Sometimes a single image is capable of condensing the spirit of an era. In this case, the photograph by Cheney Orr, from the Reuters agency, showing a young black girl surrounded by white supremacists with their faces covered in a subway car, perfectly captures what it means to belong to a minority in the midst of Trumpism. Furthermore, the fact that the image was captured during the celebrations in Washington of the 250th anniversary of the United States' independence gives it even more value, because it shows that, a quarter of a millennium later, what was once the world's most advanced democratic experiment has still not resolved what has always been its pending subject: the real equality of all human beings, regardless of their race, gender, or religion.

We have barely started July and Catalonia has already experienced two intense heat episodes (the second will last until Wednesday), which has turned the forest mass into a powder keg. In this context, fires like the one in La Bisbal d'Empordà, which threatens the entire protected area of Les Gavarres and has forced several towns in Empordà to be confined, are, unfortunately, part of a new normal that must be faced. Whether the origin was work with an angle grinder or any other human activity is not the important thing, as accidents can always happen, but rather how we can manage the territory in times of climate change to prevent these new generation fires from ravaging natural landscapes and endangering human lives.

The shooting death of a 15-year-old minor in the Pegaso park in the Sant Andreu district of Barcelona has caused understandable social alarm for several reasons. The main one is the victim's age, practically a child, but the next is that the weapon used was a pistol. This is a particularly worrying fact because the Mossos have already detected an increase in the use of firearms related to organized or disorganized crime, and they consider it an absolute priority right now. Furthermore, the murder did not occur within the framework of a fight between groups of young people, nor was it an isolated incident, but rather the Mossos are working with the hypothesis that the homicide or homicides expressly went to look for the victim and shot them with a firearm with the intention of killing.

In Madrid, Galician ambiguity doesn't pay, and that's why when Alberto Núñez Feijóo sends messages that can be interpreted as a gesture towards Junts or towards Catalonia (whether or not that is the Galician leader's intention), someone quickly reminds him that this path leads nowhere. This Wednesday, the great mastermind of the Madrid right and its spiritual guide, José María Aznar, has set Feijóo on the course he should follow. Aznar has called for a "national majority" that includes the left and the right to oust Pedro Sánchez. "This majority will be national or it will not be," he reiterated. Translated into political terms, Aznar tells Feijóo that he must forget about Junts and the PNB and, instead, look towards people like Emiliano García-Page and Jordi Sevilla, that is, the Felipe González-era PSOE. Lest there be any doubt, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has cried out against "the constant independence threat".

As if the Spanish government didn't have enough open fronts with the justice system, another unexpected one has now opened in the administrative chamber of the Supreme Court against the extraordinary regularization of immigrants, which ends this very 30th and has already exceeded one million applications. The Supreme Court, responding to the appeals filed by the Valencian and Aragonese governments, both from the PP, now questions the legality of the regularization based on European regulations. This new judicial blow to the Sánchez government is signed by Carlos Lesmes, a conservative magistrate who was president of the CGPJ and the TS for 5 years; Wenceslao Olea, who was a member of the CGPJ at the proposal of the PP, and Fernando Román García, who was Secretary of State for Justice under Mariano Rajoy.

After the pandemic, this academic year that has just ended has surely been the hardest of recent years. The entrenched problems in the school world have finally burst the seams of a system that neither the government, nor teachers, nor pedagogues can manage to revive. Within the framework of the global educational crisis, marked by the loss of authority and the overprotection of children, the Catalan case has its own characteristics and tensions within a complicated negative drift.

Over the years, life sciences, ranging from biotechnology to pharmaceuticals, consolidated as the third economic activity in Catalonia, have become one of the pillars for building a new economic model that distances us from the low-wage formula. In essence, it is about promoting activities that generate a lot of added value or, more precisely, much more value per worker. In short, economic activities that allow productivity to increase. An outstanding subject, although there are signs of improvement, as indicated by the Economic Report of Catalonia 2025, a study prepared by the Catalan Chambers of Commerce.

These days Barcelona is full of architects from all over the world. Tomorrow, the congress of the International Union of Architects opens at the Tres Xemeneies in Sant Adrià, which over the course of this week will debate the great challenges and unknowns facing the profession. Just like thirty years ago, when there was also a world congress of architects that almost died of success – sessions had to be held at the Palau Sant Jordi – the expectation is high, although it is expected that, at least in the organizational sphere, the spaces will be adapted to the needs. What is curious is that the debate topics have not changed much, even if it seems so from the language used, but the context is very different.

Venezuela has just suffered two devastating earthquakes that have exposed, if that were even possible, the inability of a bankrupt state to face the harsh reality. The earthquake has stripped bare organizational miseries and exponentially accentuated the torn seams of a country that was not working and that is now literally – physically and psychologically – in pieces.

Questioning electoral results is a strategy employed by the global far-right, which Vox has now imported to Spain, but that does not make it any less dangerous. Not long ago, Donald Trump still had not accepted his 2020 electoral defeat to Joe Biden, even though there is no evidence to suggest he won those elections. Now, Santiago Abascal, and to a lesser extent also the PP with Isabel Díaz Ayuso, are stirring up the specter of electoral fraud and accusing Pedro Sánchez of preparing a fix for the upcoming general elections.

The Congress of Deputies once again experienced one of those disastrous days this Wednesday that cause citizens to distance themselves from politics. The exchange of recriminations between the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has brought no new developments and has only served to further tarnish the political climate, something that, as some spokespersons have rightly warned, primarily benefits the far-right. In a normal democracy, a verdict like the one in the Ábalos case, in a judicial process that has been suspiciously swift and with sentences that some jurists deem disproportionate, would be enough to bring down a government. But it is true that Spain has peculiarities that explain both Pedro Sánchez's resistance to throwing in the towel and why no partner is currently considering supporting a motion of no confidence alongside the PP and Vox.

The anti-immigration agenda has been gaining ground in Europe for some time. Less than a week ago, far-right MEPs greeted the approval of a law to speed up the expulsion of immigrants and the construction of centres in third countries to host deportees with applause and shouts of "Send them back!" ("Send them back", in English). And this Tuesday, high-ranking European officials have received in Brussels none other than a delegation of the Taliban from Afghanistan with the idea of exploring the possibility that refugees from this country who are in Europe can be returned in the future.

The Supreme Court has issued a ruling against the former minister and former organization secretary of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos, and his advisor Koldo García, which aims to be exemplary with public officials, with sentences of 24 years and three months for the former and 19 years and 8 months for the latter, but it is suspiciously lenient with the businessman who was the main beneficiary of the scheme, Víctor de Aldama, who has only received 4 and a half years. A sentence that the Court suspends in exchange for community work, arguing that thanks to his collaboration, the depths of the so-called mask case have been reached. In other words, some have sentences comparable to those who have committed murder and will have to spend a minimum of 15 years behind bars, while others, in this case the corrupting businessman, will not have to set foot in prison.

The data and figures on the situation of the housing market, inaccessible for both purchase and rent for a large part of the population, paint a distressing picture. One of the latest was the annual report by the Bank of Spain, which, in addition to reflecting the effort families have to make to pay for their living space and the risk this poses to growth, once again brings to the fore the need to increase supply. On the one hand, it calculates a deficit of 700,000 homes, which continues to rise. This is the figure that should be put on the market to curb price increases. But it turns out that there are at the same time 900,000 completed apartments throughout Spain, representing 3.3% of the entire housing stock, which are in the hands of non-resident foreigners or are intended for tourism, instead of being put on the market as residential supply.

Ten years ago, the United Kingdom was immersed in the campaign for the Brexit referendum. Supporters of leaving the European Union promised that, by regaining control of borders and trade policy, the UK would soon become an economic power of such magnitude that no one would remember the time it belonged to the Union. There would be fewer immigrants, less taxes would be paid, and, thanks to new trade agreements, there would be so much prosperity that everyone would live better. With this promise, on June 23, 2016, the Brexiters won at the polls by a narrow margin of votes: 51.9% versus 48.1%.

It is difficult to talk about lawfare in the cases that harass the PSOE due to the multitude of evidence and proof that accumulate daily, but if there is one that could serve to illustrate a textbook case of lawfare it would be the one affecting the wife of the Spanish president, Begoña Gómez. Judge Juan Carlos Peinado has led a surreal investigation, guided by evident bad faith and hostility towards Pedro Sánchez and his circle. For this reason, everyone took for granted that last Monday, when Begoña Gómez was summoned for a hearing, the judge would proceed to inform her of her indictment and the opening of oral proceedings. Surprisingly, however, five days later, the judge has not yet communicated his decision, nor has he ruled on the popular prosecution's request to withdraw her passport preventively, which unjustifiably prolongs the procedure.

Catalan is not progressing adequately in Europe. With its claimed official status in institutions set aside – one of the conditions ERC, and especially Junts, imposed on Pedro Sánchez to invest him as president – the forceful arguments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) now arrive, endorsing the obligation of 25% Castilian in schools, as defended by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC).

The PSOE was holding its breath following the indictment of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero this Wednesday, and while it is true that the worst imaginable scenario, which was pre-trial detention, did not occur, and the judge did not even order his passport to be revoked, doubts about his case remain the same. This is partly also due to the former president's defense strategy, which has requested more time to explain the origin of the jewelry found in his office – valued at 1.3 million euros – and has also refused to answer about the mobile phone messages of the main shareholder of the company Plus Ultra, Rodolfo Reyes, which are the trigger for the investigation, because his defense is trying to invalidate the evidence. At the end of his statement, the judge made it clear that the testimony had not managed to "discredit the indications" against him, although he admitted that the investigation is in an "embryonic" phase.

In geopolitics, things change very quickly, and while a few weeks ago Vladimir Putin appeared to be one of the indirect winners of the Iran war, as the closure of Hormuz benefited his oil exports, now with the agreement to reopen the strait, the tables may have turned. At least that is what the European members of the G-7 intend, who plan to pressure Donald Trump to take advantage now to increase pressure on the Kremlin to desist from the occupation of Ukraine and agree to sign a peace deal. Trump himself has agreed, and he was seen in a friendly attitude chatting with Volodymyr Zelensky at the Evian summit in France.

As the hours pass and more details emerge about the memorandum agreed between Iran and the United States, it seems clearer that it represents a victory for Persian diplomacy over American diplomacy. The agreement, which will be signed on Friday, has been received with joy by the markets as it foresees the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic, but the fine print leaves Donald Trump in a very bad light. One only needs to look at the reaction of the Israeli media, which consider it practically a surrender to the ayatollah regime.