Her real name is Eva Espejo Fajardo (Lleida, 1988), but she is building a brand with her artistic ingenuity. She calls herself Hippiiaa, a symbiosis of the hippie universe with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for her cultural dissemination goals on social networks (she has nearly 50,000 followers on Instagram and 30,000 more on TikTok). But, she also makes herself known as La Catalana Indígena, because she also wants to assert herself as a defender of two heritages, that of Catalan and that of nature simultaneously. An amalgamation of proposals that betray her multifaceted character.

It all started more than three years ago. The company Iltirta, dedicated to disseminating knowledge about archaeology and a collaborator of the University of Lleida, designed a simple card game to liven up one of the days of the Iberian weekend that is convened annually at the archaeological sites of Catalonia. It was an incipient proposal, made with domestic and limited resources, with no other pretension than to provide a good time for tourists and enthusiasts.

It all started with Oriol. He was born dead. This was in 2019, when the Arnau de Vilanova Hospital in Lleida only had a basic protocol for cases of neonatal death. The mother of that child, Ester Mora, tried to follow all the steps she was advised to take to come to terms with the loss. She and her partner held their son for a long time to say goodbye properly, to have a real image of what they loved so much and had not been able to have. “Ask for the time, privacy, and silence you need,” indicates this first protocol, drafted in 2016. Those parents from Lleida spent half an hour with him in the same hospital room and, when the hospital staff took Oriol away to manage his body, they continued their mourning as best they could.

Storm winds are blowing for Lleida football. To the category descents of two historic clubs from the region, such as Unió Esportiva Tàrrega (which falls to Segona Catalana) and Borges CF (to Tercera), three more simultaneous ones concentrated in Lleida city are added. It has been a long time since so many sporting failures have been accumulated in the capital: AEM's women's team will no longer continue in the Primera RFEF after thirteen years of competition; Atlètic Lleida, despite having opted to compete in the Segona RFEF, drops dramatically to Tercera; and Lleida Club de Futbol, in addition to falling into the abyss of the Lliga Elit (the sixth level of Spanish competitions), cannot find an investor to cover its debts and is one week away from disappearing.

The mayor of Tremp has worked for thirty years as a Catalan teacher. She began in municipal politics in 2007 and, when she became a deputy in the Parliament of Catalonia last term, she requested a compulsory leave of absence which she extended after the 2024 elections, when she was appointed delegate of the Generalitat in Alt Pirineu i Aran.

The Arbeca-based punk-folk band Pork Chop Boys has launched a crowdfunding campaign to bring a crowdfunding campaign to life, Trans(in)humància, a 190-kilometer itinerant cultural project. The band members will undertake this journey on foot in the fall, from their hometown to the Shepherds' School in Enviny (Pallars Sobirà), following ancient transhumance routes and performing concerts at each stage of the journey. For ten days, the group will walk accompanied by three horses and a donkey that will carry the necessary equipment for the route.

Exactly thirty years ago, the Farrera Centre of Art and Nature (a village of just over a hundred inhabitants in Pallars Sobirà) was seen as a wild idea. It was founded by the painter Cesca Gelabert and the geographer Lluís Llobet, two neo-ruralists with anti-system ideas who already had a home in Farrera. They were convinced by the Irish activist Bernard Loughlin (1950-2018), who had been director years earlier of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, the name of a house-refuge for renowned European artists and writers. “You should do the same in Farrera, and only the two of you can build it,” Loughlin insisted to the young Catalan couple.

When she was a child, without knowing why, she already asked to live in Catalonia. And now, at 57, she knows she will never return to her country of origin. Sandra Monge Palladino was born in 1969 in the Argentine city of Rosario, into a family originally from the Italian Piedmont. Educated in a ideologically very diverse environment, she has always been linked to anti-capitalist left-wing movements. During her childhood, she suffered the blows of the military dictatorship of General Videla (1976-1983), by which she has always remained marked.

The Tàrrega-born Jaume Ponsarnau has just turned 55 and is doing so at one of the best moments of his sporting career. He has surpassed 500 official matches as a coach in the elite of Spanish basketball, has just renewed with Bilbao Basket until 2029, was chosen best coach of January in the Endesa league, and this Wednesday evening he plays with his team the decisive match of the FIBA Europe Cup final against PAOK Thessaloniki with only a six-point disadvantage.

The school canteen service in public schools is always a cause for debate. The high cost of its management, menu policy, food origin, supervision... The fronts are multiple. The debate has been a constant for years everywhere and with a very clear trend: public administration, represented by the county councils, is progressively taking over the control and management of this service, despite the reluctance of some town councils and, above all, of students' families. Families criticize the commodification of an activity that they consider essential for the development of their children and demand more participation in its decisions. “It is a space that takes more than two hours and requires it to be well constructed, well accompanied, that it becomes a well-structured learning time to avoid conflicts,” argues the director of the Federated Associations of Students' Families of Catalonia (AFFAC), Lidón Gasull, who laments the prevalence of a “completely privatized and outsourced canteen system, which is not directly linked to the school”. A large part of the reasons for this reality is that the service, previously always managed by families or the schools themselves, is now mostly managed by school councils, which entrust it to private companies through public tenders.

The school canteen service in public schools is always a cause for debate. The high cost of its management, menu policy, food origin, supervision... The fronts are multiple. The debate has been a constant for years everywhere and with a very clear trend: public administration, represented by the county councils, is progressively taking over the control and management of this service, despite the reluctance of some town councils and, above all, of students' families. Families criticize the commodification of an activity that they consider essential for the development of their children and demand more participation in its decisions. “It is a space that takes more than two hours and requires it to be well constructed, well accompanied, that it becomes a well-structured learning time to avoid conflicts,” argues the director of the Federated Associations of Students' Families of Catalonia (AFFAC), Lidón Gasull, who laments the prevalence of a “completely privatized and outsourced canteen system, which is not directly linked to the school”. A large part of the reasons for this reality is that the service, previously always managed by families or the schools themselves, is now mostly managed by school councils, which entrust it to private companies through public tenders.

The next May 1st marks fifty years since one of the most daring actions of agrarian unionism in the still tender post-Franco era. It happened in Les Borges Blanques in 1976. Three young farmers from the area, members of the still illegal Unió de Pagesos, prepared a banner and hundreds of leaflets denouncing the policies of UTECO (the Francoist union of cooperatives) and the ruinous prices of oil. They prepared everything to be displayed on Passeig del Terrall, precisely at the time of the inauguration of the Oil Fair in the capital of Les Garrigues, where regime authorities and police agents were to be present. It was a success, but unfortunately the three young men were identified: Josep Pau Pernau from Arbeca, Josep Duch Sesplugues from Espluga Calba, and Modest Panadés Vives from Belianes were captured by the Civil Guard and detained for two nights in the town hall cells, where they suffered some beatings.

Placing the child as the main protagonist of their learning, providing them with autonomy to foster curiosity and ability, claiming the natural environment and parental collaboration, and turning educators into simple guides of the process. These are some of the postulates of the educational model of the Reggio Emilia schools, in northern Italy, considered the best and most innovative in the world (even though they were founded after World War II).

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.

Broccoli with potatoes and turkey in the casserole: stewed lentils and ham omelette; macaroni bolognese and nuggets of broccoli; chickpea soup and beef meatballs; and every Thursday, fresh fish from the market. These are some of the menus offered by the Sol Ixent school in Corbins (Segrià), for both its primary school pupils and those of the municipal nursery. All dishes are cooked on the centre's premises. Hot meals and, in many cases, locally sourced. And, since last September, it has also been an intergenerational meal.

—Martí, you have blood cancer.

Ciutadilla, Castellserà, Agramunt, Palacio de Anglesola, Bell-lloc, Bellvís, Alamús, Juneda, Bovera, Torregrossa, Torrefeta, and Florejacs… Bread ovens, especially small ones, have been proliferating in rural areas in recent years. Although still tentative, the opening of new businesses is counteracting a trend that seemed dramatic. "What was in decline until now seems to be a trend," says Toni Frias, the current president of the Bakers' Guild of the Lleida region. But this is no coincidence. At least, not in the eyes of the industry. "It was the result of time and a lot of dedication," Frias states. In recent years, the Guild has dedicated significant effort to promoting and organizing courses and training for new bakers and shopkeepers who have converted to traditional bakeries. "Now we are reaping the rewards," concludes the president of the organization.

After a long professional career almost always linked with Televisió de Catalunya, the communicator Mari Pau Huguet (Estopanyà, 1963) has been Recognized this March as an Emblematic Woman by the Hera association of LleidaShe has been working in the Audience Services Office for over fifteen years, but continues to participate in audiovisual projects and host many events.

Trini Porta, a 52-year-old resident of Montoliu de Segarra, lives alone with a dog and two cats. Last January, she suddenly lost Cupi, a powerful dog she adopted from the Cervera pound ten years ago. An irreversible liver disease forced her to have him euthanized to prevent further suffering. The void he left is still raw. She doesn't hesitate to compare this loss to the loss of a person. "I've lost a member of my family, and many people don't understand that," Porta admits.

One of the major problems facing Catalonia's primary sector is the severe lack of generational replacement. Although the demand for labor in this sector is very high, bureaucracy and the difficult conditions in which they work Farmers and ranchers seem to be discouraging younger generations from wanting to dedicate their professional lives to agriculture. The succession of family farms is at a critical juncture. At least, that's what this confirms. a technical dossier prepared by the General Directorate of Agri-food Companies in 2024 The study indicates that farmers under 40 years old represent only 11% of farms in the European Union (EU), while in Catalonia this figure plummets to 7%. "A combination of social, economic, environmental, and cultural factors affects the health of the agricultural sector and puts many current farms on alert, as they do not foresee a natural succession," the same study argues. And what is this natural succession? It's the children, who don't follow in their parents' footsteps.