On August 12th, it is very important to protect your eyes to observe the solar eclipse. Failure to do so could have serious consequences for your vision. Electromagnetic radiation and infrared and ultraviolet light can cause retinal damage that, in some cases, can be irreversible. This harmful effect is known as solar retinopathy and manifests with symptoms such as the appearance of spots in the visual field, blurred vision, or vision loss, according to the Official College of Opticians Optometrists of Catalonia (COOC).

Rubén Viñuales (Tarragona, 1983) left Ciutadans six years ago for the PSC, with whom he reached the mayoralty of Tarragona in 2023. Since then, he has governed in minority, but has been able to approve, with relative ease, the budgets by closing pacts with different parties. In this interview conducted at the Diari ARA newsroom, he talks about his city, but also about the far-right, judges, and the use of Catalan.

The Catalan municipalities from where the eclipse can be well seen have organized to offer safe and controlled spaces from which to enjoy the meteorological spectacle. The objective is threefold: on the one hand, it is a way for the town councils to help citizens enjoy the eclipse and it is also a new opportunity to promote each city, in full tourist season. But there is also a safety reason, and it is that the emergency teams, on a day that will mobilize tens of thousands of people, prefer to have citizens in a municipal sports center rather than wandering around the mountains to find a good observation point. "Everything that is orderly, the better," explain sources from Civil Protection.

The wine made by Eva Vega and her father, José Antonio Vega, from Vilanova de Prades (Conca de Barberà) has already received different gold medals at the Brussels World Competition, but this year their Viern 2015 has even obtained the Revelation Wine of Spain Award, which the same jury only grants to 14 wines out of the 6,700 presented. This wine, which is one of the many produced by the Vega Aixalà winery, fed by a 10.5-hectare vineyard, will go on sale in the coming days.

Rocafort de Queralt is a small village in Conca de Barberà, or it only has 247 inhabitants, but it boasts a first-class modernist gem: the first wine cathedral built by architect Cèsar Martinell, a disciple of Antoni Gaudí. In fact, the people of Rocafort can boast of having the first and the last of Martinell's 21 wine cathedrals in Catalonia, because the first nave was erected in 1918, but the winery was expanded with a new nave in 1932 and yet another in 1948. This was Martinell's last wine cathedral. This heritage allows them to present themselves as the kilometer zero of wine cathedrals. Observing the three naves from the outside allows one to appreciate the evolution of the architect from Valls, but to sneak inside, one will have to wait a little over a year. The works to restore this modernist gem began six months ago and, if nothing goes wrong, will be completed in July 2027, as explained this Tuesday by Lluís Roig, managing director of Cellers Domenys.

The environment of the three boys who drowned on Friday on Tarragona beach remains in total shock. The minute of silence observed on Sunday in Plaça de la Font, attended by the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the mayor of the city, Rubén Viñuales, marked the end of a tragic weekend, but Monday, amidst preparations for the wake and the incessant calls from the media, was no easier. "We are completely overwhelmed and devastated," explains the president of the La Floresta football club, Pablo Pedro, to ARA. One of the victims, Maikel, only twelve years old, was a player for this humble but proud Tarragona football club, where another of the victims, Elías, who had just signed for another team, had also been trained. The third boy who drowned, Andine, was a friend to both. That Friday, there were three other boys who managed to save their lives and ask for help.

“I could ask my family for money, but you come here to earn money, not to ask for it,” explains Andrea Tristancho. She is 32 years old and a couple of years ago decided to leave Boyacá (Colombia) to try her luck abroad. Restless, curious, and eager to make her way. In the suitcase with which she arrived in Madrid in October 2024, she carried a student visa with a work permit, in addition to a degree in spatial design and also in commercial and financial administration. In the Spanish capital, she also took an MBA in Business Management to further broaden her education.

This Tuesday, the bankruptcy of the cooperative of l'Aldea, in Baix Ebre, began to be judged at the Audiència de Tarragona. Fourteen years ago, this bankruptcy caused 408 creditors to lose their savings, with disastrous consequences for the entire town. Although the cooperative's accounts apparently functioned correctly – in fact, they passed an audit by the Generalitat a year before the bankruptcy–, the creditors discovered on December 1, 2011, that there was a deficit of 6.97 million euros, 4.6 million of which were their savings. During the trial, which will last two months, 293 people were summoned as witnesses, although fewer will end up testifying, as during the preliminary hearings, held this morning, compensation agreements have already been reached.

A large part of the world looks with concern towards the Strait of Hormuz, the passage that connects the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean and through which a fifth of the hydrocarbons that reached the international market passed before the United States and Israel decided to attack Iran. Hydrocarbons are the basis of fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) and, currently, are essential for generating energy and manufacturing plastics. Many European countries fear that if the war continues and the blockade of the strait persists, as well as attacks on refineries and petrochemical plants in the Middle East, oil derivatives such as kerosene, which powers airplanes, may begin to run out. Faced with this situation, in Spain, eyes are not focused far away, but rather on the eight refineries of Repsol, BP, and Moeve that are still operational – among them, the one in the Tarragona petrochemical complex – which have become a breath of fresh air in the face of the threat of hydrocarbon shortages.

A group of researchers from the Rovira i Virgili University of Tarragona were on the roof of the Palau Güell, on Carrer Nou de la Rambla in Barcelona, and noticed the twenty chimneys that crown this Antoni Gaudí building, recognized by Unesco as a World Heritage Site. Observing them, the question arose. Do they work or are they just ornamental? "It could be that they were just for show or a way to boast," explains Albert Samper, professor at the Higher Technical School of Architecture, who recalls that chimneys were a status symbol, as it implied that buildings that had them had heating, a luxury that at the end of the 19th century only the wealthy classes could afford. But it could also be that the chimneys responded to their main function and were capable of extracting smoke. Gaudí did not write anywhere whether the original chimneys could actually work.

Butcher wanted in La Selva del Camp (Baix Camp). Stable long-term job. Morning hours (including Saturday) and afternoons from Monday to Friday. Experience and skill with knives essential. Income guarantee and, above all, absolute guarantee of recognition from the village elders, who are already starting to suffer. "This business of eating well is over," laments Maria, as she leaves Miquel and Pepita's butcher shop. "It's been talked about for a while – she continues – but I prefer not to ask," she says. By the end of the year, the three butcher shops in the village will close, and the only option for the 5,700 residents of Selva to buy meat within the municipality will be to go to the supermarket. For some neighbors, like Maria, this is an unprecedented upheaval. "You don't know how much my grandchildren enjoy it when they come to my house and try grandma's hamburgers... My daughter goes to the supermarket, which is another price, but of course..." concludes the neighbor.

Just over a year remains until the next municipal elections, and in most municipalities, parties are already pulling strings to nominate their candidates and configure their lists. In the four Catalan capitals, a good portion of the candidates have already announced if they will run again, and new names entering the municipal dispute have also been revealed, but there are still unresolved unknowns.

The solar eclipse on August 12, which will last one minute, will be a spectacle of nature but will also bring great risks in terms of crowds of curious onlookers. Both the public administration, which has already got down to work, and citizens will have to organize themselves in advance to prevent the day from turning into a chaotic one. “It will be the perfect storm,” warned Josep Maria Arauzo this morning, a professor of economics at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) and a specialist in economic structure in Camp de Tarragona, who cited the possibility of mobile phone service failing as an example. The regions of Lleida and Tarragona, especially in Terres de l'Ebre, will be a privileged place from which to enjoy the spectacle, but the avalanche of visitors requires extreme safety measures.

Rosalia Pegueroles works one night on and one night off as a nurse in an operating room at the Hospital Universitari Verge de la Cinta. When her workday ends, she sleeps for a few hours and goes to be the mayor of her town, Aldover (Baix Ebre). Daniela Lleixà also juggles both jobs: she starts the day as a nurse in her town, Mas de Barberans (Montsià), and in the afternoons she exchanges her white coat for the mayor's staff. Mar Lleixà has a similar life, although she is the mayor of a larger city, Tortosa, and had to put her white coat away for later. Until this past January, she worked as a nurse at the same hospital as Rosalia, but following a government agreement with the PSC, it was her turn to be mayor in the latter part of the term, representing ERC. "I'll go back to being a nurse later. Because I am a nurse!", Mar claims.

The intense rains that have fallen on Tarragona this winter have filled the streams that flow into the sea and have once again dirtied the beaches with pellets. The water that falls on the facilities of companies that handle these small plastics leads them through the drains to the streams, and then they end up on the beaches and in the sea. The last serious incident occurred due to rainfall between January 16 and 18, as was verified by the municipal beach inspector of La Pineda (Vila-seca), who photographed and documented the thousands of pellets that appeared on the beach.

Data on industrial pollution in the Camp de Tarragona region improves every year, although during 2025, due to the general blackout of AprilEmissions of one of the monitored toxic components spiked. The power outage that plunged Catalonia, Spain, and Portugal into darkness disrupted the normal operation of the chemical plants in Tarragona and triggered a surge in emissions of 1,3-butadiene, one of the volatile compounds generated by the industrial process. In Catalonia, emissions of this element are not regulated by any legislation, but the Ontario (Canada) standard is used as a reference, which sets the annual average for these emissions at 2 µg/m³. During last year's nationwide blackout, levels of this compound reached as high as 150 µg/m³, according to measurements from the petrochemical plant's own sensors in El Morell. Despite this incident, average emissions throughout the Camp de Tarragona region last year did not exceed 2 µg/m³.

The popular Tarragona neighborhood of Bonavista experienced an attempted provocation by Vox this afternoon, which ended in pushing and insults. The far-right party had called for a protest under the sloganNo to Islamization, no to mass immigration", which only gathered about sixty people. The demonstration aimed to reach the site where the neighborhood's Islamic community wants to relocate the mosque. There, however, in addition to a police cordon, some 250 anti-fascists were waiting for them.

"Excuse me for not looking at the camera, it's quite difficult to look away from this." This was how journalist Lídia Heredia, TV3's correspondent in Washington, D.C., apologized to the audience during her live broadcast of the solar eclipse in April 2024 from Erie, Pennsylvania. Wearing paper eclipse glasses, her mouth agape, and a face beaming with emotion, the journalist insisted: "Many people feel like we're living through an experience they'll remember for a lifetime." Many residents of southern Catalonia, and thousands of tourists, will have a similar feeling this August 12th, when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun, plunging the sky into darkness. For a minute and a half, as if someone had flipped a switch, it will suddenly go dark, and even the stars will be visible. All of this will occur between 7:30 and 9:00 p.m., depending on the observer's location.

On Tuesday, the Tarragona region saw protests from teachers who were not satisfied with the salary increase agreed upon by the CCOO and UGT unions with the government. The improvement included, among other things, an increase of around 3,000 euros per year. Not bad, but three unions (USTEC, Intersindical, and CGT) were not entirely convinced and organized a consultation.95% of voters rejected the agreement. It should be noted that 40,000 teachers participated, more than half of the total. The strikes that began this week and end on Friday with a demonstration in Barcelona therefore have very broad support among professionals.

This March 13th marks exactly two years since, after losing the budget vote, the then President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, decided to call elections. The accounts for that fiscal year had an insurmountable obstacle: Hard Rock. On one hand, the PSC demanded that he unblock the project if he wanted their votes, but on the other hand, Comuns assured him that if the macro-casino went ahead, they would oppose it. An insurmountable dilemma. Aragonès maintained his commitment to the socialists, and Comuns kept their word and voted against the budget. President Aragonès called early elections and lost them in favor of Salvador Illa. Months later, Illa also needed the support of other parties to be invested as president, and once again, Hard Rock was the bargaining chip: one of the conditions set by Comuns and Republicans was that he eliminate the tax reductions that Artur Mas's government approved in 2014 to lure investors from the Seminole tribe of Florida, owners of Hard Rock. Instead of paying 55% of the taxes levied on gambling, they would only pay 10%.