In October 2015, agents from the Civil Guard's economic crimes unit entered Tarragona City Hall to seize the hiring files of the Municipal Institute of Social Services during the years 2011 and 2012. The Civil Guard, which conducted searches in various municipal offices that day, was acting on orders from the Tarragona Court of Instruction number 1, which was investigating possible irregularities following a complaint filed by the CUP in 2013. Thirteen years after that complaint, the trial is arriving, which involves a heavyweight of the PSC: the then-socialist mayor Josep Fèlix Ballesteros. The Public Prosecutor's Office is requesting five years and eight months in prison for him. The PSC is accused of being a civilly liable party for profit and has already had to pay a bail of 276,157 euros. In total, there are nine people accused in this case of the crimes of prevarication, embezzlement of public funds, fraud, and document forgery, among others. And also five other people accused of being civilly liable parties for profit, in addition to the PSC. Ballesteros' lawyer, David Rocamora, explains to ARA that they are eager for the trial to be held in order to be able to prove the former mayor's innocence.

Reducing emissions, generating energy, and obtaining fertilizers, and above all, continuing to research. These are the three functions of the new biogas plant that the Director General of Agriculture and Livestock, Rosa Altisent, presented this Monday at the facilities of the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) in Constantí (Tarragonès), Mas Bové. It is the first biogas plant in the entire State at a public research center, and this characteristic should foster knowledge about this energy generation system, which, although it has been used for a long time, has gained more interest in recent years, partly due to the price hikes caused by the war in the Middle East, one of the areas where the most fertilizers in the whole world are produced.

An explosion at the practical laboratory of the Faculty of Chemistry of the Rovira i Virgili University, in Tarragona, has left at least three people injured. According to the Generalitat Fire Department, who received the notice at 9:17 a.m. this Monday morning, the explosion occurred while chemical products were being handled. Seven crews are working on the incident at the Faculty, located on Marcel·lí Domingo street. The three workers, who were able to notify 112, have been transferred to the Joan XXIII Hospital and the Santa Tecla Hospital. Two of them are in serious condition and one is in mild condition, although all three are out of danger. In addition, one of them requires special medical attention, for personal health reasons.

If it is true that he who has most needs least, Montserrat Domingo surpasses us all. One could say that with prayer, she has enough. She lives in an old stable of about 40 square meters, distributed over two floors. The dining table is full of cardstock and small pots of paint that she uses to reproduce the flowers and plants that surround her. She makes bookmarks with them and gives them away to visitors. The walls are covered with calendars from past years and books, especially on religion and icons, but also on artificial intelligence and nature. In one of them, dedicated to foxes, she even appears, where the authors explain that a lame fox used to approach the hermitage of Sant Joan del Codolar so that the hermit woman would give it food. "It was coming for a long time and it would stretch out right here. It was lame, but when someone came, it would run away. It's dead now," she recalls. She also has dozens of copies of Serra d'Or, the magazine published by the Abbey of Montserrat. The animals of the forest, the plants, the ancient trees, and prayer, especially prayer, are her life. "Prayer is what sustains me," she says.

Pep and Dolors's house is like a time tunnel: as you go down floors, you change centuries. And after descending winding stairs and passing through rooms full of millstones and gears, you reach the medieval age. There are official documents that already mention this mill in the year 1195, after the Christians expelled the Muslims, but it's most likely even older.

It's too hot now and it's a bad idea to go out on the balcony. The sun beats down like a slab. But in winter, when Núria Rosselló Masip goes out on the balcony, she also has to take precautions. "There's always some tourist looking and when I go out on the balcony they take pictures of me, but I hide," she explains. And that's because Nuri lives on one of the most beautiful balconies in Tarragona and probably the one most photographed by tourists: right on the Roman wall of Tarragona. Furthermore, the building where she lives is above the Portal de Sant Antoni, one of the places where this impressive work of the Roman empire looks its best.

With a modest budget – that of a mountain village of only 644 inhabitants – organizing the arrival of thousands of visitors to see the eclipse was not easy at all. But Prades (Baix Camp) managed it. The Generalitat had committed to helping only those municipalities chosen as observation points that, among other requirements, had to have more than 3,000 inhabitants and more than 55 seconds of total eclipse. Prades, which enjoys the accreditation of one of the best skies in Catalonia, was left out. Not a single euro. "Nobody has helped us," lamented the mayoress, Lídia Bargas, this Thursday.

"Wow". Almost in unison. Never before had a galactic orgasm of this magnitude been experienced in Prades. About 4,000 people looked at the sky with super-approved glasses until the Moon completely covered the Sun. "Woooow". And many shouts. Some cries. Lots of applause and a lot of emotion. In Prades, which has one of the best skies in Catalonia, the eclipse could be seen perfectly, both from the esplanades set up by the City Council and from those prepared by the Prades Mountains Astronomical Park. People came from all over Catalonia, from the rest of Spain, from Japan, from the United States, and many French people.

In 1982, Àngel Querol was quietly reading La Vanguardia when he saw an image that seemed familiar to him. "Pili, isn't this our house?" he asked his wife. For reasons only known to small towns, Pablo Picasso's stay in Horta de Sant Joan (Terra Alta) had always been treated with great discretion.

The real estate agent, who was a friend of theirs, had already warned them: "The problem with this house is that if you go to see it, you'll fall in love with it." And so it was. They tried to calculate how much the renovation of this gem might cost, but it was totally impossible to make even a minimal estimate. And, since you can't fight love, they bought it.

The sea breeze is that wind that blows from the sea towards the land, especially in summer and during the hottest hours. The increase in temperature that the land experiences causes the air to rise, and the vacuum left by this process is filled by the breeze coming from the sea, fresh, pleasant, and with a taste of salt. Feeling the sea breeze is a pleasure in itself, but it can be even more intense if we accompany it with a good meal and a good wine. Enjoying a good dinner near the sea allows us to caress happiness, and in Catalonia, the Valencian Country, and the Balearic Islands, there are extraordinary corners to put it to the test. This article collects seven terraces with a sea flavor to enjoy the coast of Tarragona.

On August 12th, it is very important to protect your eyes to observe the solar eclipse. Not doing so could have serious consequences for your vision. Electromagnetic radiation and infrared and ultraviolet light can cause lesions to the retina which, 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 which the eclipse can be well observed 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 that 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 looking for a good observation point. "Anything 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.