two years after his martyrdom, they will gather again to remember it. Nasrallah's image remains present on the streets of Dahieh. But around this face, the movement he built, the neighborhood that for decades symbolized his power, and Beirut itself have changed.

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Noelia Acosta is the second vice president of the Association of Chartered Accountants (auditors) and a partner at Baker Tilly. Acosta, 49, asserts that her profession, to which she has been dedicated for 25 years, is subject to many regulatory changes that often arise in the wake of financial scandals. An expert in measuring the sustainability of companies and entities, she receives Companiesat the collegiate headquarters, the Torre Moré, a modernist mansion in the Barcelona neighborhood of Pedralbes, remodeled by the architect Òscar Tusquets, whom this organization, with some 2,000 members, will pay tribute to next Wednesday. Precisely on that day, they will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the creation of the association and its headquarters with challenges such as artificial intelligence (AI) and improving the balance between men and women. In the group as a whole, there is still a significant gap: 80% men and 20% women among the members. Among practitioners, the difference is reduced among those at the base: 65% men and 35% women. On the other hand, regarding executive partners, the presence of women is below 30%.

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The European Commission, concerned about the European Union's loss of competitiveness compared to China and the United States, has long been repeating a mantra to reverse the situation: EU citizens need to invest more and have the means to do so.

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The president of the Seat works council and member of the Volkswagen Group supervisory board since 2021, Matías Carnero, will leave this body at the automotive parent company starting in April 2027, when the current term ends.

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The global map of liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as that of raw materials, has been upside down for some time. First due to the war in Ukraine and the fact that Europe turned off the tap for this fuel from Russia. Now, the war in Iran has been added to this following the attack by the United States and Israel and the subsequent blockade of the Strait of Hormuz –through which between a quarter and a fifth of the world's crude oil and natural gas circulated–, as well as an escalation of tension in the Red Sea. The context has forced many countries to look for gas under rocks –metaphorically and literally– and to chart unimaginable, or at least unusual, maritime routes, to the point that during the first eight months of 2026 (between January and August) the port of Barcelona has seen 7,439 tons of LNG loaded from the regasification plant tanks bound for Thailand. Specifically to the port of Bangkok, according to data on LNG shipments, to which ARA has had access.

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Maricarmen Abascal in Madrid; Olga, the 54-year-old woman from l'Hospitalet who committed suicide after being evicted... The list is terribly long. Although the total number of judicial evictions is lower than it was a few years ago, it remains a problem, a scourge. And what is most serious is that when a measure has been attempted to be applied, even if temporary –such as the decree to prevent the eviction of vulnerable people–, a group of parties, such as the PP, Vox and Junts, opposed it.

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The announcement on June 4th by the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, that licenses for shared bicycles will not be renewed and that from January 1st they will no longer be able to circulate in the Catalan capital took everyone by surprise. Including the operators that offer this service called bicisharing, who have since started a race to try to reverse the decision. Although they assume the city council will not change its mind and that by the end of the year they will have to store the bicycles in warehouses, they are confident they can turn things around after the municipal elections and obtain a pardon to operate in the city again.

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New sexist crime in the State, this time in Seville. A 56-year-old man killed a 47-year-old woman on Saturday night with a bladed weapon in the Sevillian town of La Campana. According to Europa Press, the victim was the man's current partner. After the crime, the man barricaded himself inside the apartment and it was not until this Sunday at noon that the Civil Guard managed to get him to surrender.

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Doctor Josep Tristany is the director of the Mental Health and Addictions Master Plan of the Generalitat, but just over two years ago he was on the other side, attending to patients. It is clear that he knows what he is talking about and that he is eager to improve the system, but he is also aware that it will not be easy at all.

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The Catalan Society of Clinical Psychology (SCPC-ACAPIR) published a devastating study last June based on the experience of professionals who attend to patients on a day-to-day basis. Its title is already quite significant: Mental health in Catalonia: between institutional discourse and actual practice. Or in other words, politicians sell us one thing but reality is something very different. The president and vice president of SCPC-ACAPIR, María José Miñano and Jesús López, respectively, speak bluntly.

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The Castellers d’Esparreguera won the first day of the XXX Castells Competition in Torredembarra with 1,940 points, in a day that was decided practically at the last moment. The team in the burgundy shirts surpassed the Castellers de Figueres by only fifteen points, while the Castellers de Cerdanyola completed the podium with 1,735 points. In total, 44 human towers were seen in less than three hours, and notably, there were only two falls.

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The Catalan Book Week closed this Sunday its 44th edition with more than 130,000 visitors, 8,000 more than last year, and a turnover that will reach one million euros, 12% more than a year ago, pending the final figures. The organization assures that, taking into account the absolute sales data, the 2026 edition has been the best in the history of the Week. "We have experienced the best edition of the Week in its entire history, a fact that demonstrates the good work done in previous years and reaffirms the vitality of the book in Catalan, and we are already starting to think about the 45th edition so that it can once again be a great celebration of books and culture," asserted the presidentof Editors.cat, Oriol Magrinyà.

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The heading of the annual report of the Reader's Ombudsman must be one of gratitude to the 235 people who have sent me their complaints, both to those who have seen them commented on in my columns and to those I have not been able to address publicly, but which I have read, assessed and, as much as I could, conveyed to the editorial staff. The time frame of the analysis runs from May 5, 2025, to June 7, 2026, and the results and assessments were presented to the editorial board on September 17.You will find the data in the infographic, so I am conveying my reflections to you accordingly.The preliminary idea is that the Reader's Ombudsman, being a container for criticism, inspired by the Office of the Ombudsman and in general by ombuds, should not fall into the synecdoche syndrome, where the negative part is extensible to the entire newspaper; quite the contrary, we start from the premise that the journalistic product is good and that the criticisms have great qualitative value and help us to improve it. I find this consideration in various communications, as also, a contrario sensu, there are readers who give us a last chance so as not to stop reading us or cancel their subscription.The complaints that refer to management are high not because of their own deficits but because, although they point to sections punctually, they raise inductive, global, and editorial line issues rather than a specific topic. I will provide two of the most frequent cases. The primarily metropolitan gaze to the detriment of certain regions, especially of the “New Catalonia”, as if a historical curse were reincarnated in an ink ectoplasm. The second case is the contradiction of sponsored content which, nevertheless, is signed corporately by ARA or the editorial staff. I will dedicate more attention to this very complex issue, which impacts the Code of Ethics and has more scope at the Press Council of Catalonia, contrasting it with the delicate position of some newspapers –not only ARA– that have to manage this generalized demand for advertising, which is a source of income that contributes to the viability of a free press.I highlight the high level of the criticisms I receive, which involve us in an intellectual recycling of journalism. And I thank the management for having attended to all of them, just as I also appreciate the fair play of the journalists who have always responded to my requests for verification, even though attending to the Readers' Editor who brings some correction is not a flattering interaction.I also thank the twelve professional experts in various fields from whom I have requested opinions of auctoritas and who, placed side by side in this balanced mode, paint a true hall of fame of different areas of knowledge, an expert list of quality that provides an external perspective to the dialogue-debate between readers and journalists.The comments in the language section go beyond grammatical corrections, which have other channels of expression. However, for the damage control that I see from the proscenium, regarding errors not only of language, I have suggested recycling the old figure of the "plate editor," an experienced professional who performs one last reading at least before the printing press perpetuates blunders into the enduring life of the newspaper archives.Comments about the language show a special interest from readers and demonstrate linguistic militancy, the language factor as content in itself. The Catalan language comes from having to fight to stay alive against the linguistic annihilation policy of a dictatorship, and it still carries problems of intolerance. However, the need for self-affirmation responds with great dynamic potential, with activism, with constant regeneration, with diverse visions in agreements and disagreements, but always enriching, and newspapers, as the main producers of language, are both art and a prominent part of it. That is why I also thank the readers who raise linguistic questions with me, which in my balance are practically equal numerically to those related to the mother of all controversies: politics and opinion.The criticisms of the subscriptions department refer to poor distribution, digital re-identifications to read an article, and advertising intrusions. “My kingdom is not of this world,” as the evangelical saying goes: logistics is not my area of expertise, as I am focused on the content, but nonetheless, I have taken note of it, passed the criticisms on to the appropriate people, and expressed my concern about it all to the management.I end by redoubling my gratitude to all the readers who have placed their trust in me, who are the essence of this section that has now been running for two years.The Readers' Editor takes note of doubts, suggestions, criticisms, and complaints regarding the newspaper's content in its digital and print editions, and ensures that the treatment of information is in accordance with codes of ethics.To contact the Reader's Ombudsman you can send an email to eldefensor@ara.cat or record a message of no more than one minute on the WhatsApp number 653784787. In all cases, identification with full name and ID number is required.

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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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‘Catalan’ is the scientific name of the language spoken in the Balearic Islands. This is established by the Statute of Autonomy, although, colloquially, the demonym of each island is used, and ‘pagès’ in Formentera. However, over the centuries, many denominations have been used to refer to it: ‘our language’, ‘vernacular’, ‘mother tongue’, ‘own’, ‘regional’, etc. Often, so as not to have to say ‘Catalan’, because it was understood –and is still understood– that whoever speaks Catalan might be Catalan, and some did not want –do not want– to fall into this identification. We remember the range of synonyms when the European Day of Languages (September 26) is celebrated.

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"This is a concert that justifies the narrative of a band with 25 years of history," said the lead singer of Love of Lesbian, Santi Balmes, a while before going out on the Estrella Damm stage at Bogatell beach in Barcelona, the most crowded of the La Mercè festivities. Love of Lesbian are folding, or taking an indefinite break according to musical newspeak. They still have about ten performances scheduled in Spain and Mexico, but Saturday's at Bogatell was the last one in Barcelona.

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To find a wolf, you must learn to look at the landscape through the eyes of a wolf. Gabriel Lampreave knows this well. He has spent 25 years following the trail of this canid in Catalonia. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack: these elusive animals travel vast distances in a short time. “You have to learn to read the territory,” this rural agent explains with humility, in charge of coordinating the monitoring of the two large predators we have, the brown bear and the wolf.

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I highly recommend to anyone who goes to see the version of Aida signed by Shirin Neshat and that inaugurates the Liceu season, read the article "The empire in action: Aida by Verdi", by Edward W. Said, included in Culture and imperialism. Because it can help to understand the conceptual key of the show. Neshat interprets Verdi's opera based on themes such as decolonialism and feminism. And she does so with scenes without concessions to the gallery, but without discarding an undeniable poetic sense. In fact, Aida speaks to us about the abuse of theocracies, about militaristic savagery, and about the refugees who flee wars to end up in no-man's-lands. Nothing too far from the catastrophic spectacle that we from the West watch comfortably in front of the television, curled up on our sofas at home and with a remote control to change what is unbearable to our gaze. In this sense, the gaze of the Iranian Shirin Neshat is not at all compassionate, and for that reason, it can be uncomfortable.However, the problem with the show lies in the fact that the oriental artist masters the video-artistic language but not the theatrical one. And the result is excessively contrasted between some well-found performative and conceptual elements and a stereotypical and even dated stage movement of singers or—in the case of Anna Netrebko's gestures—downright ridiculous. Nor is it helped by some scenes located in the intermissions which, although personally I found them stimulating, may clash with the tradition of an opera that is the most watched and performed at the Liceu, always from a classical perspective and artificial historicism. Nevertheless, it must be said that the show is effective, risky, and of unquestionable scenic category.Aida is not a chamber opera, but it is intimate despite the most famous scenes (especially the second one of the second act), of great spectacularity. But the rest is concentrated on a story of loves and hates for which Verdi writes wise and subtle music. And it must be served with good taste and precision. And although Antonello Manacorda's direction is never messy, it does at least align well with the guidelines of the score and serves it with detail and good taste. The response of the house orchestra was up to the task, not to mention a simply capital choir, especially the male one (the scene of the temple of Vulcan is brilliant).

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I was once told that when Carles Capdevila, the driving force behind this newspaper, saw on a CV that someone had sung in a choir, he valued it positively, because it meant that, on one hand, they knew how to work for the common good of the group and, on the other, they knew how to project their own voice. I don't know if it is entirely true, but I remembered this anecdote as soon as I started reading Una catalana a París. Articles d’exili, a collection of articles by Teresa Pàmies which has been edited by Montserrat Bacardí and published by Comanegra.

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Virgilio Martínez (Lima, 1977) is one of the most renowned chefs in the world. His restaurant Central, in Lima, was considered the best in the world in 2023. It was a milestone that no one had ever achieved in Latin America. And he achieved it by placing at the center the ingredients used in all the ecosystems and altitudes of Peru. Many of them, safeguarded by indigenous communities. “When I was a child, they told me that these people were poor. Later I understood that they were rich,” says the chef. In addition to Central, he has the Mil restaurant, where he cooks Andean cuisine at 3,800 meters, and a multidisciplinary knowledge center called Mater. Martínez speaks to ARA at the Andorra Taste congress, dedicated to high-mountain gastronomy, where he was awarded the career achievement award. An award previously received by Michel Bras, Gastón Acurio, Ferran Adrià, and Carme Ruscalleda.

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Barça's good sporting streak suggested a calm assembly of delegates for Joan Laporta, but neither the president nor the executives breathed completely easily until the fourth item on the agenda was approved. The social base authorized the expansion of the Espai Barça credit by 300 million and validated the issuance of bonds for an additional 210 million. Money that was essential to finish the remodeling of a Camp Nou that has ended up costing more and has also taken longer than expected.

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Lamine Yamal only needed two minutes to prove at Wembley, where Spain won (2-3), that his hunger is not over despite the fact that one of the two world champion stars that shine above the Spanish national team's crest already belongs to him.

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Barça delivers in Logroño and returns from Las Gaunas with three more points (0-2). The goals from Mayssa Baha, who debuts as a goalscorer, and Patri Guijarro, with a chip from the edge of the area, give the victory to the blaugranes. Pere Romeu made many changes to the starting eleven to distribute minutes and give rest to the players with the heaviest workload, and Aitana Bonmatí returned to play after almost four months.

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After a decade living away from home, one of the great names of local water polo returns to Catalonia. Albert Español (Barcelona, 1985) has traveled half the world thanks to this sport, from China to Italy. Now retired as a player, he will coach CN Sabadell. For the moment, he has already achieved a first success by overcoming the first phase of the Champions League in a very tough group played in Georgia. The great challenge for the team from Vallès is huge: to stand up to Atlètic Barceloneta, the European champion. That is to say, the club where Albert was trained, where he won everything and where the coach is one of his best friends.

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“Vera, Parra, Teruel, Artigas, Diego, Casas, González, Grau, Celma, Pujol, Segarra and Egea. Pujol is my father, who was a forward and was on trial at Espanyol,” says Xavier Pujol with a smile, after reciting from memory the starting eleven from a photo from the 1950-51 season that hangs on one of the walls of the ground floor of his house, in a small village in the interior of the Garraf. That space was prepared to be a wine cellar, but Xavier, one of the most renowned white-and-blue collectors most recognized, decided to turn it into a museum dedicated to the club of his loves.

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Daniela de Francisco was told she would never walk or speak again after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage at just 12 years old. But today she speaks, walks, and has completed her final year at the UPF in the degree of philosophy, politics, and economics, one of the most competitive courses in Spain. She has founded the anti-ableist student association.

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The L'Azure hotel in Lloret de Mar closed its doors in 2018 as a two-star establishment, and when it reopened, more than two years and 35 million euros of investment later, it had four. It had become a high-end hotel. In the last decade, this segment of the offer has gained weight in Catalonia to become the majority, going from representing 47.41% to 56.93% of the total.

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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 "prevent them from 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.

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Rubén and Tamara were two of the thousands of Barcelona residents who, on May 15th last year, were awaiting the draw for the largest public housing promotion to date in the city: that of Illa Glòries. He, from the apartment where they lived in El Carmel, and she, from her job at a school. Both were eagerly following the coming and going of numbers. "Suddenly, we saw it clearly. We had won," Rubén still recalls with a smile. "We thought it would be impossible, that our number wouldn't come up. But we won the lottery," he adds.

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Mario Gas (Montevideo, 1947) is one of the great names of the Catalan stage. Since his debut – he counts 18 years, with the direction of Asalto nocturno (1965), although he had been acting since he was eight – he must have directed about 150 productions. He has been an actor, director, voice actor, set designer, lighting designer and creator of legendary shows, such as Sweeney Todd and The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Around 80 years old, he continues to be combative and fighting from the theater. Until June 28, he interprets the autobiographical cabaret at La FàbricaLa lluna és blanca, muy blanca… and has just published memoirs, Conversaciones con Mario Gas (Fundamentos), written by Santi Fondevila and Teresa Petit. With him, we review fifty years of our theater.

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It was the only possible Golden Shell. Tender loving care, which will surely be the last work of the British filmmaker Mike Leigh, has won the award for best film at the San Sebastian Festival. It is a recognition that should not be interpreted only as a tribute to a great director in his farewell to cinema due to health problems –he suffers from myositis, which weakens the musculature and hinders movement– that have prevented him from collecting the award in person. On the contrary, this minimalist film about two social workers and the parents of one of them is extraordinary and deeply humanistic, one of the best works by an author who is a champion of cinematic realism and who, for more than five decades, has dedicated himself to portraying life in all its painful complexity and beauty.

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After having two children very close together and finding herself locked at home with COVID-19, Evelina Johansson, a professor of gender studies at Örebro University (Sweden) and a specialist in Marxism and feminist theory, reached her breaking point. "I was having a very hard time, overwhelmed and very tired," she recalls. Looking for a way out of the tunnel, she began reading and researching the role of the home in society and delving into literature on the abolition of the family. This school of thought does not advocate ending love, affection, or cohabitation, but rather opposes the privatization of care and the dependency, sometimes somewhat forced, on a small unit, the family, in order to survive. It advocates for a world where everyone has access to an unconditional and collective network of support, food, and shelter, regardless of who you were born to.

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Although We, the Survivors (Les Hores/Anagrama) is the first novel by Tash Aw (Taipei, 1971) that we can read in Catalan, the work of this author born in Taiwan, raised in Malaysia, and emigrated to the United Kingdom has had a remarkable international journey for two decades. With his debut, The Harmony Silk Factory (Harper, 2005; in Spanish at Salamandra, with the title La fábrica de sedas), he was already a Booker finalist, a merit he has repeated on two more occasions: with Five Star Billionaire (Fourth State, 2013) and also with We, the Survivors. Translated into more than twenty languages (in Catalan by Míriam Cano), Tash Aw explores in his novels the day-to-day life of the Malaysian working class. We, the Survivors narrates, with remarkable precision and subtlety, the sexual awakening of a 16-year-old boy in parallel with his parents' marital crisis and his relationship with his sisters.

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The stand-up comedy is in fashion. And not only in Spanish, which at the beginning was the hegemonic language of this comedy genre, but also in Catalan. In Barcelona, more and more venues are choosing to invite stand-up comedians who, standing up and with a microphone, seek to make people laugh with their stories and jokes. Outside the Catalan capital, in Girona, this format has also been on the rise, especially after the pandemic. And one of the agents that has contributed most to this is the El Foment Cultural Foundation, which, from its headquarters in the Old Town, regularly organizes open mics, comedy clubs, and shows by famous comedians, as well as courses and competitions for amateur stand-up comedians. And always exclusively in Catalan. All this has contributed to professionalizing a group of new generations of comedians and has grown the interest in the art of jokes and wit in the city.

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When I was writing the book, the stories that impacted me the most were those in which parents lost their children not because of death, but due to circumstances caused by the parents themselves.

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L'ambient a la porta número 1 de la fàbrica de Mercedes-Benz de Marienfelde, al sud de Berlín, era combatiu. Diversos centenars de persones –treballadors amb uniformes negres de fàbrica i sindicalistes amb samarretes vermelles– van fer sonar xiulets i van agitar pancartes exigint "Fora Ola!" (Ola Källenius, el conseller delegat de Mercedes) i "la setmana laboral de 35 hores ha de continuar". Yasmin Fahimi, que presideix la confederació sindical d'Alemanya, els va dir que les 35 hores eren "una línia vermella". Constantin Borchelt, cap de la delegació berlinesa d'IG Metall, el sindicat metal·lúrgic, va exhibir una armilla vermella, amb el número 35 i un sol somrient, com la que van portar els treballadors durant la dura però exitosa vaga de set setmanes que el 1984 va reduir la setmana laboral de 40 hores a 35.

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In the mid-eighties, it was difficult to spend a day in Catalonia without bumping into the ATO logo at least once. Their milk cartons filled supermarket shelves and a million households kept them in their home pantries. Spectators of the Jean Bouin race, the Volta, or the 24 Hours of Motorcycle Racing at Montjuïc also came across advertising banners. The company was the Catalan leader in the sector: it collected milk from 3,700 farmers, and about 480 people worked at the bottling plant.

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Science communicator Joan Anton Català (1961) was already reading books about science at just 9 years old: "In fact, I built my first telescope, which was a cardboard tube." And, before starting his degree, he created his own laboratory. It is no surprise, then, that he studied chemistry and earned a master's degree in quantum chemistry.

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Let's place ourselves in Weinheim, Germany, in 1849. It is a small town in Baden, in the southwest of the country, surrounded by vineyards and forests and with a long tradition in leatherworking. On the outskirts, next to the Grundelbach stream, there is a tannery where, every day, about fifty workers transform hides into leather. It is hard to imagine, but it is in that workshop that the story begins which, almost a century later, led to the creation of Vileda, one of the best-known brands in Catalonia when it comes to mops.

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Euribor at highs.It is expected to close in September at a value close to 3.1%, the highest since 2024. In this context, what is better: to request a fixed or variable mortgage?Firstly, in a 20 or 30-year mortgage, anything can happen. We must assume that we are also making a financial risk decision. With the current Euribor values, fixed-rate mortgages are between 3% and 4%, including bonuses. These are high rates to maintain for such a long time.As a piece of advice, we should take advantage of the fact that the interest rate in the first year of a mortgage is usually lower and that the more demanding conditions may affect us starting from the second year. The Euribor, like interest rates, has a cyclical behavior. Even if we think now that it will only go up, at some point it will end up going down. For this reason, today I think that a variable or mixed mortgage, with a fixed rate for 3 or 5 years, can be an interesting option.The most normal thing –and I don't have a crystal ball– is that the Euribor ends up falling in the coming months or years. Therefore, getting locked in for decades with a 4% fixed rate could make us pull our hair out. However, this very uncertainty is what gives value to a fixed-rate mortgage: it protects us against a new rise in rates.With a high Euribor, it is common for financial institutions to enter into a war to attract new mortgage clients. We must negotiate to the maximum. And, if we opt for a fixed mortgage, we can also negotiate clauses that allow us, later on, to reduce the interest rate or pay off part of the outstanding capital with the minimum possible cost.Because when we sign a mortgage, we not only decide how much we will pay: we decide what risk we are willing to assume. Decisions based on emotions make us decide the exact opposite of financial rationality.

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On the eve of La Mercè in 1967, a light aircraft flying from Frankfurt to Nice crashed in the Italian Alps and its six occupants died. One was Harald Quandt, one of the richest men in Germany, who, curiously, had survived another plane crash only a couple of years earlier. In that first disaster, his light aircraft overturned the moment it was trying to take off from the Zurich airfield, in Switzerland, resulting in one death.

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Can Biel is a house that is part of the life of the town, literally. From its balcony on the Plaça Major of Mieres, in that valley that Josep Pla defined as the “casserole” of the Garrotxa, the town festival proclamation is still announced. But, behind the facade and regardless of its historical function, the interior of Can Biel is today very different from what it had been for a good part of its history. Architects Pau Sarquella and Carmen Torres, founders of the Sarquella Torres studio in Banyoles, have converted that house, which had been uninhabited for decades, into an open, flexible, and transformable domestic space.

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For ninety years, the photograph Death of a Loyalist Militiaman has been attributed to Robert Capa. The image of a republican combatant at the moment of falling to his death consecrated the Hungarian photographer. The precise instant it portrays, with the militiaman losing his balance but not yet having touched the ground, gives it a drama that condenses the cruelty of war. The rifle seems to slip from his hand and the barren landscape further accentuates the tragedy of the soldiers. An atrocious and lonely death. It is impossible to identify his face, and the slight lack of sharpness in the image allows one to intuit the urgency of a photographer who triggers the shutter at the very moment they are startled by the horror of the scene.

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Where the Pyrenees plunge into the Mediterranean Sea, some rocks resist submergence. The water reaches great depths close to the coast, and yet, some islets protrude, like perennial icebergs. Two of these islets are found at the tip of Cap de Creus, near the lighthouse: s'Encalladora and the Massa d'Or (or Maça d'Oros).

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Welcome Ona, you have been alive for very few days, so few that we haven't even seen each other in person yet, but while you get to know your mother and your father and you all learn what each other is like, I felt like writing to you. You are a girl and you have had the immense fortune of ending up in an open, beautiful, and free family that will allow you to be the girl you want to be. Even so that at some point you might say that you are not sure if you are a girl, a boy, or whatever you feel like. Take advantage of the bonus because it is not always like this. You will see when you start to socialize that there are girls who are saddled with certain colors, certain decorations, certain things that it would not occur to anyone to saddle them with if they weren't a girl. You ask and do. Go for it. And as soon as you can, play whatever you feel like. Don't limit yourself to the typical game of pretending you have a hair salon, a school, a food stall, do it, if you want, but don't hold back, open your mind. Play at being the quantum physicist who finds the formula to shove Donald Trump into a black hole. Or at being the human resources director of a toy multinational who fires all the assholes. These are examples, but for real, don't hold back. I should tell you that the first extracurricular activity you should do is jujitsu, because, I won't lie to you, being a girl, being a woman, is a bit complicated when you go through the world, and self-defense would do you good. But I refuse for you to grow up out of fear. I want you to know that, in this sense, the problem will never be you. The problem will always be the aggressor's. I would advise you to sign up for the "feminist demonstrations" extracurricular, or "feminist organizations", "non-violent feminist guerrillas" or "how to be a feminist president in the 21st century"; it will be much more fun. But there is still time before you have to choose. Meanwhile, you can learn to vomit every time someone you don't know comes up to you and tells you that you are beautiful instead of telling you that you have an alert look or that you seem very clever or that you have very witty comebacks or what strength you have or what loud farts you make. Because Ona, all girls grow up hearing only that we are beautiful and pretty. This is the content of 95% of the praise we receive in childhood. And then, of course, we grow up thinking that this is what we are worth. And no, Ona, no. You are worth it no matter what your body is like, because Ona, you don't have a normative body or a non-normative body, you have the best body, the body that you care about. And when you start to talk, ask them to teach you to say: red flag, heteropatriarchy, emotional responsibility, gender pay gap your father, sorority, and words like that. I insist, you are very lucky, but you also have to know that we are a family that lives in Catalonia (Europe), we have light skin and we don't worry about money and we have access to things that many people don't have. And that it is not the same to be a girl like this, as it is to have darker skin, have less money, etc. Anyway, just so you note it down. I have only seen you for a second in a photo, but I have already realized: you have an alert look and you look like you are going to let out the loudest and most impressive farts in your town. Welcome, Ona, and long live your life and that of all girls!

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This photograph is, practically, a betrayal. It is a large outdoor sound installation created by the French composer Pierre Sauvageot. It is titled Harmonic Fields, Harmonic Fields, a musical play on words that also appeals to the landscape that surrounds it. There are hundreds of instruments that no musician plays. It is the wind that makes them sound. Bamboo flutes, triangles, bells, chimes, propeller sirens, drums, and the entire bowed string family gently release their voice with the tickling of the wind that this week has blown on the hills of Baildon Moor, north of Bradford, in Yorkshire. It is a traveling event that, since 2010, has adapted to landscapes throughout Europe. Pierre Sauvageot, specializing in creations in public spaces, always experiments with landscapes and cities and encourages human interaction. Nature, everyday noises, objects, and atmospheric phenomena become part of the orchestra.In this backlit image, the silhouettes of the instruments can be distinguished as if they were an unusual plantation. Imposing trees that make the human figure look small. The woman in the photo is a wind farmer, a wind cultivator. They move slowly among the installations, activating and adjusting the sound. Sonic agriculture. It is as if they were working a field to improve a harvest that is intangible. The strength and direction of the wind determine the rhythm, volume, and the instruments that play. Nature decides whether the orchestra plays pianissimo or at what moment a gust of wind will cause an sforzando that will sound like an esoteric moan in the middle of the moors. The photograph conveys spirituality and has something ancestral about it; it looks like an offering to the gods. The music we cannot hear must be like a language to communicate with them. Laments or prayers that rise towards the sky. Music is, in principle, a human act. It is people who control the instruments and the sound. But at Harmonic fields control is ceded to nature and left in the hands of the wind force.Photography represents precisely what it cannot show. The wind is invisible, but we sense it in the image. It is the great absent protagonist. Sound cannot be photographed, and yet, we notice its presence through the artifacts and the landscape. The sky, the clouds, and the elevated and free exposure of the instruments allow us to perceive this air that traverses the space. The image is a betrayal precisely because the creator advised against photographing his Harmonic Fields. The composer has always wanted to keep his work against the primacy of the gaze to prioritize listening. But, on the other hand, the installation has such an indisputable and powerful visual presence that it makes capturing it with a camera inevitable. We cannot prick up our ears, but the image helps us imagine the sound. Photography forces us to listen with our eyes.

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Culture, educational leisure and transport face the start of the 2026-27 academic year with uncertainty. The reason is the stoppage of activities outside the classroom, which threatens an impact that goes well beyond schools. Still without concrete data on the extent of the effects, families, companies, associations, entities and experts warn of the educational, economic and social consequences of the temporary pressure measures by education professionals, who are demanding labor improvements.While negotiations with the Department of Education are not bearing fruit due to the unions' standoff, which, despite the agreement signed at the end of the school year, continue their standoff with the Government, the cultural sector is already starting to put numbers to the impact of the stoppage on school activities. In the world of performing arts, Óscar Rodríguez, a board member of ADETCA, the association of private Catalan theaters, explains that, on average, private theaters are recording 50% fewer school bookings compared to last year. In Barcelona, however, the drop is even more pronounced: "The figures are falling between 85 and 90% compared to last year in theaters like the Tantarantana or the Autèntica".ADETCA respects the demands of education professionals and ensures that it agrees with them, but warns that the situation "is directly harming a key sector for the culture of children and young people." It is not just a question of numbers and bookings, but also, Rodríguez remarks, "the undoing of an authentic tool for training and transformation."

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This weekend is full of cultural and family leisure activities. As always, we have prepared a selection of activities for you to do with your children on September 25th, 26th, and 27th, such as continuing to attend the most family-friendly activities of La Mercè, enjoying the cultural proposals of the Rubió Performing Arts Festival, or exploring your most creative side at Art-Action!, the annual day of artistic experimentation at the Girona Museum.

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Sara Diego (Madrid, 1996) is an actress. Many of you know her as Carla from Com si fos ahir (TV3). We can see her in the theater in Primera llei de Newton, until October 4th at La Villarroel. In April she will return with Dones de ràdio. And in between we can follow her on the tour of Loop. Between Madrid and Barcelona. “I was born in Madrid and lived there until I was 3 years old. Then in Terrassa, in Barcelona, in between back in Madrid again... I have been to five different schools. My childhood has always been very much on the move”. And how did you experience it as a child? “When I was in third grade, my mother (Rosa Boladeras) got a series in Madrid and I had to go there with my brother, who had just been born. It affected me a lot, because it is the age when you have your group of friends”. And now as an adult, how do you see it? “It has given me great ease in adapting to places, in meeting new people. The fact of having been to five different schools means you can start over and be someone else”.

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We live in a global context marked by emotional fragility: more than a billion people live with a mental health diagnosis, according to the World Health Organization. The situation is especially critical in classrooms: one in seven adolescents between 10 and 19 years old suffers from some mental disorder, and suicide is already the third leading cause of death among young people. Faced with this emergency scenario, preventive psychiatry focuses on accessible, zero-cost interventions with an unsuspected biological impact. The most powerful of all comes in the form of a book.

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For a decade, the ideal young woman wore neutral tones, emptied her closets, and turned order, self-control, and productivity into an aesthetic. It was 2014 and Sophia Amoruso was unaware that a hashtag, #girlboss, would change everything. A hand extended to thehustle-culture, the culture of busyness, accompanied by a minimalist trend in dressing and decorating everything, drew an apparently self-sufficient femininity: a young woman who worked, was entrepreneurial, took care of her body, maintained an impeccable appearance and home and routines to the minute, always hand in hand with a specialty coffee (or a matcha latte, nowadays). Now, the pendulum seems to have swung back, after years of hustle-culture have caused an almost predictable burnout. Ribbons, pastel colors, and extravagant prints are arriving, a whole ode to kitsch, accompanied by a feeling of nostalgia and a need to recover play, to be little girls again. From the girlbossto the girl dinner (the least elaborate girl's dinner) or girl math (the mental gymnastics to justify an expense); from minimalism to maximalism; from the young woman who could do it all to the young woman who wants to play again. The whimsy-maxxing is one of the most recent expressions to define this phenomenon.

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Choosing between the multitude of similar products offered by a supermarket has become almost an escape room. The options for basic foods such as bread or milk have multiplied, the range is increasingly wide, and deciding can sometimes be complicated. A good way to tip the scales one way or the other is to look at the labels of different products, compare them, and choose the one that best fits each person's nutritional needs. However, interpreting them is not always easy, as processed foods include a long list of ingredients, some of which are additives associated with a number or a technical name, and it is complicated to separate the wheat from the chaff. ARA has consulted various experts in nutrition and endocrinology to create an easy guide that allows understanding food labels and leaving the supermarket with the conviction of having chosen the best option.

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The hearty breakfasts are all the rage in Catalonia. Traditional Catalan dishes and slow-cooked meals first thing in the morning, in a lifelong establishment, accompanied by bread and wine, are gaining more and more followers. They are often carnivorous meals, such as capipota, fricandó, braised pork cheek, or sausage with beans. However, some coastal bars and restaurants, specialized in working with the fresh fish of the day, also serve seafood-style hearty breakfasts. And the experience is truly worth it. Enjoying a good seafood platter by the sea after an early morning coffee is an unbeatable plan.

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The actress and singer Júlia Bonjoch (Cardedeu, 1994) speaks with the ARA while walking through the fields of her father's village. Until October 18, Bonjoch plays Blanca in La truita (Teatre Poliorama), a play where food brings family conflicts to the table.

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The Ter river is born in a spring in Ulldeter (Ripollès) and flows into the Mediterranean. Very close to the Gola del Ter there is a restaurant founded in 1961 by the Xicars family. In this location, converted into a hostel restaurant, there used to be a farmhouse where Josep Xicars' great-grandfather lived, trying to cover basic needs to help the family grow. "At eight years old, I was already peeling potatoes. The shower was a basin and we had to go to the fields to relieve ourselves. My father turned it into what it is now, and I have followed in his footsteps," comments Josep, feeling the weight of the passing years.We are in a pleasant place that is part of an enviable environment. "The river is life", as was claimed in the early 2000s in the Terres de l'Ebre in an environmental and territorial protest. The sea is right nearby. The clientele is mostly local, with some visiting practitioners of the noble sport of golf. Within a radius of very few kilometers, we find Empordà Golf and Golf de Pals, two highly renowned golf courses.We don't play around, but we really enjoy discovering places where one can eat well, wherever they may be. Knowing the virtues of the restaurant (fish, seafood, and good rice dishes), we begin the meal with some Gillardeau oysters, some steamed rock mussels with orange vinaigrette, a plate of sand eels, and an exceptional jig-caught squid. The wine that accompanies us is Els Boscals, a 2023 black garnacha from the Boscals valley, in Les Gavarres.Once we have finished the first courses, we move on to the second, in the singular. We play it safe and order a Pals rice with lobster. Everything is perfect: the ingredients, the flavor, and the cooking are at their optimal point. We can only say good things about it. For dessert, puff pastry with angel hair and communion wine, coulant of chocolate and nougat ice cream.Waiting for relief

Josep is a peculiar guy, with good conversation. We sit in the dining room, where there are paintings representing his father. “My father started by doing a bit of everything. He worked as a cook, he was a fisherman, a hunter, he had made the tables himself... He lived basically off the river environment”. Josep is not a professional cook, he is one out of necessity and because life has brought him here. “Well, for me, just like for my father, I have always liked to eat well, and that is the main basis for knowing how to cook. If you know how to eat well, you will know how to cook well, because that is the best way to satisfy the diner. You want the best for them”.He is nearing his seventies and is eager to retire, but for the moment he cannot find anyone to replace him. In the meantime, he enjoys the satisfaction of a job well done and the recognition of his customers. Sooner or later he will leave it, and we hope that life grants him many more years of health so he can live without working and enjoy a rest that he has earned since, at the age of eight, he started peeling potatoes in the family business.We, as long as we are at the foot of the canyon, will return. There are meals and people that become unforgettable.

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The Codorníu Raventós group has announced the sale of its California winery –Artesa Winery– to winemaker Jean-Charles Boisset, owner of the French wine sector company Boisset. In a statement issued this Wednesday, the company argues that the operation is a response to "a strategic review of the portfolio aimed at focusing investments and resources on regions that are priorities for the company." As company sources have detailed to ARA, Codorníu is divesting its entire stake in the capital of the American winery.

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The PicNic restaurant in Sitges, located on the seafront promenade, will close forever this Sunday. The State Ministry for Ecological Transition informed them of this days ago via email, and also through lawyers. "If we don't do it, they threaten to send security forces, who they say would change the locks and bolts," states Joan Anton Matas, of the Matas Arnalot Group family, who is in charge. Matas explains that they will comply with the ruling, so Sunday will be the last day one can go there for lunch and dinner. They will even serve one last glass of cava on Sunday, from 6 pm to 9 pm, but despite all this, they do not agree with the ruling, because they believe they have a point. What is this point?

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107 years after its foundation, the English brand Bentley, specialized in luxury and high-performance cars, has presented its first electric car, which it has christened with the name Torcal and which has a truly impressive technical specification. The brand-new Torcal uses two electric motors with a total power of 888 hp and giant batteries of 113 kWh capacity with 800 V architecture and a range in mixed use of 600 kilometers. Furthermore, the Torcal is compatible with a charging point of up to 400 kW of power, which allows it to reach up to 80% of the battery capacity in just 20 minutes.

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Renault has done it again. After the commercial success of the electric Renault 5 and the electric revival of historical models of the brand such as the Twingo, the French have now presented the conceptual prototype of the legendary Renault 8 Gordini, one of the most popular vehicles in the history of France and a true myth for rally and competition lovers from all over the world.

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In Japan, they probably haven't given much thought to what the name of their new affordable electric vehicle means in Catalan. In fact, it wouldn't be the first time a car brand has christened one of its cars with a funny and somewhat ill-advised commercial name: it is worth remembering the Nissan Moco, Mazda Laputa, Opel Cascada, Opel Manta, Ford Corrida or Hyundai Kona, among others. 

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"Being on the left means taking on great challenges. And achieving them". The New York Assembly member, Zohran Mamdani, and the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, show harmony in the latest video that the New York city council has uploaded to its social networks. In an informal tone, even though both are dressed in formal wear, the two political leaders dedicate themselves to throwing paper balls into a trash can. And as the message accompanying the tweet says, they end up making all of them, despite the risks they take symbolically: Sánchez opts for the skyhook, the hook shot patented by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, one of the great legends of the NBA, and Mamdani dares with the shot with his eyes closed that Michael Jordan ironically dedicated to Dikembe Mutombo.

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The eviction of Maricarmen Abascal in Madrid is one of those events that mark a stage of Spanish life. It has an enormous symbolic weight, just as in the eighties it was held by Cojo Manteca, a boy with a disability who was then 20 years old and became famous for how he lashed out against street furniture during the student protests that took place in Madrid in 1987. The significance of the current protagonist's appearance on all the news is quite different from that of Jon Manteca Cabañes, who was born in Arrasate in 1967 and died in Orihuela in 1996. However, the images that unite them have many things in common, although the protest was undoubtedly carried out with more dignity by Maricarmen Abascal, because Manteca went down in the country's graphic history striking all kinds of glass and telephone booths with his crutches, when they were a mandatory fixture on city streets.

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The British police have reported that they have arrested five people for handling explosives near the Royal Air Force base in Fairford in the county of Gloucestershire, in southwest England. The authorities, who consider this a "serious incident" and have established a security perimeter in the town of Whelford, suspect that it could be the preparation of a terrorist attack. In fact, the counter-terrorism unit has assumed control of the investigation, according to the British government. The military base has an American presence and, specifically, it has been used by the United States Air Force (USAF) during the war against Iran. Army bomb disposal experts examined vehicles in the area this Sunday and several homes have been evacuated.

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The general debate of the 81st United Nations General Assembly runs the risk of becoming a mere stage for an increasingly unilateral world. But, paradoxically, it is the only stage that continues to exist so that the 193 countries that are part of it can make themselves heard. Even if it is to threaten the "annihilation" of the other, to make warmongering proclamations of "not bowing one's head" or to attempt to whitewash a genocide.

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The Donald Trump administration has fully entered the Brazilian presidential race, which will hold its first round on Sunday, October 4th. The explicit support for the far-right candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, has turned into an operation of electoral interference that has forced Lula da Silva, who is running for re-election, and his executive branch to take measures to protect themselves.Brazil, due to its position as a regional leader and for being one of the last great bastions of the left on the continent, has become a priority for the Republican administration within the framework of the reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, which defended “America for the Americans”. Now, Latin America, forgotten during the last decades by Washington, is once again a key zone of influence for the United States, which wants to exercise direct and unilateral dominance there and integrate it into its national security and economic exploitation strategy, curbing Chinese commercial expansion.In the case of the Brazilian elections, there is a coincidence of personal, business, and political interests between Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who, in some conflicts generated by the White House, has acted as a counterbalance to the presidential rashness and outbursts. In this case, however, that has not been so.

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We offer you an X-ray of the public mental health system for children and young people with testimonies from the professionals who work there as well as from patients and their families.

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In recent days, prisons have experienced a series of serious incidents. Last week, an inmate from Mas d'Enric convicted of murder escaped during a scheduled outing in Tarragona. A prisoner at Quatre Camins killed his cellmate and another inmate at the same prison died by suicide. His death is the seventh by suicide in Catalan prisons this year, one more than in the whole of last year. All this at a time when the prison population is on the rise and the centers are approaching their capacity limit.

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On Wednesday, Maricarmen Abascal was forced to leave what had been her home for more than seventy years. She left on an emergency stretcher, unable to collect her belongings and exhausted, with high levels of anxiety after having experienced four eviction attempts at the age of 87. Social movements have turned the case of this woman from Madrid into a symbol of the serious housing problem affecting Spain. The Ombudsman has also stated that her story illustrates the shortcomings in the protection of vulnerable people against residential eviction, especially in large cities. This Friday, Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL, the fund that owns the property, presented a proposal to the Madrid City Council so that she could return to her apartment. The proposal, however, was rejected by the Madrid city council because "it does not meet the legal requirements" and it has offered to mediate.

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Artificial intelligence agents developed by OpenAI attempted to gain unauthorized access to websites of United States government agencies and a university, according to an investigation published Friday by The New York Times. And they did so without having received explicit instructions to act in this manner, according to the company.

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The Spanish economy maintained growth during the second quarter of the year, despite the impact of the war in Iran on energy markets and international trade. Household consumption and the role of construction allowed the gross domestic product (GDP, the indicator that measures the size of an economy) of the State to maintain the good figures of recent years, as reported this Thursday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

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On Wednesday, from New York, Pedro Sánchez described the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal as a "social tragedy" and, immediately afterwards, committed to moving forward with the new housing decree that, until now, had been kept in a drawer due to a lack of parliamentary support – the Spanish government was supposed to present the regulation before the summer. Now Sumar is demanding that the new decree be approved immediately this Tuesday at the Council of Ministers. Thus, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda has accelerated talks with its investiture partners, especially with Junts. In fact, the Junts members have already submitted their proposal on housing – they did so on September 3rd – which ARA has had access to, and which, in addition to the measures they had already been announcing, they have added two: the prohibition of evictions for vulnerable families when dealing with vulture fund properties and directly prohibiting these entities from buying real estate. Now the Spanish government will have to reconcile these requests with those of the rest of its left-wing partners. And here various friction points emerge that the socialists will have to know how to reconcile to try to get everyone into the equation so that the decree sees the light of day.

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It seemed impossible, but in this thriller of extreme survival there is a star that shines with more intensity than Brad Pitt: Uber, the canine actor who plays Odin, an ex-combat dog who faithfully accompanies his master, a retired Special Forces officer (Pitt), on an odyssey through the remote mountains of Alaska. The sensitivity with which David Ayer (a specialist in gritty police cinema, and who had already directed the actor in Fury) describes the deep bond that can be established between a human being and their dog, underscored by the natural chemistry that arose between Pitt and the animal, is the only thing that can be saved from a film that transforms the sense of wonder of adventure cinema into a high-end version of a survival reality show.

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The premiere of La belle Hélène at the Teatre Lliure directed by Pere Planella in 1979 constituted the first great popular success for the company that had opened the Gràcia theatre three years earlier with Camí de nit. Miquel Mas Fiol's proposal which commemorates the fifty years of the Lliure moves away from Offenbach's operetta to build a heartfelt and quite entertaining tribute to the founders and their way of working and living theatre.

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The New York police arrested actresses Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder this Thursday during a protest against the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his intervention at the UN General Assembly, as reported by the Efe agency. In the photographs shared on social media, Einbinder (known for the HBO series Hacks) can be seen handcuffed by the city police, while Sarandon appears arrested by several officers.

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Sabadell continues to add points. Ferran Costa's team drew at Balaídos against Celta's reserve team in a match where they carried the weight of the game but lacked firepower (1-1). The territorial dominance of the 'arlequinats' did not translate into clear chances in a match where they always showed the ambition to win away from home for the first time. Sabadell, however, seems to have been in the division their whole lives, even though they are one of the newcomers. They have craft and ambition. And they know how to take a hit, only to get back up afterwards.

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Tranquility at Real Madrid after the medical tests that Kylian Mbappé underwent throughout this Saturday at the Valdebebas sports city. The white club has announced that the French forward is suffering from a "hyperextension of the posterior capsule of the left knee," but has not wanted to give a specific recovery timeline. The Madrid entity has limited itself to saying that he is "pending evolution," although various media outlets suggest he would only be out for two weeks.

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Born in Guédiawaye (Senegal), Eli Ndiaye's chances of ending up becoming a professional basketball player were slim. And yet, if it weren't for an injury, he would have made his NBA debut. "I started playing basketball when I was in a boarding school. When I returned home I kept playing and then Oumar Sow appeared, who proposed that I go to Europe. I didn't think twice. I had trials with Baskonia, but it didn't work out, and then Real Madrid appeared," explains Ndiaye to ARA, who at that time was only 13 years old.“When I started playing basketball my family struggled with it, because they wanted me to prioritize my studies, but when they understood that it is something I am passionate about they understood that it could also help me be more focused on my studies. My family has always helped me”, explains the Asisa Joventut player, who starts the Liga Endesa on Sunday on the court of Rio Breogan (12 p.m., TV3 and DAZN).“Before, basketball was less accessible in Senegal, but now there are many people betting on training and that is noticeable. There are many academies and more and more players are emerging. Basketball has opened up a great space in my country and people enjoy it more. Having players like Brancou Badio helps it become a very popular sport,” says Ndiaye with an enthusiasm that is contagious. It is hard to see him speak without smiling.

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On Thursdays, paella. And on Sundays, in Madrid, a demonstration. Until now, the right and the far-right dominated the Sunday rallies, but it turns out that the rally calendar has become so strained that the marching fervor is now spilling over into other days of the week, and on Saturday, two demonstrations of opposing signs coincided, in search of the coveted Sunday cover photo. In this case, the one demanding interventions in housing won by a landslide. The most 'Sanchista' newspapers like El País or La Vanguardia chose it to adorn their front pages, but so did El Mundo. Obviously, this last newspaper was not looking to show solidarity with those who live with the anguish of their lease contract nearing its end, but because it allows them to write a headline such that the protest acts as a boomerang against Sánchez: “The indignation over housing leads to a 15-M attempt: "Either the rentier falls or the government falls"".

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For a couple of years now, Prime Video has decided to focus a good part of its offering on youth content, and the strategy is working out very well for them. Within this plan, one of the highlights of this 2026 was the premiere of the TV movie The Love Hypothesis, which can already be seen on the platform as of this Wednesday. The film is an adaptation of a book of the same title that has caused a sensation within the BookTok community, the TikTok users who share reviews and book recommendations, very often of the romantic or romantic fantasy genre.

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Journalist Pere Bosch shared on social media a message he received on WhatsApp from the press office of the Ministry of Transport. It was about the latest cyberattack suffered by Renfe and was the classic salad of insubstantial arguments and empty phrases, and 'we will investigate everything' and 'move along, move along.' But the last paragraph was revealing: “This second version has a more institutional and firm tone, oriented towards media and public opinion, while maintaining a certain legal prudence (…) that protects Renfe against possible conclusions different from the final investigation.” It is obvious what happened, and the only doubt is whether the author's name is Claude, Copilot, Gemini, or GPT.

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Naomi Campbell, Cameron Diaz, Nicole Kidman, Lily Collins, Michelle Williams, Kim Kardashian, Amber Heard, Lucy Liu, Elton John and Ricky Martin are just some of the celebrities who have turned to surrogacy to have a family. Recently, singer Lady Gaga and television creator Lena Dunham have also joined this practice, which is illegal in Spain, both supposedly aligned with feminist ideas, but who, when it came to starting a family, chose a path condemned by a large part of the women's rights movement. Although they are not the first to opt for surrogacy, they are two of the celebrities who have been most harshly criticized for doing so. Many of their followers have understood the use of another woman's body to gestate, a process that is usually accompanied by a financial transaction, as a sign of vital contradiction.

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The week ahead, with Jordi Garrigós

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

I will finish reading Un disco para cada año de tu vida, Joan Pons' Substack. In record time, this musical scholar has reviewed a hundred essential pop albums from his sentimental education and has left behind an archive of reviews hitherto unpublished in Spanish. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, by David Bowie, has been the final choice, the album that changed everything and that draws the curtain on a project that, sooner or later, should mutate into a book.

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L'ARA suggests some plans throughout the country for this weekend.

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Julian Assange has reappeared on X after more than two years without posting to his official account. The founder of Wikileaks wrote a brief message there on September 17, "I'm back" [I'm back], accompanied by a photograph of him in Sydney. His last post dated back to June 24, 2024, shortly after reaching a plea deal with the United States justice system and being released.

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French actor and theater director Arnaud Denis died on Tuesday, September 22, at the age of 43, after undergoing euthanasia in Belgium. Denis had explained on social media that he made this decision after three years of pain and a severe deterioration of his health.

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The journalist Jofre Llombart, who was coordinator of El matí de Catalunya Ràdio, has explained on the podcast Focus that Manel Fuentes, who was the presenter of the public radio's morning show between 2009 and 2013, harassed him at work. "In 2009-2010, I suffered a case of workplace harassment by Manel Fuentes," the journalist states. In the interview, Llombart explained what Fuentes' behavior was like during the time they worked together: "Today I confront you, tomorrow I cannot live without you. Today I scold you, tomorrow I thank you. Today I congratulate you, tomorrow I criticize you mercilessly. Today I cannot live without you, tomorrow I threaten you that you will never find work in this sector again if it depends on me. You don't know how to manage this roller coaster well if you don't have the tools. The mistreatment is the entire roller coaster, both when it goes up and when it goes down."

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The day she arrived at the laboratory and saw that the mice were moving again, Zaida Álvarez (Barcelona, 1984) could not help but shudder. Behind her lay more than six years of research, from Monday to Sunday, and a risky bet to outsmart evolution and repair the irreparable: the central nervous system of a mammal. "It was mind-blowing. Those animals, which had a severe spinal cord injury and were paralyzed, were walking again," she recounts, still moved, this bioengineer and researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC).

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For those of us dedicated to astronomy, this has been a very special summer. The solar eclipse has put us in the spotlight like never before. Rarely does it happen that the object of our work becomes a social phenomenon of this magnitude. It has been a golden opportunity to explain the movements of the stars in the sky, the cosmic coincidence that makes total solar eclipses possible, the demonstration of general relativity predictions, or what solar prominences are. There was even a sociological experiment conducted on how watching an eclipse affects us.

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At the last movie of Spider-Man, absolute success this summer, we are presented with a downcast superhero, Peter Parker (thealter ego of Spiderman), with unbearable physical pain and unexpected changes in the body. As often happens in stories of dystopian worlds and superpowered heroes, we can ask ourselves if the plot has sparks of reality, that is to say, if it is based on scientific evidence even if exaggerated, or if it is totally implausible. As a researcher, I often regret that screenwriters do not consult scientists to make their plots more plausible and prefer to invent them. Precisely the difference between fantasy and science fiction is this: whether there is any scientific evidence that supports the plot. In the case of Spider-Man: brand new day, in the script there is a little bit of everything.

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