The Government and the Third Sector Table approved this Wednesday the forgiveness of the debt for electricity bills that vulnerable families have accumulated between 2022 and 2025. The measure is part of the expired agreement signed with Endesa in March 2021, and will mean that thousands of families will not have to pay unpaid bills, without risk of being reported. On the eve of the approval of the Generalitat's budgets, Salvador Illa and the president of the Table, Xavier Trabado, have formalized the agreement between both parties to allocate 250 million euros to strengthen social policies, from the fight against energy poverty to the promotion of employment, the fight against homelessness or child poverty.

It has taken four years for the law of the third social sector to see the light of day. The project was dropped due to the call for early elections, and after months of new debates and parliamentary proceedings in this new legislature, the plenary session of the Catalan chamber approved this Wednesday by a large majority a text that, for the first time, officially recognizes the work of the 3,000 non-profit entities that serve more than two million Catalans –a quarter of the population–, the majority of whom are vulnerable groups. The norm was passed with the votes of the PSC, ERC, Comuns, and Junts, the abstention of the PP, Vox, and the CUP, and the opposition of the deputies of Aliança Catalana.

Music could not be missed, and even less so the piano that accompanied him for so many days to bid farewell to Dragomir Atanazov, a man who managed to escape the ugliness and sadness of living on the street and transformed himself when he played the black and white keys. Atanazov, elDrago, was born in 1972 in Bulgaria and died prematurely this April in Barcelona, no longer as a homeless person but in the home of a foster family. In an emotional ceremony at the workshop-store La Troballa, which Arrels Fundació has on Ample street in the Catalan capital, where he had spent so many hours working, six pianists wanted to pay tribute to the street pianist who played at the Hospital Clínic and Sant Pau and left more than one speechless.

The Mossos d'Esquadra have arrested Jonathan Andic, the son of Mango founder Isak Andic, for the death of his father, who died at the age of 71 while hiking in the Salnitre caves on December 14, 2024. Although initially treated as an accident, a few months ago the Mossos began investigating Andic's son, the only person with whom the businessman was hiking that day, for homicide. The Mossos arrested him this morning at his home and took him to the Martorell police station. Around 12:45 PM, he was transferred to the courts in the same city, where he arrived handcuffed. His lawyer, Cristóbal Martell, was already waiting for him there.

One of the fourteen Spanish passengers on the cruise ship MV Hondius isolated at the Gómez Ulla Hospital has provisionally tested positive for hantavirus in the PCR test performed when the group entered this military center in Madrid to undergo quarantine. The other thirteen cruise ship passengers, on the other hand, have tested negative and will undergo a second test within seven days. The positive passenger is a man who, according to the Ministry of Health, is in good health and shows no symptoms. Following protocol, biological samples will be re-analyzed in the coming hours, and if the same result is repeated, he will be transferred to the High-Level Isolation and Treatment Unit (Uatan) of the same hospital, with stricter and more specific conditions for treating infectious diseases. The rest of the passengers will continue in individual rooms. The medical news coincided with the completion of the ship's evacuation operation and the repatriation of all passengers, except for about twenty crew members who have set sail for the port of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. "Mission accomplished," said the Minister of Health, Mónica García, in a press conference from the port of Granadilla, in Tenerife, where only disinfection of the facilities remains.

Almost the only unknown that remains to be known about the arrival operation of the luxury cruise ship MVHondius on the island of Tenerife is the time it will drop anchor to remain anchored until the Spanish authorities order the disembarkation. The good sea conditions have meant that the ship is making good progress and this Friday it was said that the vessel would arrive on Saturday afternoon and not Sunday morning, as had been planned. Despite this advancement, the night will be allowed to pass before the machinery is started to disembark the 151 people on board, counting 147 passengers and crew and four professionals who boarded in Cape Verde to assist them. For the moment, the toll of the outbreak remains at five confirmed infections, in addition to the three who have died, and the World Health Organization (WHO) is confident that no more passengers will test positive.

None of the cruise passengers still on board At this point, health authorities have three people under surveillance due to the hantavirus outbreak in Spain: the woman with symptoms in Alicante who is considered a suspected case and must remain in isolation, and the two women identified as contacts – and therefore not considered suspected cases –: the woman living in Catalonia and a South African tourist who spent a week in Barcelona but had already returned to her country. Thus, there is only one possible contagion under consideration — that of the woman from Alicante — which will need to be confirmed or ruled out with a microbiology test.

The Generalitat, employers' associations from the social sector, and the CCOO and UGT unions signed an agreement this Wednesday to achieve full salary equalization for the 120,000 professionals working in the fields of geriatric residences, disability, childhood, drug addiction, and mental health. The pact establishes gradual salary increases until 2030, the year in which workers hired by private companies are expected to have the same salary as those under an administration agreement. To achieve this, the Department of Social Rights and Inclusion will establish a new financing system for companies, which links an increase in the public tariff to an effective increase in payrolls.

The cruise ship affected by hantavirus will disembark from here in three or four days in Granadilla de Abona, a secondary port in the southeast of the Canary island of Tenerife, very close to the airport. Here it is expected that all passengers and crew can be evaluated by medical teams, but they will not be able to disembark from the ship. From next Monday they will be repatriated to their countries of origin if they do not present any symptoms compatible with the infection. In the case of the 14 people of Spanish nationality who are on board —including five Catalans—, they will be transferred by an army plane to the Torrejón de Ardoz base, in Madrid, to be admitted to the Gómez Ulloa military hospital, where they will spend their quarantine. The authorities have not yet determined for how long, but they do know that the incubation period for hantavirus is about 45 days. The ship set sail on Wednesday afternoon and Health estimates it will take three days and 12 hours to dock in the Canary Islands if there are no unforeseen events.

Harassment, insults, manipulated photographs to mock, or spying on someone's phone. These are the digital violences perpetrated by Spanish youth, mostly against people of their own age, friends, or work and leisure companions, and also against their partners. A study by FAD Joventut indicates that 26% of those aged between 15 and 29 have been digital aggressors in the last 15 years, with no significant gender differences, but there are differences by age: 32% of adolescents (15-19 years old) report having engaged in cyberviolent behaviors compared to 24% of those aged 20-24 and 20% of the 24-29 age group. The victim's profile is an adolescent belonging to a vulnerable group, such as an immigrant, a member of the LGBTIQ+ community, someone with a disability, or from a socially vulnerable family.

"Now or never." About twenty social and citizen entities are demanding that the reform of the dependency law currently being processed in Congress be accelerated so that it is approved before the end of the legislature, fearing that in the next one, the balance of power in the chamber will shift in a way that makes it impossible to maintain the positive, but "insufficient," spirit that exists now. The associations have gathered under the acronym of the Platform for Autonomy and Dignified Life to demand that the right to care at all life stages and the recognition of caregivers, whether professional or family, be left "outside of political negotiations."

The balance of the first week of the regularization of the 150,000 migrants living and in many cases working in Catalonia is summarized by 12-hour queues at the doors of town halls and social entities to obtain the vulnerability report and by the consequences of having had to improvise at the last minute to adapt to the definitive wording of the approved instruction. "They say we don't need the vulnerability report or the census, but I know people who then don't have their application accepted," says Elida Rojas, a Bolivian with two children to support.

Up to 1,300 euros are being claimed by the Department of Social Rights from a young person with a high degree of dependency who has entered a special employment center and, therefore, should not have continued to receive the fixed economic benefit. But since bureaucracy is not prepared to automate changes, the order for the transfer of aid continues to arrive, accumulating an amount that for the family "is as if it didn't exist", it is not touched. This is one of the examples that explain what the Generalitat calls "undue payments" and which are mainly due to errors or the slowness of the administration; whether, as in the young person's case, due to incompatibilities, a downward revision of a dependency degree, or the death of the beneficiary. Last year alone, the ministry requested the repayment of 10,665 of these debts.

They feel confused, alone, and insecure, wondering if, despite the calls to report the abuser, they haven't made a mistake, given that in courts, at the police station, or at the health center, they encounter little empathy from the professionals who are supposed to protect them. "You question if you did the right thing, if you should have stayed quiet," explains a woman through the anonymous channel opened by theObservatory of Institutional Machista Violence (OVIM) of the State to visualize the mistreatment that public services still inflict on these women. Last year, it received 139 reports, twenty more than in 2024 – the first year of operation – but the promoters admit that there is a high rate of underreporting.

During the Spanish rotating presidency, the Twenty-Seven approved the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and two years after its approval, on June 12, the transition period for states to adapt to it expires. From this date, the agreement will be fully in force throughout the European Union. The text stipulates that the irregular entry of non-EU persons must be avoided and facilitates the return of all those who do not have the right to request official protection. For human rights organizations, this is an initiative that advances towards the necropolitics of borders. In other words, betting everything on control and a hard line in reception. Sílvia Morgades, an associate professor of public international law and international relations at UPF, has thoroughly studied what this process will entail.

"No thirst, no cold, no darkness". These were the causes defended by Maria Campuzano, who passed away this Sunday at the age of 44 (she would have turned 45 in July), leaving behind a life dedicated to the fight for a more just and egalitarian society. The activist, spokesperson for the Alliance against Energy Poverty (APE) and a member of Engineers Without Borders, has been a benchmark in all battles for the rights to basic supplies, housing, and water. "She was our guide, the legacy she leaves us is to continue working, and we will think as Maria would have done, about her strength and example," explains Andrea Vides, a militant in these two organizations.

In the first three months of this year alone, 2,866 people have died waiting for a dependency benefit in Catalonia. They have died in what is known as limbo, the period between when the application is submitted and the administration assesses, recognizes the degree, and grants the corresponding aid through the individual care plan (PIA). There are 128,000 Catalans in this process (the vast majority of whom are elderly people), who have to wait up to 397 days (13 months) on average due to delays in their file, more than double the 180 days set as a maximum by the state dependency law.

Direct citizen service workers at Barcelona City Council have taken to the streets in another day of strike, which has caused basic social services, direct violence care, and libraries to operate at half capacity this Tuesday. The protesters' main grievance is the refusal to accept the new labor agreement that the council has signed with the CCOO, UGT, and CSIF unions, as they consider it to be a "loss of rights for the professionals" in this sector and, in turn, impacts "the quality of services and the rights of citizens." The council has downplayed the impact of the strike and indicated that at 10 a.m., only 3.8% of the 13,000 workers had joined the call.

While most authorized Post Offices are attending without remarkable incidents and by strict prior appointment migrant people who can carry out the paperwork regularization in person since this Monday, long queues are multiplying in the services that the city councils have set up to speed up mandatory procedures. Since Thursday the 16th, applications can also be made online, but it is this Monday that in-person procedures have opened. The delay in the publication of the required documents has meant that today the bulk of the 150,000 beneficiaries estimated for Catalonia are still pending to collect all the necessary documentation.In L'Hospitalet, the queue goes around the enormous La Farga building, where the social vulnerability report and the municipal population register certificate are processed. The City Council expects to attend to 1,500 people today out of the 27,000 who already live in the municipality. The first applicants began to arrive before midnight this Sunday. The sisters Sandra and María, Colombians who have resided in the city for three years and seven months, have been waiting since 4 in the morning. "If they had told us from the beginning that we needed the vulnerability, three-quarters of those of us who are here today would already have the report," they lament, without being sure that officials can respond to everyone in the queue today.