The political clash over the situation in Ceuta escalates as the humanitarian crisis is still evident in the city. The tension between the government of Ceuta and Pedro Sánchez's executive has increased in volume after the president of the autonomous city, Juan Jesús Vivas (PP), threatened to go to court if Moncloa does not "solve" the crisis within 30 days. A path, for now unspecified, which has the support of Genoa, that has found in the migratory crisis a new vein to wear down Pedro Sánchez. Meanwhile, the Spanish government avoids direct confrontation, defends its actions and the "collaboration" between institutions, in the words of the government spokesperson and Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, who traveled to Ceuta this Monday for the first time since the arrival of thousands of people on July 30, even though her responsibilities include overseeing a reception network for asylum seekers.

Amidst tension, an agreement. Despite maintaining cross-accusations between the two administrations, the Spanish government and that of Ceuta have agreed this Monday to open four new humanitarian attention facilities in the autonomous city to assist the migrants who arrived during the massive influx and who are now living in precarious conditions in industrial estates and beaches. In a press conference, the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, announced that these four new centers will offer 1,500 new places to assist migrants.

The Kremlin is intensifying its crusade against pacifist opposition a month before the legislative elections. Specifically, it seeks to punish the only party opposed to the war in Ukraine that was initially authorized to participate in the elections, Yabloko. The judiciary has sentenced one of its vice-presidents, Lev Shlosberg, to 11 years and one month in prison for having defended the need for a ceasefire and criticized Vladimir Putin. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has rejected the party's appeal against the decision to ban them from the electoral process, after Yabloko's surge in polls in recent weeks and an unprecedented wave of support among young people.

Israel's National Security Minister, the far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir, stated that Israeli forces should "kill 30 or 40" Palestinians every night in Gaza, beyond those who may represent "a danger at this specific moment." Ben-Gvir made these statements to Rom Braslavski – who was kidnapped on October 7 and held in the Strip by Palestinian militias – in an episode of a podcast that was released on Sunday. "There are people there who don't deserve to live. They aren't even people," the far-right extremist added.

Nine years after the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, the call from various groups to clarify the unknowns of 17-A still remains, but at Monday's tribute, controversy erupted due to a clash between Vox's spokesperson in Parliament, Joan Garriga, and pro-independence demonstrators convened by the platform Exigim Responsabilitats and the ANC. Specifically, the event that was meant to commemorate the victims ended with a scuffle in Plaça Sant Jaume, with a shouting match directed at the far-right and Garriga's attempt to grab a black pro-independence flag, albeit unsuccessfully.

The artificial intelligence has been the engine of stock market success in recent years. The tech companies leading the AI market have reached unimaginable heights, to the point that the club of companies worth over a trillion dollars is no longer an exclusive affiliation. Nvidia exceeds $5 trillion in market capitalization, while both Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Apple are above four trillion.

During the last decade, the expected duration of women's working lives in Spain has increased by one year more than that of men. This progress has helped to reduce the existing gender gap, although they will still work on average 3.4 years less throughout their lives. Specifically, according to the latest data published by Eurostat, the expected duration of working life for those who started their careers in 2025 stands at 36.8 years on average in Spain: 38.5 years for men and 35.1 years for women. In 2016, the forecast was 35.1 years on average: 37.2 years for men and 32.8 years for women.

The Mossos d'Esquadra are investigating a brutal group assault suffered on August 12 by a 21-year-old Italian national in the Parc del Fòrum area, between Barcelona and Sant Adrià de Besòs. According to La Vanguardia, the events took place at the exit of a nightclub. The Catalan police received notification of the events around 10:25 PM and the Badalona investigation unit has taken charge of the case.

For decades, textbooks have told a relatively simple story about the original human settlement of the Americas. According to this narrative, a group of humans from Asia crossed the Bering region thousands of years ago and, over time, gradually expanded throughout the continent, from north to south. Now, however, one of the most ambitious genomic studies conducted on the descendants of Native Americans suggests that this story is much richer and more complex than previously thought.The research, led by Tábita Hünemeier, a population genetics specialist at Pompeu Fabra University, which involved more than two dozen researchers from around the world, has analyzed complete genomes of indigenous populations from various Latin American countries. According to their publication in the journal Nature, they have discovered more than a million new genetic variants that were absent in large international databases. The result is not only an advance in understanding human history, but also highlights the extent to which a significant part of global human genetic diversity had been practically absent from biomedical research.

In s’Alguer, the cove where the new Estrella Damm advertisement was filmed, one person lives all year round. This is Miquel Carós (Palamós, 1948), who has been living for twelve years in one of the fishermen's houses with coloured doors in this spot of crystal-clear waters on the Costa Brava. Now he is no longer the sole inhabitant. Six years ago, another man settled there with his son. None of the three would be living there if Franco had not died on November 20, 1975. "It was close, the machines were already prepared to demolish the shacks, but since he died, everything stopped," he explains.

Hansi Flick's third project began a month ago, when the World Cup semifinals still had to be played. Resigned, the German saw that he would have to do a good part of the preseason without the backbone of his team, since at that time up to ten players were still competing in the tournament in the United States and, therefore, would take a few weeks to return.

Jorge Mendes already cashed in with Barça a decade ago. The Portuguese super-agent, today the representative of the best Barça player, Lamine Yamal, was a key player in facilitating the signing, at the end of July 2016, of one of the most coveted midfielders in the League. He belonged to Valencia and stood out for his vertical and elegant play. He was also seen as one of the most attractive footballers in the competition. At 23 years old, André Gomes arrived to take on the world. He chose Barcelona after Real Madrid pursued him for weeks. Just like Rodrigo Hernández these days, he left the white club disappointed when he decided to make the move to end up at Camp Nou.

The American actress Hayden Panettiere died this Sunday at the age of 36, as confirmed by sources close to her to People magazine. The family has not reported the cause of death and has requested privacy while the circumstances are being investigated. American media, however, detail that according to recordings from the emergency services that attended her at her home in Greenville, South Carolina, Panattiere would have suffered an overdose and cardiac arrest.

Often when we see old photos of mountain villages, there's something that catches our attention: there are far fewer trees than now. Indeed, until the mid-20th century, wood was the main fuel that heated houses and there was an entire economic sector dedicated to it. With the change in the energy paradigm and the introduction of fossil fuels and electricity, forests and wood ceased to be profitable, and the result is that the forest mass has multiplied to such an extent that it now occupies 70% of the territory in Catalonia. Less wood is consumed, and moreover, what is consumed is mostly from abroad, specifically 80%.

The weekend has been marked by quiet mornings and unstable afternoons, with locally intense showers and thunderstorms that in some cases have left more than 50 or 60 mm. Good news after a very dry July and early August in a large part of the territory. The temperature has also relaxed practically everywhere, although intense heat has been maintained on the coast. Next week will begin with increasingly intense heat, but from the middle of the week a change in weather will arrive that will lower the temperature and leave more widespread precipitation.

The archetype of the tourist who walks around Catalonia and, specifically, Barcelona, remains in the collective imagination as that group of young people who travel with low cost companies, do not contribute to local commerce, saturate Las Ramblas and Park Güell, and desperately seek a bar to drink cheap alcohol. However, a new model has been established in Catalonia for years as an antidote to mass tourism: silver tourism, that segment of the population over 55 or 60 years old, with purchasing power and consumption capacity.

Núria Picas will always remember the night of Sant Joan in 2016: “I set myself the challenge of running the two great Catalan Pyrenees crossings, Cavalls del Vent and Carros de Foc, in twenty-four hours, in one go”. In total, more than 150 kilometers that tested the physical, and especially the mental, resistance of the Catalan runner. “It was a very special night. I started with Cavalls del Vent and left at dusk from the Refugi Estasen. I ran 83 kilometers throughout the night, accompanied by some of my best friends, who took turns in sections. When I had already been running for ten hours, a helicopter took me to the start of the Carros de Foc crossing and I continued running. I was never alone, it was very beautiful”, Picas recalls.

This summer Circ Cric has recovered its nomadic spirit and has spent a month and a half on the road. Last weekend they finished an adventure that toured six townsin the Priorat region and the Prades mountains. Precisely for this reason, the clown Jaume Mateu (Tortell Poltrona within the tent) recommends Lo mig del món (Club Editor) by philologist and activist Roser Vernet, born in El Masroig. It is a book of memoirs that is also a literary journey – full of poetry and linguistically well-rooted in the place – through the Priorat, its villages, and its people.

Sergi Unanue (Banyoles, 1993) couldn't complain about the life he had. He worked as a journalist at Betevé, had friends, lived in an apartment in Barcelona... but something wasn't quite right. "I had always wanted to tell stories and that's why I had studied journalism. When I was young, I wanted to do radio and I ended up on television. I had a good time. In the news section, every day is different. I was one step away from having job and financial stability, but I dreamed of taking a big trip. I had to decide whether to leave the stable life I was building and take the big leap. And I did it without a return ticket." It was the year 2018 and an adventure was beginning that would lead him to walk across all of Nepal.

They are some of the most terrifying images in cinema history: the two twins from The Shining, the adaptation Stanley Kubrick made of the Stephen King classic. They played two girls who had been murdered by their father in the dreadful Overlook Hotel and who appeared to the film's child protagonist. "Hello, Danny. Come play with us, forever, forever and ever" was their only line. But Kubrick's way of filming, and editing that alternated the living girls with flashes of their dismembered bodies, made it traumatic not only for Danny, but also for the viewer. 

The resumption of parliamentary activity in Congress, in September, will have as one of its pending tasks to unblock the approval of the conclusions on the attacks of August 17 in Barcelona and Cambrils. Two and a half years after the investigation commission on 17-A was established, the parliamentary groups have already drafted their final proposals, but have not yet submitted them for a vote. The differences between the parties of the plurinational majority, which have been noted in the registered documents and during the sessions, have led them to negotiate in an attempt to approve a consensual text. For now, according to various parliamentary sources consulted by ARA, there is no definitive agreement, although the parties have agreed to try again after the holidays. The main obstacle is for PSOE and Junts to agree, as they are the ones with the most opposed positions.

The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) has submitted an official written request to the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, demanding the declassification of documents regarding the assassination of the poet Federico García Lorca that the State keeps hidden, on the 90th anniversary of the crime.

Exactly 90 years ago, the poet Federico García Lorca was shot on the outskirts of Granada, in a place between the municipalities of Alfacar and Víznar that no one has yet been able to confirm with exactitude. His disappearance is not an exception: it is the best-known symbol of a phenomenon that remains open throughout the State and that, right now, is experiencing a silent setback where the PP and Vox share government. Just as the anniversary of Lorca's death is being commemorated, the Junta de Andalucía – the autonomous community where the poet was from and which has the most mass graves in the entire State, with more than 3,000 people buried in the Víznar ravine alone – has set an expiration date for the law that protects the search for the disappeared of Francoism.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso maintains that, in no case, she has tried to obtain an official residence by purchasing the controversial attic in Chamberí with public money. "I have never needed it or asked for it, I will not do it ten months before an election," the Madrid president argued this Monday.

The PSPV-PSOE denounces that the Council of the People's Party and Pérez Llorca has once again increased the price of public protected housing and is setting it at prices that make it increasingly inaccessible for Valencian families, young people, and the middle classes.

Sixty days. This was the deadline that the United States and Iran gave themselves to transform the memorandum of understanding signed in June into a final agreement. The deadline expires this Monday without this agreement having been reached. And during these two months, the understanding that was supposed to contain the war has been on the verge of causing it to explode again. In fact, in the last few hours Tehran has raised its tone again: a high-ranking commander of the Revolutionary Guard has warned that its defensive stance will become "offensive" and has threatened with "strategic surprises" against the enemy.

The current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is already the second deadliest in history, with 2,325 deaths and 4,945 confirmed cases, according to the latest data from Congolese authorities. The epidemic was declared on May 15 in the east of the country.

A large fire has burned more than 3,000 hectares in Belgium and is already the second largest in the country's history. The fire, which started last Friday, is burning the Hautes Fagnes Natural Park. The extinguishing services are facing particularly adverse conditions.

"They brought me here to kill me. I don't think I'll get out alive." This is the last message that pediatrician Hussam Abu Safiya was able to convey through his lawyer from his captivity. He had recently been transferred to Rakefet, an Israeli underground prison where inmates never see the light of day. When lawyer Nasser Odeh visited him on July 2, he barely recognized him: his face was full of bruises, he had difficulty speaking and breathing, and he could barely stay seated. Several times he seemed on the verge of losing consciousness.

A zero-emission sustainable city, with large green spaces, advanced internet connections, and an industrial fabric dedicated to innovation, is the future dream of Chinese President Xi Jinping. And the dream is becoming a reality about a hundred kilometers southwest of Beijing, and the name of the new city is Xiong'an. The project began in 2017, but after some difficulties and delays, this year Xi Jinping has given it a new impetus. The objective, according to the propaganda of the Chinese administration, is that by 2035 the metropolis will be fully completed and become the model of a “socialist modern city”.

Company turnover in Spain is growing at the highest rate in the last 15 months despite the geopolitical instability arising from the conflict in the Middle East. According to the latest provisional data published this Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), company revenues compared to last year increased by 8.9% during the month of June, five points more compared to the year-on-year variation registered in May.

The Generalitat de Catalunya has chained practically 20 months with an average payment period to suppliers below 30 days with the only exception of August 2025, when it settled its obligations in an average of 32.31 days, according to the Executive reported this Monday in a statement.

The Denomination of Origin (DO) Catalunya has expanded its production area with the incorporation of 60 more municipalities as part of the update of the DO's Specifications.

Car imports at the Port of Barcelona boost merchandise traffic until July. During the first seven months of the year, the infrastructure moved 41.7 million tons of goods, a figure equivalent to a 2% increase compared to the same period in the 2025 fiscal year. According to data presented this Monday by the Port, the increase in car movement was above the average variation of total traffic, thus remaining as one of the main drivers of growth in port activity.

The motorcycle market once again features a motorcycle with the Bultaco logo and name, thanks to the impetus of the Leonart Motors brand, based in Mataró. This small Maresme-based brand has created a subsidiary called Bultaco Next SL which is responsible for the commercial rights of the brand created by Paco Bultó in 1953 in Sant Adrià de Besòs, and which operated until its disappearance in 1983. In 2014, there was already a first attempt to revive the brand name, with a newly created company called Bultaco Motors, specializing in electric motorcycles. Despite creating some models with a certain success, such as the Brinco, the venture was not successful and Bultaco Motors ended up closing in 2019.A bet with a Chinese accent

The new roadmap of the promoters of this Bultaco revival includes a business model not very different from that of Ebro, Santana or Galloper. The plan of the new Bultaco involves marketing an already existing motorcycle, the Chinese Chongqing Andes UT 3.5 Rally, which is already sold in our market under the name 300 Rally thanks to the agreement with Leonart from Mataró. This is a trail motorcycle with a power of 28 HP and only 150 kilos of weight, with a price of 3,999 euros, and which can be ridden with the A2 license. It includes as standard a 5-inch TFT digital screen, a front dashcam to record journeys and LED headlights that guarantee good illumination.

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The trigger was a trivial matter. The argument started with a comment like "are you looking at me funny" and one of the involved parties left. But he returned with an electric scooter and shot at the group he had argued with. This happened a week ago in the Raval district of Barcelona. Two people ended up arrested and no one was injured. This is one of the cases that shows, according to police sources, that it is being detected how firearms are appearing more and more often in new contexts, situations that are not linked to organized crime or large drug mafias.

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The mass brawls that occurred this weekend in Lleida have resulted in five arrests, four of whom are minors. In a press conference, the mayor of the city, Fèlix Larrosa, said that they do not rule out new arrests.

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Three people, one of them a minor, have died in a shooting this Sunday night in Isla Cristina, Huelva. During the incident, two hooded individuals on a motorcycle shot the victims before escaping with the vehicle. They also left two injured, one of them in serious condition.

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The Firefighters have activated a search operation in Torrefarrera (Segrià) after locating a bicycle on a path parallel to a ditch. The corps does not rule out that someone may have fallen into a channel, and has mobilized seven units, including underwater and canine units.

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The Can Bruixa meteorological station in Barcelona has recorded 52 torrid nights with minimum temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius this summer. This level represents a record for this station in the historical series, which dates back 40 years.

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Aquest estiu, l'ARA us ofereix un recull d'articles destacats apareguts a la premsa internacional els últims mesos. La peça d'avui és un editorial del Washington Post –mitjà propietat de Jeff Bezos– que denuncia el nou calendari de vacunació infantil impulsat per l'administració Trump i alerta que podria erosionar la confiança en les vacunes.

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

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"How has the Catalan character influenced the country's architecture?", asks architect Joan Roig in front of a good twenty subscribers of ARA, members of the Club Prèmium, at the entrance of the exhibition "Seny i rauxa. Notícia de l’arquitectura catalana" (Sense and passion. News of Catalan architecture), which takes place at Disseny Hub Barcelona until the beginning of September. It is precisely the dichotomy "seny i rauxa" (sense and passion), prudence and passion, that defines Catalans, which also defines Catalan architecture, in the opinion of Joan Roig, curator of the exhibition, together with Victòria Garriga and Carme Ribas."Seny i rauxa. Notícia de l’arquitectura catalana" reviews the last 150 years of Catalan architecture, since the founding of the School of Architecture until today, through a wide variety of pieces, both architectural material – sketches, plans, models and photographs – and artistic and design works – paintings, sculptures and furniture – with an innovative approach that links the artistic and architectural legacy with expressive movements and social dynamics. All of this is not exhibited chronologically or by style. And what order does it have? Go see it! In addition, one of the attractions is that there is a lot of "unpublished" material, which was kept and is very difficult to show.

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With this chronicle, the Reader's Advocate section reaches sixty pages, which, on a fortnightly basis, is two years and a bit. Sixty pages of newspaper, in my format, are about 420,000 characters in round numbers, the same as a 250-page book approximately. A good time to do a summer chronicle of making of my work, with the understanding that next month I will present the data from the balance of the last year to the newspaper's editorial board and will make them public.Errors are naturally a constant in the complaints I receive, most of them related to linguistic issues, which show the importance of language for Catalan press readers, who love the language and know what struggles it has had to go through and still goes through. However, as error alerts are often sporadic and numerous, I cannot address them all. Concrete errors, however, when placed side by side, add up, and even more so if we add to them those that readers already correct with IT tools and digital comments at the end of articles. The conclusion is that many errors are made, and that, as I have suggested at other times, they would require a final correction or post-correction of each journalistic piece before publication, which in the past times of linotypes was done by the “plate editor”, referring to the reading of the composition plates, one minute before entering the printing press and avoiding that the blunders were stamped for posterity in the unappealable newspaper archives. I refer interested readers to the chronicle that, at the end of last year, I titled “Sisyphus and the enigma of the plate editor”, where thanks to various readers and subscribers I reviewed a series of errors, and I had the experience and academia of Professor Gabriel Jaraba.I'll give some examples of recent errors that readers have pointed out to me. Robert Serra ironically asks me if in "summer and holiday times... there is less text correction?", and sends me a screenshot of page 23 of July 25, where we state: "The efficacy of antiviral transplants makes possible a transplant between two infected people". No less ironically, Andreu Suriol writes to me on July 26, after one of the most mythical stages of the Tour: "Good morning, my lord (and all the readers who annoy me). Could you agree on naming orographic accidents in a single way? It seems that each sports reporter climbs the mountain slopes of the Tour on a bicycle to their liking. I have seen Alpe d'Huez written almost always with this spelling, but in the same brief headline one could read Aup d'Huès and, oh horror, Aup d'Uès. Shall we clarify?" Dear Mr. Suriol, in the trust that we already share, readers never annoy me, quite the contrary, I thank them for their ideas, criticisms and suggestions. And yes, we will clarify: on the paper page, which is what will go down in history, the toponym that appears is the classic French one, Alpe d'Huez, while the one referred to is the Occitan one in two – not "two" – variants.I also note that Josep Bruguera has sent me several phone messages about his critical perception of the newspaper, and in one of them he points out an error not as a farmhouse but as a castle, also without sparing healthy irony: on page 6 of the Tourism dossier, also from July 26, in a photo caption, Lloret Castle is identified as if it were Tossa's and “not everywhere on the Costa Brava where there is a castle is Tossa. We do not deserve to make these mistakes.” All this, in a couple of days that yes, are in the heart of summer, the staff are on vacation and the immeasurable heat of climate change drags lethargy.The reading of the newspaper by the Reader's Advocate is necessarily meticulous, but a point is reached where the words themselves struggle to save themselves, in the style of Espriu, and it is as if they themselves denounced the embezzlement and highlighted them in the red color of traffic lights. We also see, in yellow, words or phrases that are not errors but could be improved, for example, the reiteration of certain discursive connectors, especially "in fact" and "as for"; I swear like Scarlett O'Hara on the stairs of Tara that I have counted four "in fact" in a single "M" size article, not very long. Catalan proofreaders do enough to correct mistakes, that they should also worry about reaching here, the issues where the journalist should resolve before submitting the piece. Journalism is a literary genre, but I fear that, between the rush of immediacy and the digitalization that gave birth to it – the news spreads in real time –, the beauty of the language that proclaims the art of the word will step aside.“A step aside” is a very repeated expression, and there are others that also contribute to settling the balance of aesthetics in bankruptcy proceedings negatively. Stretching semantics hyperbolically, we break seams at will, we fire more torpedoes at the waterline than German submarines in World War II, if metaphorical tsunamis were real, the world would have ended long ago according to the Apocalypse, we open more melons than old roadside vendors, we tear up cards when there are no longer any paper ones and it is materially impossible, there are no medium measures but rather smaller ones, we highlight iconic images, the same meaning according to etymologies from Latin and Greek, we value more than on Wall Street... And journalism, which is the main producer of language, reflects like the cyclopean thermometer of Portal de l’Àngel the high temperature of its impoverishment. Having enjoyed Nolan's cinematic Odyssey has made me reread Carles Riba's Catalan verse translation (1948) and, alongside the exultation of verifying the richness of our language, the sadness for the vocabulary and syntax we are losing floated. The philologist Jordi Badia, in a tweet, mentioned expressions that his 18-year-old son, upon reading it, kept asking him what they meant: “cisellat”, “engrunar”, “encamellar-se”, “tudar”, “a cremadent”...The critical eye I have on my journalistic grievance memorial business does not deny the high definition of Nolan's IMAX camera and I emphasize, consequently, that in the total balance of what we publish, the margin of error is what all statistical morals admit. And thanks to the interactive contributions of subscribers and readers, we must temper them. In these 60 pages, I have given voice to 128 readers and, in this time, I have been able to personally attend to 203, although I have read the 407 messages I have received, by email or WhatsApp, as I have listened to the numerous phone calls. I thank them from here for their contributions that help us to constantly rethink the newspaper and each person's journalistic practice. By defending the readers, together we are defending ARA, because, in an increasingly interactive dynamic, with the unidirectionality of communication that preceded us democratically broken, it is clear that what is written contributes, but also contributes, and in what a way, those who read and convey their critical sense to us.The Reader's Advocate takes note of doubts, suggestions, criticisms, and complaints about the newspaper's content in its digital and paper editions, and ensures that the treatment of information is in accordance with deontological codes.To contact the Reader's Advocate you can send an email to eldefensor@ara.cat or record a message of no more than one minute to the WhatsApp number 653784787. In all cases, identification with name, surnames, and DNI number is required.

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

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In Mallorca, one of the great allies of the boom of tourism were the so-called tourist songs. The lyrics praised the island's scenic wonders. The seed was already sown in the 40s of the 20th century by the Majorcan musician Pere Bonet Mir (1917-2002), better known as Bonet de Sant Pere and professionally Bonet de San Pedro. In the midst of the post-war period, in the song Bajo el cielo de Palma, he proclaimed to the four winds “paisajes lindos tiene Mallorca”. He would deal with the same theme in Un viejo hogar en la isla, Juntito al mar, Cala d’Or, and Canto a Mallorca. These utterly naive compositions contrasted with the famous song Raska-yú, which in 1943 the island artist wrote as a parody of death in times of great misery (Franco's regime even censored it, suspecting it contained an implicit criticism of the dictatorship).

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"What the hell happened?", exclaims, flustered, a police officer with the face of Enric Auquer amidst the confusion of the moments after the Rambla attack on 17-A. It is one of the images from the trailer of Cronos, the thriller about the police operation to capture the perpetrators of the Rambla and Cambrils attacks, which will be released in cinemas on September 4. Directed by Fernando González Molina, responsible for box office hits such as Three Steps Above Heaven, Palm Trees in the Snow, or The Invisible Guardian, it will be the first film to bring the 17-A attacks to the cinema. In fact, it is the first cinematic fiction about terrorist attacks in Catalonia.

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Cirque du Soleil is looking for a new location to establish itself in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, after the L'Hospitalet de Llobregat City Council has terminated the agreement it had with the company. For eight years, the Quebecois circus has brought its shows to the esplanade of Travessia Industrial in the city, next to the municipal stadium. Now, however, L'Hospitalet wants to dedicate this space to its own facilities, which is why it has not renewed the contract with the circus and the company will have to look for an alternative. The Councilor for Urban Agenda 2030-2050, José Antonio Alcaide, explains to the Efe agency that "the city has evolved and now needs to have spaces for facilities dedicated to citizens and for green areas".

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Singer and actress Selena Gomez has had to defend herself against accusations of fraud following a lawsuit filed against her by several investors in the mental health start-up Wondermind. In statements to People magazine, Gomez's lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, assured that the accusations are baseless. "We will file a motion to dismiss the unfounded claims against her," he stated.

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Thousands of fans filled the streets of Mumbles, Wales, this Saturday to say goodbye to singer Bonnie Tyler, who died on July 8 at the age of 75. The artist's followers followed the coffin, covered with a Welsh flag and accompanied by a photograph of Tyler, through the town's streets singing one of his best-known hits, which is Total eclipse of the heart, a trending song after the historic eclipse from a few days ago. The singer's final farewell will be held this Monday at the church of Santa Maria, in Swansea. The city was the artist's temporary residence, who died in Faro (Portugal) due to complications arising from an intestinal perforation.

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“They promised me heaven / but for now I'm still stuck on earth, fighting to get by”. That's what Promise the sky, Delgrès' song that, besides inspiring the title ofThe promised sky, setting the pace for the final minutes of Erige Sehiri's third feature film, rounding off the discourse that the film has been organically building. The director ofBetween fig trees (2022) focuses on three women from sub-Saharan Africa living in Tunisia, legally and socially marginalized. Marie used to work as a journalist and is now an evangelical pastor, and she gives refuge to Naney, who wants to reunite with her daughter on the other side of the border but cannot escape her transitional state, and Jolie, a student with her sights set on Europe. Joining this trio is Kenta, a girl who survived a shipwreck and acts as a catalyst for the protagonists' fears and expectations.

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The North American actor Matthew McConaughey turned down the lead role of Joel Miller in the HBO series "The last of us, the character that Pedro Pascal eventually played. During an interview on the podcast Happy sad confused, McConaughey explained that during that period he was away from acting and focused mainly on writing and taking on leadership roles off-screen. The performer says he preferred not to tie himself to a continuous television project, because beyond "}the first season of True detective, I wasn't very active. The actor has acknowledged that he seriously considered accepting the offer, but that, in the end, he decided against it due to the involvement the series required.

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Girona has a huge mess in the locker room. “Tsygankov was fine and called up, but he refused to change. That’s all I can say,” admitted Quique Álvarez minutes after the draw against Leganés. Added to the already known situation of the winger, who made it very clear at the beginning of summer that he did not want to play in the Second Division and went directly to the stands, are the rumors of Vladyslav Vanat’s resignation, who was indeed on the bench, to participate in the second half. The club, when consulted by ARA, denies that the forward rejected it and says that Tsygankov's situation will be managed internally. The mess is a big one.

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Rodrigo Hernández, Rodri, will be a Barça player. The blaugrana club reached a preliminary agreement this Sunday with Manchester City for the signing of the Madrid-born midfielder. The operation will be official during the week, once all the documentation has been drafted and signed. The intention is that Rodri, who will sign for four seasons, can be presented as early as Wednesday during the Joan Gamper Trophy, according to blaugrana sources.

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It hasn't even been four months since Levante last visited the RCDE Stadium. That night, cold for April, very few would have imagined that in 2026 both teams would meet again in the First Division. Espanyol, who hadn't won for 16 matchdays, was on the path to the abyss, and Levante, who didn't take the three points because they hit the crossbar in the final play, were halfway to the Second Division.

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Traumas are not overcome from one day to the next, but Montilivi and Girona took the first step to begin forgetting the enormous disappointment that the relegation a few months ago represented. Far from reproaches, discomforts, or notable scoldings, both the fans and the team put on a good face. Everyone knows this will be a long haul, and it's better to be comfortable with it. The reward for the energy was Abel Ruiz's last-minute goal, which salvaged a hard-fought point against an effective Leganés (1-1).

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Clara Serrajordi suffers a fracture of the styloid process of the right radius, as communicated by the blaugrana club, and will be out for a month and a half. The blaugrana midfielder injured herself during the concentration with the Spanish U-20 team and will follow conservative treatment.

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Sergio Busquets returns to Barça three years after leaving as a player to join Juliano Belletti's coaching staff. The midfielder will be an assistant with the reserve team while taking his coaching course. The player from Badia del Vallès arrives with the objective of contributing to the growth and development of young players.

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Des de fa anys el missatge que és necessari fer 10.000 passos al dia per dur un estil de vida saludable s'ha repetit infinitat de vegades. Ara, però, una investigació científica ha demostrat que el nombre de passos diaris que hauríem de fer és molt inferior al que es pensava. Segons apunta un estudi observacional on s'han analitzat les dades de 226.889 persones, fent menys de 4.000 passos al dia ja s'observen els primers beneficis per a la salut.

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Segons dades de l’Organització Mundial del Turisme, el nombre de turistes gairebé s’ha duplicat en deu anys. Catalunya no és en cap cas una excepció. Els visitants internacionals que hi ha hagut durant la primera meitat de l’any evidencien que aquest serà un estiu de rècords, però no a tot el país. A més de Barcelona, tenim la Costa Brava (des de Lloret de Mar fins a Llançà), la Costa Daurada (des de Salou fins a Deltebre) i la Vall d’Aran que s’emporten bona part dels beneficis que genera aquest sector, però alhora també en pateixen els aspectes negatius, com la massificació. A l'altra banda, hi ha diverses comarques de la Catalunya interior que de turistes no en veuen gairebé cap i que encara són espais lliures d'aglomeracions.

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Potser ho heu sentit a dir algun cop o ho heu verbalitzat vosaltres mateixos: el sol cada cop crema més. Ara us pot fer l'efecte que a la platja no s'hi pot estar tant com abans, o inclús sou dels que ja heu pres mesures de protecció addicionals pel carrer, on comença a veure's algun paraigua per protegir-se de la radiació solar en comptes de la pluja. Els científics tenen una explicació sobre què pot motivar aquesta sensació, però justament el Sol no n'és el responsable. En tot cas, no tenen cap dubte que cal prendre mesures per protegir-se de la radiació solar fins i tot més enllà de l'estiu perquè, per molt que hi hagi influencers que recomanen prendre el sol sense miraments, fer-ho pot derivar en efectes molt perjudicials per a la salut.

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Tot comença amb una entrada desesperada en un blog. Una anònima busca consell sentimental entre els desconeguts de la xarxa: “El meu xicot no vol viatjar i m’ho ha dit ben clar: «Ves on vulguis, però amb mi no hi comptis»”. Les respostes dels usuaris van des de viatjar amb amics o sola fins als més derrotistes, que parlen de trencar la relació. Potser no cal arribar a aquests extrems, però com podem abordar unes vacances quan no tenim els mateixos gustos? 

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Avui milions de persones exposen els detalls de les seves vides a les xarxes socials. Com a espectadors, cada dia consumim milers de vídeos, imatges i continguts en què veiem festivals de música, bons restaurants, viatges a destins exòtics o plans gratuïts, llocs increïbles per visitar... en definitiva, tot el que no ens podem perdre. "Com a societat hem evolucionat cap a una dimensió en què donem més importància a la façana que a l'estructura. Això respon a un pensament consumista i capitalista", assegura Enric Soler, psicòleg relacional i tutor del grau de psicologia de la UOC. "Hi ha persones que poden venir de l'altra punta del planeta per allotjar-se en un apartament turístic davant de la Sagrada Família i marxar de Barcelona sense haver-hi entrat", afegeix. El fet de compartir compulsivament fotos i vídeos a les xarxes socials provoca que les persones, especialment els joves, rebin un flux interminable d'experiències dels altres que poden fer-los sentir que ells no estan disfrutant de la vida, mentre que els altres en gaudeixen molt. 

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I interview the scientist Anna Bozzano (Genoa, 1966) on a summer morning in the middle of a heatwave. We talk about the sea temperature, which is high and causes changes in the fish she studies. Bozzano arrived in Barcelona in 1992 as a final-year undergraduate student to work at the Institute of Fisheries Research. She was 26 years old, and she has never returned to Italy since. In Catalonia, she started a family, has had two daughters, and works as a promoter of fish knowledge with the project El Peix al Plat (Fish on the Plate). She has been living in Barcelona for thirty-four years, where she has lived in different neighborhoods, and now she is in Barceloneta.

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There is a popular street conversation about the fact that sardines are smaller than ever. Summer is the peak season for these fish, because that's when they eat a lot to accumulate fat for autumn; then they will be able to lay eggs and reproduce. For this reason, it has always been said that sardines should be eaten in months that do not have an R: June, July, and August, because that's when they have more fat and are tastier.In the city of Porto, sardines are the typical dish in many restaurants. Both in street food and in Michelin-starred cuisine. At the hotel The One Monumental Palace, located in the heart of the city, chef Julien Montbabut has a menu that travels through Portugal dish by dish. It is a journey through traditional cuisine, filtered through his French sensibility after years living in Portugal, and which earned him a Michelin star last year. Sardines are, of course, a must. He cooks them to perfection, with bread and oil, and they are a meaty and flavorful bite. Meanwhile, in street restaurants, near the river, you will find grilled sardines. Also meaty. And it is that in the Atlantic, sardines are big, very big.In the Atlantic, bigger“In the Mediterranean, in general, many marine species are smaller than in the Atlantic,” says scientist Anna Bozzano, who assures that it is due to the environmental characteristics of the sea; the Mediterranean has a higher temperature and less nutrient availability than the Atlantic. When the sea temperature is lower, fish have a slower metabolism and, therefore, can grow more, says Bozzano. In the Mediterranean, there are many other factors that could explain why sardines are small. All together, they could lead us to understand it. To begin with, there is plankton, which has lost quality and quantity due to the warming of the water. If the sardine's food is less nutritious, it will not favor its growth.To continue, there are microplastics that sardines ingest. “They feel like they have eaten, that they are full, and then they do not eat their food. Microplastics worsen the metabolic condition of sardines, which end up being smaller and thinner,” says scientist Anna Bozzano, who points to the rise in sea temperature as a factor that stresses sardines. “They may end up laying smaller eggs than usual because environmental stress can accelerate sexual development,” she says. Therefore, multifactorial reasons explain why our sardines have nothing to do with those from the Atlantic.To conclude, let's look at the data to confirm that we have fewer sardines than ever (beyond whether they are small). According to data from the Catalan Institute for Research for Maritime Governance, in 2025, 3,935.7 tons of sardines were caught, counting all Catalan fish markets. This figure represented a reduction of 33.3% compared to the average catch between 2022 and 2024. So we eat smaller sardines than ever, and fewer than ever. Probably, overfishing also explains this decrease. All of this makes us envy the city of Porto, with its large, plump sardines. Ours are meager. And all of this doesn't seem to have a solution.

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It is Friday at noon, and the shade of the mulberry trees of La Terrassa de l’Hostal La Gavina, in s'Agaró, becomes a climatic refuge. A moment of calm from the heat while the sun, scorching, is seen from afar, with the sea in the background. We are in one of the restaurants of one of the hotels in the centenary urbanization, where you can eat whether you are staying there or not. In fact, the barrier separating Sant Pol beach from the urbanization can be crossed on foot and by car if you say you are going to eat at the restaurant. Once inside, everything changes. There is tranquility, space to park, and silence, as if the beaches of Sant Pol and sa Conca, two myths of the Costa Brava, were in another world, even though they are right next to it.On the menu there are dishes to share: coca bread with extra virgin olive oil; squid; Palamós prawns; low-temperature roasted aubergine, and more. I choose the escalivada with Kalamata olives, which is cut into thin strips, and is a success in taste and presentation. For the main course, among hamburgers, biquinis and free-range chicken sandwiches, hard-boiled egg, lettuce and fried bacon, I opt for sea bass with vegetables. There were also mini pizzas and, even better, cold soups, which are always a hit in summer: gazpacho, fish soup with croutons, vichyssoise.

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It is Monday, market day in Olot, and Sant Rafel street is a hive of people entering and leaving the Can Carbasseres pastry shop. It has a large display window, showing a sample of what can be bought inside. On the sign, with the name, there is a date: 1884. I go inside, and I find a whole family working there. The father, Jordi Vilanova, is retired, and talks with the customers who are queuing to buy; the mother, Judith Ribera, serves behind the counter, and the children, Alba and Nil Vilanova, are in the workshop. "I am the first woman in the family in five generations to work in the workshop," says Alba. She is the first to braid the tortells of Can Carbasseres, which are known throughout Catalonia, and which can be eaten for both sweet and savory dishes.

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Maria Rosa welcomes us to her home in Tossa de Mar, which is full of tourists, accompanied by her family, children, and grandchildren, who will stay to enjoy her meal. “I'll make you noodles, because they are my grandchildren's favorite dish. They are not noodles in a casserole, they are noodles with fish.” noodles in a casserole, they are noodles with fish”.

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Vladimir Putin wants to turn large families into the traditional Russian family. But while only 5% of households are made up of a father, a mother, and three or more children, almost 40% of families are single-parent and, in the vast majority of cases, matriarchal. Katia and Anya – fictitious names to preserve their anonymity –, a mother and daughter aged 45 and 11 respectively, are an example of this archetypal model in a society historically marked by high male mortality, the central role of women in care, and, after the fall of the USSR, by high divorce rates.

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Mari Pau Huguet (Estopanyà, 1963) is known for a professional life dedicated to Televisió de Catalunya. There she began her career and very likely it is also there where she will end it. But few know that she spent her entire childhood in the La Bordeta neighbourhood of Lleida. These were the sixties and seventies of the last century, when everything still happened in the street. “It was like living in a village, we didn't have a television and we spent the day playing outside the house,” recalls the journalist. These were times when she socialised with both boys and girls in all sorts of popular games, “like rope skipping, the handkerchief game and strong horse...”, she remembers.

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She studied journalism but soon continued with anthropology studies that have taken her to Australia, where she has obtained her doctorate, and where she lives and works. Anna Molas (Barcelona, 1991) has turned her doctoral thesis on egg donation in Spain into a book, Taming Egg Donors: The Egg Donation Reproductive Market in Spain (Palgrave, 2025), which raises many questions and calls for rethinking one of the most frequent assisted reproduction techniques. The first time she encountered egg donation was over ten years ago when an advertisement to be an egg donor appeared on a job search portal. "On the one hand, I got angry – I was looking for a job, why was this coming to me? – and, on the other hand, it also generated many questions for me. That lit the fuse".

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In 1999, coinciding with the total solar eclipse visible in a small strip of the United Kingdom – the first in over seventy years – the Morgan family gathered in St. Davids, in the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire. Among those present were some elderly relatives who remembered the 1927 eclipse. "But, as often happens in the United Kingdom, the clouds prevented us from seeing the spectacle. Nevertheless, the most vivid memory is not of the missed eclipse, but of the family reunion".

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It was during the pandemic that Núria Casas installed the TikTok app and dared to make videos caricaturing different types of mothers, teachers, or comparisons about how school was a few years ago and how it is now. A direct and realistic format that has connected enormously with the public and has become her current job as a content creator.

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Teo's weekends are usually spent among parks, slides, and trains. At almost two years old, any outing is an adventure, especially if it includes a visit to a train station. Neus Modoro and Kiyofumi Kurata try to make the most of their free days to spend time as a family, whether playing in one of Tokyo's many green spaces, visiting a zoo or museum, or occasionally taking a trip to Osaka to see his paternal grandparents. Theirs is an apparently ordinary family life, but marked by a reality that combines languages, references, and customs from two ends of Eurasia.

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This is a story about birdwatching and it begins, as usual, before dawn. The objective is none other than to observe the resplendent quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno), one of the most beautiful birds on the planet and the most famous of the trogons, a family of birds that inhabits both the equatorial forests of the New World and those of the Old World. To find it, we have traveled to a small village surrounded by cloud forest and named San Gerardo de Dota, in the highlands of Costa Rica.

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Terraced houses, the most traditional ones, the ones we find in most towns and old city neighborhoods, are usually positioned in the same way. They tend to have a narrow facade facing the street, a succession of rooms, and at the end, a patio or small garden. Casa 1902, designed by the Ofici: arquitectura studio, in Badalona, begins where others end. Here, before reaching the front door, a patio has been created that must be crossed.

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This summer I wanted to fill my cinematic gaps (Ben Hur; E.T., the extraterrestrial; Terminator; Legally Blonde…) to cure my deferred FOMO. But recently I found myself obliged to go to a cinema to see a film with no interesting female characters in which a tortured man struggles to return home; that is to say, Nolan's latest. Because cinematic FOMO is best tackled when it's fresh and recent and not buried by thirty-four fresher and more recent FOMOs. Until now I had been strangely connected with ancient Greek people who knew nothing of the Odyssey and constantly heard about it.

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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 listen to Charli XCX's new album. Music, fashion, film is the eighth album by the British pop star and a new, more rock-oriented turn in her prolific career. After dominating with the Brat summer, Charli Aitchison abandons green and embraces black and white to remain almost the only singer of her generation who plays with the mainstream while navigating the margins and experimentation. A singer who is living her particular artistic zenith, having more fun than anyone.

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«Kini» is no longer just the end of bikini: has become almost a suffix. Over the past few decades, it has been combined with all sorts of words to designate new ways of dressing – or undressing – the body on the beach. From the foundational bikini to monokini, the trikini, the tankini, the microkini, the burkini, the seekini or the most recent skirtkini. But if there was a turn that few of us saw coming it was the facekini: a piece that, instead of revealing more skin, completely covers our face to enter the sea. Before, however, that the brother-in-law reflex is activated and someone says that "the fashion world has once again invented another stupidity," it is worth giving it the benefit of the doubt. Because this disconcerting piece, in addition to the face, hides a story much less frivolous than it seems and, above all, offers an opportunity to question the way we look at clothes when they come from other cultures.

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Dromedaries are not native to the Balearic Islands, but, nevertheless, they have been exploited as a tourist attraction. Architect Olga Subirós, curator of the DHub's major exhibition Matter matters, recommends an essay on one of these cases, Treinta mil dromedarios, by writer and traveler Patricia Almarcegui, published by H&O Editorial. Almarcegui recalls the story of Mohammed, one of the three dromedaries brought to Mallorca in the 1960s. "From what might seem like a simple anecdote, the author tells us about the beginning of a process of touristification that still endures, based on exoticization, over-urbanization, and resource exploitation," explains Subirós. The book's title refers to the fact that Almarcegui discovered Mohammed's story on a postcard of which around 30,000 copies were made, with an image showing Mohammed on a beach carrying three women in swimsuits. "It is a brief book with humor and irony, but also with a clear ecological and social conscience," says Subirós.

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Founding figure of the Nueva Trova Cubana and one of the most influential voices of Latin American singer-songwriter music, Silvio Rodríguez (San Antonio de los Baños, 1946) is preparing a tour that will stop by the Gran Teatre del Liceu on September 1st, where he hopes to reconnect with "old and very dear brothers and friends" and will share the bill with Joan Isaac and Sílvia Comes, and on the 16th at the Roig Arena in Valencia. About to turn 80 and with nearly half a century of albums behind him, the singer-songwriter responds to the interview in a dark Havana, hit by power outages and the tightening of the US blockade. We meet on the ship Astral, anchored in the port of Havana, which has brought photovoltaic materials from Barcelona across the Atlantic. The singer, who wanted to personally welcome the crew and all the volunteers of the "Rumb a Cuba" mission, talks to ARA about doctors operating with mobile phone light, music schools closing early, the legacy of Che and Fidel Castro on the centenary of their birth, his well-known request for an AKM rifle to defend the island and, also, about his blog, photography and a trova that resists. "It is almost a miracle that Cuba exists," he assures.

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"For me, entering La Central is like entering a candy store. I go there to look for sweets!", confesses the actress Muntsa Alcañiz. It was during one of these excursions that, "patapam!", she stumbled upon the first two volumes of the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann, which Comanegra has published in Catalan with translation by Ramon Monton. "They stick to my fingers", assures Alcañiz, who is a great reading enthusiast. Only the study of her theatrical roles can take her away from books, such as this summer's at Heartbreak Hotel, Factory, but once she has memorized them, she returns to her daily reading. "When a book grips me, I like to get up very early and, as soon as it gets light, I'm already on the rooftop reading. I really enjoy listening to the birds and reading", she explains.

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L'Ésdansa arrives at its 44th edition with the aim of projecting dance towards the future through tradition. The traditional root dance festival, which will take place from August 17 to 23, will this year pay tribute to the trajectory of the esbart through the Marboleny Circle of Traditional and Popular Culture, which celebrates its 50th anniversary. The Garrotxa municipality will receive five companies from Indonesia, Peru, Cuba, Serbia, and South Africa, who will present their dances and invite attendees to learn to dance them. In parallel, the festival's program will feature local proposals such as Allò que som, by Esbart Marboleny and Horabaixa from Radicel·la, the young root dance company born after sharing the Viver of the Program for the Promotion of Root Dance.The president of Marboleny, Roger Casalprim, assures that "traditional root dance projects us towards the future" and represents "a meeting point, a window to the world of Catalonia's cultural richness". In the same vein, the mayor of Les Preses, Albert Danés, emphasizes the importance of preserving culture. "It is essential to maintain dance, as well as language or tradition, as we are in a critical situation," says Danés. The previous edition of Ésdansa brought together more than 10,000 people in a municipality that does not reach two thousand. Creation through a look at the past

The Ésdansa program will pay special attention to Basque dance. On August 21 and 22, exhibitions by companies such as Bilaka, an artistic collective based in Bayonne, or Kemen Dantza Taldea, from Irun, can be seen. National dance groups such as Esbart Ciutat Comtal, from Barcelona, will also participate with Fars, a contemporary rooted dance proposal that explores the relationship between people, the sea, and light. As is well known, the festival has an inseparable connection with the Garrotxa region. Therefore, for the second consecutive year, a gathering will be held where dance, music, and gastronomy will serve as a shared experience.Dance, in the same way as all the cultural elements of a country, is in constant change, as Heraclitus warned. Carol Duran, general director of Popular Culture and Cultural Associationism of the Generalitat praises the festival's progression and its vision for a "living popular culture, but always with respect for tradition". Duran makes it clear that it is essential to have "a vision of innovation and creation through the root", that is, to keep tradition in mind. Tickets for the paid performances are now on sale and the registration period for the various workshops is also open. According to Núria Feixas, director of Ésdansa, this "learning line in which the youngest members of the household, and also adults, will be able to learn traditional root dance together" is also fundamental.

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There were no clear favorites for the Golden Leopard at this 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, which also did not feature already recognized names, except for the recurring Hong Sang-soo. The jury, presided over by Belgian Fabrice Du Welz, honored two films: the Romanian You don’t belong here by Florin Șerban, Golden Leopard winner, and the Brazilian The Riverbank (A margem do rio) by Matheus Farias and Enock Carvalho, Special Jury Prize, both of which address the worrying global increase in hate speech and violence against those considered different. It also excluded films that were more stimulating in terms of their stylistic risks, artistic concerns, or expository sobriety. This is the case of Lejos de los árboles, by Meritxell Colell, which, however, has thrilled critics: it has won, outside the official awards, the FIPRESCI prize awarded by the International Federation of Film Critics, and the Golden Boccalino for best film, presented by Swiss independent critics.

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"This book is born out of a bleat, but we don't want to dwell on lament either," says writer and journalist Mar Camps (Palamós, 1991) in the first pages of Don't come to the village to rest (Edicions de la Ela Geminada, 2026). After seeing and experiencing firsthand how the villages of Empordà were subordinated to tourism and the proliferation of second homes, Camps decided to pour everything surrounding this issue into a short essay, less than 150 pages, sharp and full of insights. "I wanted to deliver a punch to the table to say that what is sold from the city about villages doesn't fit what I perceive," explains Camps. The book focuses mainly on the municipalities of the Ter River Plain (Bordils, Celrà, Cervià de Ter, Flaçà, Juià, Madremanya, Sant Joan de Mollet, Sant Jordi Desvalls, Sant Martí Vell, Viladasens, and Medinyà) to provide a radiography of their transformation in recent years. However, the reflections and ideas she pours into it are extensible to many other places in Catalonia.

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If there is a businessman who symbolizes the bursting of the real estate bubble in Spain – which, added to the failure of Lehman Brothers, generated the Great Recession – it is Enrique Bañuelos (Sagunt, 1966). In the Spain of easy credit of the early 2000s, Bañuelos created Astroc, a real estate company whose primary purpose was to buy land to reclassify it. At first, the business was not going badly. In 2006 the company went public and in less than a year its shares went from 6.4 euros per share to over 75. And Bañuelos, until then an unknown businessman, made it onto the Forbes list and made a place for himself among the richest people in the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A few weeks ago, the Parliament of Catalonia approved a motion presented by the Comuns parliamentary group and endorsed by the votes of ERC, PSC, Junts, and the CUP to introduce a new vignette payment system for vehicles that circulate daily on the AP-7, an essential communication artery for the country's mobility that has been on the verge of collapse since the lifting of the old toll booths in September 2021.

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According to data from the Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT), 85% of vehicles circulating daily on the main access roads to Madrid do so with a single occupant, which generates significant traffic jams in the Spanish capital. One of the objectives of the director of the DGT, the Catalan Pere Navarro, is to reduce the volume of vehicles circulating with a single occupant by promoting shared vehicles for daily commutes, through the promotion of BUS-VAO lanes, that is, vehicles with an average occupancy significantly higher than that of the majority.During this month of August and during the first week of September, the DGT has promoted a new BUS-VAO lane model on the A-2 highway between the towns of Madrid and Torrejón de Ardoz, which has the peculiarity of painting the left lane of the road red for each direction of circulation. The initiative is born from a collaboration agreement between the Ministry of Transport of the Spanish government, the transport consortium of the Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council.This is not a lane with a physical separation like most high-occupancy lanes we know, but it will function as a free-flow lane for most of the day, but it will be reserved for buses, vehicles with two or more occupants, and other authorized vehicles between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM on weekdays in both directions of traffic, and between 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM heading out of the capital, also on weekdays. At this point, it is important to highlight that this new lane system does not discriminate against vehicles based on their propulsion type (electric, hybrid, gasoline, or diesel) or their environmental sticker, and motorcycles will also be able to use it as long as they travel with two occupants.

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The Alfa Romeo 147 was the last great commercial success for the Lombard brand, with a total of 651,823 units manufactured and sold at the Pomigliano d’Arco plant (on the outskirts of Naples) between 2000 and 2010. Its distinctive, youthful, and bold aesthetic, and a dynamic performance superior to its rivals of the time, made the 147 the last car of the brand to win the award for best European Car of the Year in 2001.

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Carles Ramió (Girona, 1963) is a professor of political science and administration at Pompeu Fabra University, and as of this week formally chairs the commission of experts launched by the Government for the transformation of public administration (CETRA).

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The arrival of summer is the arrival of the main festivals and, with them, the same ritual: the mayor goes out onto the balcony at the moment of the proclamation. But increasingly often this ritual also becomes a headache: the moment when organized citizens take advantage of the most media-friendly stage of the municipal calendar to express their discontent with those in power or the politician who shows up. It repeats year after year, and takes different forms depending on who is on the balcony, who is shouting from below, and what is at stake.

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“Which floor are you going to?” asks a girl to a woman who is walking with a child by the hand, carrying a large travel bag and waiting for the elevator in the building’s entrance. “To the sixth,” replies the woman. Coincidentally, both are going to the same floor, and both are also dressed in a strictly Islamic manner: black tunic and headscarf, and a mask covering part of their faces. Inside the elevator, they don’t exchange many words either: like everyone else, they comment that it’s too hot in Kabul these days. When they reach the sixth floor, they realize they are not only going to the same floor, but also to the same place.

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As every Saturday, at eight in the evening, nearly a thousand people have gathered in Avlabari Square, near the center of the Georgian capital. The protest atmosphere, with a profusion of national flags and anti-government slogans, and their demands are not very different from those of other countries suffering an authoritarian drift in the current global populist wave.

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One year after the historic summit in Alaska between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, a peace agreement in Ukraine seems much further away than at that moment, although in reality it has never been close. During these months, Russian diplomacy has coined the concept spirit of Anchorage –the military base where the meeting was held– to argue that in Alaska the Americans had accepted the Kremlin's conditions to end the conflict. However, the passing weeks have shown that this spirit was an evanescent chimera. Relations between Russia and the United States are now going through one of the worst moments since the Republican's return to the White House,, and the thawing process that peaked a year ago is heading into a dead end.

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A member of the Military Emergencies Unit (UME) died this Sunday while participating in the operation to extinguish the fire declared on Monday in Las Peñas de Riglos (Huesca). According to the Efe agency, the man died as a result of a traffic accident during the work to put out the fire. The president of the government of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, has conveyed his condolences to the lieutenant general of the UME, as reported by the Aragonese government.

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Since the massive entry into Ceuta, thousands of migrants are living in precarious conditions in industrial estates and natural areas of the city. Some have injuries and illnesses, and health workers and NGO members attend to them in the street. However, according to the Spanish Minister of Health, Mónica García, it is not true that the city's health services are collapsed, as denounced by local authorities and health workers themselves. García, who visited Ceuta this Sunday for the first time since the beginning of the migratory and humanitarian crisis, limited herself to saying that some services, such as primary care, are "strained." Words that have outraged the regional government and the national PP, which has once again called for her resignation.

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A new front is opening up for the Catalan education sector. Municipal music schools, with more than 50,000 students throughout Catalonia (15,000 more than 15 years ago) and under the management of city councils (in a system similar to nursery schools), are making yet another cry for help. With a new demand addressed to all parliamentary groups, the Catalan Association of Music Schools (ACEM) is calling on the Generalitat to substantially increase its budgetary allocation "for proper funding".

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

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After years of calls and stabilization processes, the Catalan public administration has achieved one of the objectives set by law 20/2021, which established reducing temporality in public employment as a prior step to the reform of the administration and the improvement of public services. According to data accessed by ARA, the Generalitat has registered the lowest level of temporality since there are data in the public employment database, the tool that collects the evolution of the Catalan public sector's staff and which has not been available online for months.

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We interview the president of the DO Cava, Marta Vidal (Puigdàlber, 1984), in the town where she lives, Vilanova i la Geltrú. She took office on June 11th, after elections she won against four other candidacies. Marta Vidal is also the general director of the Vallformosa winery, which brings between ten and twelve million bottles of cava to the market annually. Her father, Vicenç Vidal, is one of the winery's shareholders, and it was the partners who proposed to the father that he give the position of general director to his daughter, who was educated at Pompeu Fabra University, Esade, and has work experience in banking, specifically at Bankinter. When she was thirty years old, she left everything and went to live in the USA, in San Francisco and New York. Upon her return, in 2017, she joined the winery, located in Vilobí del Penedès. Marta Vidal arrives at the interview prepared with written pages, with underlined phrases, and with a very clear discourse, which she summarizes with constant words: dialogue, future, and sustainability.

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We commemorate the 90th anniversary of the assassination of Federico García Lorca with a special dossier on all the questions surrounding the poet's death.

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The advance of the forest fire that broke out on Monday in Las Peñas de Riglos has led the government of Aragon to decide to transfer the osseous remains of the first Aragonese kings to the Museum of Huesca, due to the danger to the royal pantheon of the old monastery of San Juan de la Peña, and also to the new monastery, which was precisely built after a fire burned down the old one in the 17th century. The fire affects 8,000 hectares and has forced the evacuation of 900 people.

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Maria Buhigas, head architect of Barcelona City Council, talks about her reading with contagious enthusiasm. She assures that she can have up to twenty books on her nightstand, from comics to essays. One after another, she reads them all. The last one she finished is an essay in English that she bought almost ten years ago, Ninety percent of everything [The 90% of everything], by Rose George. "I alternate books that are a bit more freaky with novels and other more frivolous readings to pass the time," says Buhigas. "When I was young, I read many classics – she adds – and now I am very interested in contemporary novels and essays." The book that Buhigas recommends, Solito, by Javier Zamora, published in Catalan by Edicions del Periscopi; it is one of the books that allows her to discover other realities.

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For a long time, Brazil has been an inexhaustible source of footballing talent. Some of the best foreign players who have passed through Barça in recent decades come from the nation that exports the most footballers to other countries in the world. According to the global report by CIES Football Observatory, this year 1,455 Brazilian professionals are playing far from their homeland. But this data does not include footballers of a lower profile, who play in semi-professional leagues and do not move millions. This is the case of three young men in their early twenties, evangelicals, born and raised in Brazil, who in the coming weeks will do their pre-season with the first team of UE Balàfia. The historic neighborhood club of Lleida needs to strengthen its squad for the upcoming season, which they will play in Primera Catalana after being promoted last campaign.

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Barça has left good feelings in the friendly match played in Basel, which they won 2-5. The important thing was not the score, but to see how the team reacted against an opponent who, although not of the highest footballing level, is more seasoned and took the match very seriously. Adeyemi, with a goal and an assist, was one of the protagonists of a match that also served for the young Bisiwu to debut with a brace.

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Nené, Milosevic, Domoraud, Juanfran Torres, Coutinho, Ben Sahar, Lucas Vázquez, Asensio, Osvaldo, Kumbulla or Carlos Romero. The list of loaned players who have left their mark on Espanyol is very long. Also, the list of players on loan who have passed through the Catalan team with more pain than glory. This is the case of Finnan, Arlauskis, Alfa Semedo, Lecomte, or, more recently, Ramon Ramos, Ünüvar or Cheddira. Also, that of Samuel Eto'o, loaned by Real Madrid in January 1999; he was 17 years old and only played 33 minutes in white and blue in the Copa del Rey and a little while in the Copa Catalunya.

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Rodri's signing for Barça has caused considerable discomfort in the Madrid press. You only have to see the space they dedicate to it on the front pages this Monday. A tiny sliver on the front of "Marca" and a small box on the front of "As". If you don't look closely, you might think it's advertising for some product. The best player in the World Cup, who is also Spanish, is coming to play in the Spanish League, but the most important thing is the result of a friendly match for the Whites, for heaven's sake. But inside they can't downplay it, so what they do is try to answer the great mystery. How is it that Rodri, who dreamed of playing for Real Madrid from birth, hasn't fulfilled his dream and has joined the ranks of the eternal rival. The answer is very clear: just as Feijóo isn't president because he doesn't want to be, Real Madrid hasn't signed Rodri because they didn't want to.

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

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When I was starting to worry about not finding good merchandise to start my summer shift in replacement of Àlex Gutiérrez, I came across a piece that, on its own, would be enough to write a whole week of Pareu màquines (don't worry, I won't). It's a piece from the supplement Yo Dona, from El Mundo, titled as follows: “Isabel Díaz Ayuso wears her summer fetish dress to La Paloma: plunging neckline and cut-outs at the waist to show off her abs”. I really don't know where to start.

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There is a phrase I would like us to stop repeating once and for all: "It's normal for sex to hurt." We've been sold it in many ways: that the first time is like that, that if you haven't had sex in a while it's normal for it to hurt, that it will pass, that you just need to relax... And, without realizing it, we've ended up assuming that pain is part of sex.

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Perhaps you've heard of it, or perhaps its vintage name sounds more familiar: sadomasochism. But BDSM is much more than an imaginary world loaded with leather, myths, and misunderstandings. Under these acronyms are grouped erotic practices such as bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, and masochism. And, above all, there is an indispensable condition: consent.

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Driving to where the mainland ends has a hard-to-explain appeal. It is an almost irrational impulse that pushes us to cover kilometers and more kilometers towards the horizon, tracing steep coastlines until we hit that exact point where the continent capitulates, defeated by the uncatchable immensity of the ocean. On this road trip, we won't go to coves full of parasols nor will we stretch out on a lounger; we want to travel to the abysses. We seek the rough smell of saltpeter, the Atlantic wind buffeting our faces and the vertiginous certainty that, beyond that cliff where we have stopped the car, there is nothing else. These geographical extremes, those ancient dead ends where it was once believed the universe ended, have today become the perfect refuge for those who need a dose of raw beauty. From Ireland to Patagonia, passing through Galicia or the frozen confines of Iceland, we propose a route through the great limits of the Atlantic. Lower the windows, turn up the radio volume, and let yourself be swept away by the unavoidable call of the void.

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Borja Thyssen has projected very different images throughout his extensive media life, which dates back to the day of his own birth. From being a shy and discreet child in the shadow of his iconic mother and adoptive father – Tita Cervera and Baron Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva, respectively – he became a kind of pioneer of the reggaeton malemuscular and tattooed in his younger days to eventually, at 46 years old, become a low-profile figure who only appears in the media voluntarily for matters related to art collecting. This change of direction in his public image, however, has been interrupted by a controversy with an Andorran bank that has spread to all the Spanish gossip media, as expected, in the midst of a news drought.

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The 59-year-old actress Nicole Kidman told the magazine "Vogue how the first vacation went after her separation from Keith Urban: the interpreter has lived a "European summer" that has taken her from London to Paris, through Italy and to the clubs of Ibiza. As she explained to the magazine, Kidman's nights on the island have always followed the same pattern: dinner around quarter past ten at night and, afterwards, partying at a club from one in the morning. To go unnoticed among the crowd, the actress explained that she resorts to a very simple trick: she wears glasses and, sometimes, a short dark wig. This way, she assures, she can limit herself to dancing without attracting attention. Kidman also admitted that she needs to be accompanied by trusted people to feel comfortable when she goes out partying.

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Singer Ariana Grande, 33, made her relationship with Ricky Alvarez, a former dancer on her team with whom she previously dated a decade ago, official this week. The confirmation came via Instagram, where Grande herself published a photo album that includes two pictures of her and Alvarez together, tagging him directly in the post. Grande and Alvarez met when he was part of the singer's dance troupe during the Honeymoon Tour, around 2015. Their friendship then turned into a romantic relationship, although the couple only stayed together for approximately one year, until 2016. Since the breakup, however, they have maintained a close friendship.

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The forecast of an exceptional influx of visitors to observe this Wednesday's total solar eclipse and the high temperatures, which will skyrocket the risk of forest fires, have forced the authorities to reinforce prevention measures in various areas of the territory. In Segrià, Granja d'Escarp, Seròs, Almatret, and the Montmaneu plains, access to wooded areas will be restricted; a measure that was agreed upon in Lleida this Monday in a meeting with representatives of the Rural Agents, Civil Protection, and the territorial services of the Interior, but which had already been taken previously in the Ports Natural Park – in Montsià, Terra Alta, and Baix Ebre – and in the Serra del Montsant Natural Park, in effect between 9 p.m. on Tuesday and 8 a.m. on Thursday.

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In the summer, when coastal waters warm up, the presence of a bacterium that can cause serious infections in humans increases. It is Vibrio vulnificus, a microorganism that naturally lives in marine and brackish waters in different parts of the world. The U.S. state of Louisiana has reported nine cases of infection this 2026, five of which have resulted in the death of those affected. All cases have required hospitalization, and authorities have linked them to the exposure of wounds to seawater. During the previous ten years, the state had reported an average of about seven cases and one death annually.

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Make the most difficult easy: getting science, and especially everything related to the universe, to awaken the curiosity of those who listen. And not only that. He is capable of spreading his passion for the cosmos and, in turn, for life. With only a few days left until the total solar eclipse that can be seen from Catalonia, Joan Anton Català, astrophysicist, quantum chemist, and science communicator, is the most sought-after man, but he makes a space in his busy schedule to explain to us how extraordinary this phenomenon will be that we will be able to see on August 12. The eclipse of the century (Cossetània) is the guide it has published for those who do not want to miss any detail.

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