I belong to the generation of the child of Toy Story, that from one day to the next went from playing in the cowboys to be an astronaut. My heroes of Bonanza were sidelined by Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin. The United States had reached the pinnacle of Humanity's technological progress, and they were the best at explaining it. Despite the assassinations of the 60s and the disaster in Vietnam, the feat of Apollo 11 and the lesson of honesty from Watergate still kept the USA on its pedestal.

A 15-year-old boy died last night in the Sagrera neighborhood, in the Sant Andreu district of Barcelona, when he was shot with a firearm in Parc de la Pegaso. According to councilor Parlon, the first indications point to a gang revenge.We have a serious problem, which we did not have, with firearms. In Barcelona this year there have already been seven people killed by bullets. One a month. Drug trafficking gangs use cities as their distribution centers, there is a lot of money circulating, a lot of weapons circulating (remember that we have a war in Europe, in Ukraine, specifically), and their crimes take place in any neighborhood, from Balmes/Travessera to Parc de la Pegaso. They are no longer settled in Barcelona, but rather they live in Barcelona, and they kill there, whether it is the day the Pope comes or the day the Tour de France is presented. And they buy other businesses and have the capacity, if the police and justice do not confront them, to turn us into a narco-society.This week I mentioned here that around 300,000 people would have requested papers in Catalonia (given the Spanish total), and they ended up being a bit less, 257,000 applications, out of a total of one million seven hundred thousand in all of Spain. And this, when at first the Spanish government was talking about half a million in total. More than half have already been admitted for processing. In Madrid, the applications ended up being 200,000, and in the Valencian Community 167,000. On these two pages there is a detail of the ages of the new citizens, from which countries they come from, and which sectors they will work in. We will not review now the challenge that integrating all these people means in every sense. Immigration allows the economy not to stop, but services are needed. Will they pay taxes, and, at the same time, how will we pay for all this? And this is where the budgets that the Parliament approved yesterday come in. It is good news, which arrives in July (!), and thank goodness, because now we were going with the extended budgets of 2023. In fact, having budgets should be an obligation, because as we have said here many times it is not their money, it is our money. However, Catalonia will always fall short, with or without budgets, as long as it cannot dispose of its fiscal effort. This is why a new and much better financing system is needed. And speaking of all this: are you aware of the complaint about the dismissal of a worker from the company Aticco for speaking Catalan. The company says it didn't happen exactly like that, that the decision "responds exclusively to professional reasons", but the worker denies it. In fact, two of the dismissal reasons they gave her had to do with the use of Catalan. The Minister of Linguistic Policy, Francesc Xavier Vila, has ordered the Office for the Protection of Linguistic Rights to open an investigation and take appropriate measures.

In response to a pertinent question from Jéssica Albiach (Comuns) to Salvador Illa about the hell of the AP-7, during the control session of the Government, the president distributed responsibilities by saying that it was necessary to "reflect on what we said light-heartedly and see what is happening now", and that "perhaps we were wrong" with the elimination of tolls.

José María Aznar gave Alberto Núñez Feijóo an order yesterday in front of everyone: to get rid of Sánchez, you must only count on Spaniards. And to govern, in the future, also, only Spaniards, not the PNB, nor Junts. He said it like this:

I love Barcelona very much, despite the difficulties. That the news in the city now is the resistance of two lifelong bars to change the two old signs on their facades because they are larger than the municipal ordinance stipulates is a joke compared to all the easily observable infringements, such as the disgrace of the tacky signs and the blinding lighting of the 24-hour supermarkets (which, by the way, no one can explain how they manage to pay the rent for a central location), which are an insult to Barcelona, which prides itself on design and good taste. Not to mention the Barcelona that is incapable of enforcing the law that prevents a bar or restaurant from running an electrical cable from the facade to the awnings of the terraces, when the safety regulations prohibit overhead electrical cables, as they pose a clear risk of electrocution, detachment, or fire.

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

The American comedian and journalist Bill Maher managed to get the Vice President of the United States, J.D. Vance, on his show. I say he managed to get him on because Maher hosts and presents a show where Donald Trump started as a laughable clown and is now the personification of the greatest national catastrophe, and he's no longer funny, only scary. In this situation, what did Maher ask Vance? Only one thing. Fair play on election day: “With Trump, for you there will only be two possible outcomes: either we win or they cheated. This shit has to end. And you or Marco [Rubio; one of the two will succeed Trump in the candidacy] will have to do it. Can you tell me that you will do it, that you will bring the whole country to common ground, at least on this, and that you will recognize the other's victory if you lose?”

Almost all the analysis space is occupied by the noise of Spanish politics, a noise that has two fundamental emitters. The first is corruption close to the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez (Ábalos, Koldo, Cerdán), which adds a new indicted person:

The hotter the heatwave gets, the more I stumble through Barcelona with the lady with the umbrella. Nothing to do with the elegant modernist statue in Parc de la Ciutadella, which delicately extends a hand to check if it's still raining. The one I usually find is an Asian woman who has decided to protect her white skin from the sun and who walks along the Eixample pavements towards some Gaudí building with an outfit often reinforced with a cap and sunglasses. You feel like asking her for a corner of her umbrella, like in Brassens' song. The umbrella trend has more followers with each passing day, but, curiously, I haven't seen any men carrying one.

This weekend, the PP of Catalonia held its congress, and the party leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, came and said: “Like most Catalans, we also want to turn the page”. The phrase has been interpreted as an offer to Junts so that one day it may be possible for the PP candidate for the presidency of the Spanish government to receive their votes. Junts must already know what they want to do, but it would seem that Feijóo is playing at an interested confusion: Junts voted with the PP and Vox that Sánchez had to resign, but has said in every way that he does not intend to invest Feijóo, meaning that for now Feijóo will have to wait.But it is interesting to delve into Feijóo's phrase to see what the popular candidate understands by wanting to turn the page.And the answer could not be more predictable: that Catalonia should return to the common regime autonomous path, that it should pay, that it should be silent, and if it has to do something exceptional, it should do so to offer new glories to Spain. And that's when Feijóo pulls the rabbit of the Sagrada Família out of his hat. Look at this tweet on social media:“The image of the Sagrada Família. The one the PP wants to represent”. It reminded me of what happened a few years ago, when TVE premiered Operación Triunfo and the PP said that the contest embodied their values of effort and meritocracy to achieve success. Does something work and is liked? They make it their own. Theirs, in their own way. Listen to this minute and a half of Feijóo, very revealing of the thinking he has about Catalonia:“I want to mention something that has surprised again, finally, and that we haven't seen in Catalonia for decades. It is a moment that moved millions of people, and it is none other than the extraordinary inauguration of the tower of Jesus of the Sagrada Familia with Pope Leo XIV. It was the symbol of a capable Catalonia, of a Catalonia that was thinking big again. Capable of doing extraordinary things and capable of building a collective ambition”. Look, Mr. Feijóo, I'm very glad you liked the blessing ceremony of the tallest tower of the Sagrada Família, but hire a speechwriter who doesn't mix apples and oranges. You say he's "surprised again, finally"? Finally what? "That we haven't seen Catalonia for decades"? Do you really think that Catalonia hasn't done anything good in 34 years, between the '92 Games and the inauguration the other day? Has representing 25% of Spanish exports and 20% of GDP happened on its own? Has the player that the followers of la roja pray to and who has half the world in love come up like a mushroom? Does it seem to you that wanting independence is not thinking big, that organizing a referendum to discuss it as the most democratic countries do is not characteristic of a country "capable of doing extraordinary things and capable of building a collective ambition?" Here, the one that is not capable of doing things is the State. And I'm not referring to doing extraordinary things, but ordinary ones, like getting trains to run. What is commendable, Mr. Feijóo, is that with the fiscal deficit – extraordinary, this one – that has been dragging on for decades, the Catalans, as your predecessor Rajoy used to say, do things. But please, continue. "That day we did not see one part of Catalonia impose itself on another; we did not see one part of Spain against the rest of Spain. No, what we saw was a part of Spain offering the best it has, and we want to see it again more".

Ten years ago, Carles Capdevila was invited to the 30th anniversary celebration of the magazine Fent Carrerany from Maria de la Salut, a town in Pla de Mallorca where there are still grandmothers and grandfathers who sit at their doorstep chatting when evening arrives, oblivious to the planes that crisscross the sky at every moment, loaded with tourists who bypass those fields and those bell towers, and who head straight for the coast to feed the island-squeezing machine.Ten years later, Maria has not forgotten the conference Carles dedicated to them, with that wise division of life he made between entrepreneurs and annoyers. The magazine's people are of the first category, of course, and this weekend they celebrated the publication's 40th anniversary. The magazine is still alive because it is good, that is, it knows how to explain the monthly history of a town with its births, weddings and deaths, but also its projects, its reflections on the land and the people, and the successes of its bright children. Among these, the engineer founder of Open Cosmos, Rafael Jordà, who in March 2021 put the Enxaneta into orbit, the first nanosatellite that the Generalitat sent into space.It has been an honor to be hosted at Roqueta, Maria's original core, and to take over from the beloved Carles. Fent Carrerany is conceived and written in Catalan, like ARA, and the hours we have shared in Mallorca have made even more evident how rich and powerful the life of the national undergrowth is, which sustains the identity of the Catalan-speaking countries.

One joins the safe and highly comforting bet of Natza Farré, who yesterday headlined that winter will return (I was going to write that I join it "warmly", but during a heatwave it is an adverb that makes you sweat just reading it). However, it will be veeery long until winter returns. The heatwave has all sorts of effects and none of them good, except, perhaps, that every day we spend melting like an ice cream makes it harder to deny the evidence of climate change and oppose a thorough review of our consumption models.

PP, Vox and Junts yesterday demanded Sánchez's resignation or that he submit to a confidence vote through a vote that has no practical value because Sánchez will neither resign nor submit to a confidence vote. The vote has political value, of course, because 3 years ago Junts voted in favor of Sánchez's investiture and yesterday asked him to step down in a vote. And at the same time, it is no victory for the PP, because it does not have Junts's votes for a motion of censure which, that one sí, could bring down Sánchez. And despite everything, yesterday, at the moment of the results, both benches were shouting and applauding.

In an earthquake, poverty kills more than the tremor itself. An earth tremor of the same intensity will kill far fewer people in Japan than in Venezuela. Construction techniques and the preparation of the population and emergency teams in developed countries act as a shield. That we have to spend billions on weapons and not on protecting people from natural disasters (and here I directly include the effects of climate change, which are affecting Europe more intensely every day) is an insult to humanity and its collective intelligence.

There are days when a new situation is foreseen, in which even a change of era is sensed. And, from our point of view, this is what happened yesterday in Madrid.  The debate in Congress on Sánchez's explanations went as one might imagine: Sánchez defending himself against the PP with the "you too!" (because, of course, the PP can write encyclopedias about corruption), accusing the justice system of bias and therefore, of lawfare, making a somewhat forced turn, presenting the PSOE as a victim of the corruption of Ábalos and Cerdán, and reducing the crimes to a specific handful of delinquents. And Feijóo saying all sorts of things to him. And Rufián asking for a government plan. And Junts made an unexpected proposal, this one, to tell Sánchez: “we will invest a new socialist president and we will hold elections when the time comes, next year” (a proposal that Sánchez got rid of by inviting Junts to vote for a motion of no confidence from Feijóo, which Junts will not do). This would be an account adjusted to the facts of what we heard yesterday.But there was more, much more. Because, you know what? Feijóo told Sánchez that he will be indicted very soon. And the PP spokesperson in Congress said that there will be people who will start singing, like the corrupter Aldama, who will not go to prison and has saved three million euros in commissions that he will not have to return. In other words, the PP knows what the judges are preparing and what reports the Police and the Civil Guard are preparing. And in the afternoon, Begoña Gómez, Sánchez's wife, had to personally go and hand over her passport to the judge, and Zapatero's entire agenda was leaked.

Groups of parents of students, residents of Tres Torres and Bonanova, PP and Vox have demonstrated against the project to convert the building that Antoni Gaudí built for the Teresianes on Ganduxer street in Barcelona in 1890 into a museum dedicated to the architect. They do not want visitors or tourists because they say it will break the tranquility of a residential neighborhood, bring crime, and harm the daily life of the school.

In a world where illiterates and empty heads in general achieve notable media coverage, it is always comforting to hear from students who have achieved the best grades in the “tremendous” university entrance exams, because they usually speak with a lot of sense. The number 1, Laura Tallada, from Banyoles, explains that despite the possibility of continuing in her father's pharmacy, she has decided to study humanities, because she has always liked them. The number 1, Laura Tallada, from Banyoles, explains that despite the possibility of continuing in her father's pharmacy, she has decided to study humanities, because she has always liked them. Ah, the eternal dilemma between career prospects and interests, a situation where parents often tear their hair out. However, I have already heard professionals from the Barcelona digital ecosystem explain that while junior programming jobs are already being done by machines (which doesn't mean they don't need engineers), there is a need for humanistic minds capable of thinking about AI biases, company responsibility, social impact, technological law, philosophy and programming, and user experience. To be sure that Life's Laurels are not mistaken if they don't want to be pharmacists, I ask the AI what it would say if it were their father. And it answers: "Don't choose a career because others believe such a high grade deserves a science. But don't just pick without thinking about how you want to live in ten years. Choose what you're passionate about, but get well-informed about career prospects." And when I point out that the answer lacks the biological emotional factor, he takes me directly to a science fiction movie from years ago: "I haven't experienced a partner's pregnancy, the birth of a child, worry about their health, pride, fear, or the conflict between wanting them to be happy and wanting them to have economic security. A real father can offer a perspective I can't have." He seems like a word machine.

From the sentence of 24 years in prison for Ábalos and 19 years for his assistant Koldo, it stands out that the corrupter of both, Aldama, has been given 4, will not go to prison and will keep the money he received in commissions.

The praise that President Salvador Illa has dedicated to Jordi Pujol and Convergència has done a good to the public life of the country.

The school year has ended, tomorrow is the eve of Sant Joan and summer has begun in the midst of a heatwave, which reminds us that the prophecies about the consequences of climate change in Catalonia are unfortunately being fulfilled on time.And with all, today's news is not this, but that of judge Peinado, who this weekend has requested the passport from Begoña Gómez, the wife of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez. The judge considers (hold my drink) that the police escort for the Sánchez family could collaborate in an escape from Spain. See how big a mess Judge Peinado has made that this morning the CGPJ has met again to see if they open a file on him.There is no doubt that Begoña Gómez has had her passport confiscated to humiliate her and her husband, to see if she finally abandons the presidency of the Spanish government. They are after her. They want her to resign. Even more, they want her in prison. Let's see, corruption within the PSOE has already led to three of Sánchez's collaborators being imprisoned, but this is not incompatible with Sánchez being the subject of political persecution by elements of the judiciary, obedient to the Aznar-era war cry “he who can, do,” who believe they have a corporate and patriotic duty to prevent the amnesty from correcting what the Supreme Court ruled. Especially since, thanks to the amnesty, Sánchez has managed to govern despite losing the elections. And he has been president for eight years now. And it's becoming eternal for them.