No one could say for sure now even what the turnout will be for the general elections on November 29th, but if there is half as much interest in the rest of Spain as there is inside Madrid's M-30, it will be quite high. What is being presented as the mother of all campaigns has had an unexpected start, following the reactions to the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal and her death on Wednesday. The PSOE has pinned all its hopes on the mobilization that has been set in motion following these events. The socialists are masters at handling emotional climates, but in this case, it is not even necessary. The reaction to the Maricarmen case has been quite spontaneous because there was a lot of accumulated frustration over the housing problem. It had to explode someday and it has done so now, which has given Pedro Sánchez an opportunity to try to overcome all expectations.

There are matches that are marked on the calendar in red, and this Sunday's is one of them. The Barça women's team returns to the Camp Nou to host Real Madrid (19:00 hours, DAZN), but is keeping an eye on the sky due to the risk of storms in Catalonia. The match, which was supposed to be played at 17:00 hours, has been postponed for two hours due to the forecast of extreme rain and the risk of flooding. The blue and red club had asked the League for the postponement, which it finally ended up granting. The Catalan entity reminds that one can access the stadium with small, foldable umbrellas, while long and rigid umbrellas are not permitted in accordance with current safety regulations.

The INE has published the GDP data for the year 2025, which confirm the phenomenon that has dominated the Spanish economy for decades: an ever-increasing concentration of economic activity and wealth in Madrid and an ever-widening gap between the capital of the Kingdom and the surrounding territories. If in the year 2000 the Madrid economy represented 17.5% of the Spanish total, in 2025 it has already reached 20%. In contrast, Catalonia keeps its share of the pie stable: it was 18.9% in the year 2000 and continues to be so 25 years later.

Urbagestión, the investment fund that owns Maricarmen Abascal's apartment, reached an agreement this Monday with the resident's lawyers so that she can return home. The 87-year-old woman was evicted last week from the apartment where she lived in Madrid's Retiro neighborhood, which has triggered mobilizations throughout the State, an encampment at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, and a race-against-the-clock negotiation between the Spanish government and its investiture partners for an emergency housing decree. Now Maricarmen will have to ratify the agreement, her representatives explained, stating that she will have to pay around 30% of her pension, approximately 500 euros (similar to the amount she was paying until now), in a contract renewed for eight years.

The eviction of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old Madrid resident who uses a wheelchair, has shaken the entire State. The case of this elderly woman has become symbolic due to her vulnerability, and the protests, which this Wednesday gathered in front of her building to try to prevent her from being thrown out of her home, have had political repercussions. The parties to the left of the PSOE have not been slow to demand a new housing decree from the Spanish government. Sumar, the minority partner, is asking for it to be approved at next week's council of ministers and for it to include, among other things, the expropriation of Maricarmen's apartment from its owners, the investment fund Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión S. L. But they are not enough for the package of measures to move forward in Congress. Pedro Sánchez needs the votes of all the parties in the investiture bloc and that includes Junts. After the breakdown of the relationship with the socialists, the residential emergency has brought negotiations back to the playing field.

The eviction of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old resident of Madrid who uses a wheelchair, was carried out this Wednesday in the fourth attempt to force her out of her home. Although hundreds of neighbors and members of the Tenants' Union of the Spanish capital had gathered and installed themselves outside the building since Tuesday afternoon, the riot police of the National Police executed the eviction order, which led to moments of great tension: the Union reported the use of "violence" by the police, with blows to the heads of protesters, as well as the use of pepper spray. The property owner, the investment fund Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión S.L., proposed a rent increase to 1,650 euros, which Maricarmen could not afford: she has a pension of 1,350 euros and until now was paying 500 euros in rent, because she had an old rent contract. Despite attempts at negotiation, the fund refused to budge. Now the resident does not know where she will go and, for the moment, the Madrid City Council has assured that it has an "emergency spot" in a nursing home. "It is a social tragedy," stated the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, in a press conference from New York, who directly pointed to the Madrid City Council and the Community of Madrid as responsible for not having prevented this eviction.

Who would have told Gabriel García Márquez that in a wheat field that is no longer cultivated –a legacy of what was once the Madrid district of Villaverde, as its name suggests– a venue called Macondo Park would be installed. The name of the town that the Colombian writer imagined in Cien años de soledad is what Shakira has decided to christen her European residence in Madrid, where she has been since this Friday until October 11, when she will put an end to the Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran world tour. There are a total of 12 concerts and, in just two days, the Colombian has already sung in front of more than 100,000 people.

Many things have happened this week, and the most important one (even if it seems so) is not that Florentino Pérez is going to Ceuta today to make a resounding profession of the Spanish identity of Madrid and Ceuta. A kind of “how could I not love you”, if I am Madrid.But today the news in Ceuta is that the thousands of people who were living in poor conditions on the beaches have finally been moved to the city's port, where a decent camp awaits them. It has taken a month and nineteen days for the president of Ceuta, the Spanish government, the judiciary, and the police unions to agree and stop preventing it. A shameful management. By the way, very far but very close to Ceuta, in New York, the governments of Morocco and Israel have signed the agreement by which Rabat and Tel Aviv elevate their diplomatic relations to the embassy level, and they will soon exchange ambassadors. Morocco is not only the neighbor that holds the key to African immigration to the EU, but it also reinforces its long-standing alliance with the United States, now with Trump.But, of course, in a week where the topic of debate has been whether AI could kill us all before 2030, any other news seems small. In reality, everything matters. If we talk about ourselves, it has begun, as you know, the trial of the four national police officers accused of torture and injuries resulting in the loss of an organ, when they fired the rubber bullet that left Roger Español blind in one eye on October 1st. The day before yesterday they said that the operation was “absolutely perfect”, and yesterday the police officers declared, very remorseful, as proof of the aggression with which they were received, that people were shouting “Españolazos” at them, that they were only defending themselves, that they gave warnings and that they were not going to cause harm but to deter. And they said this with Roger Español present there.Police: “The very aggressive manner in which the public gathered there was throwing objects, mm, stones, cobblestones, bottles, from... from the facades they were also throwing them, and their physical integrity was at serious risk. This is more than enough, more than enough, to be able to use the riot control equipment that the intervention units are legally equipped with, which are not harmful, mm, they are not... They are deterrent. They are not harmful, they are deterrent.”But the moment that sums it all up is this one. The judge calls a Catalan interpreter, who gets so nervous that she cannot interpret anything.

A new scandal in the Madrid healthcare system, stifled by years of cuts and privatizations, has once again exposed the shortcomings of the public system in the State capital. Managers of one of the city's major hospitals, the Ramón y Cajal, ordered last year to downgrade the severity of some sixty patients awaiting surgery to improve the status of waiting lists, according to internal documents to which El País has had access . According to the information, two heads of the center made changes to the priority of the operations without assessing the affected patients or consulting the surgeons who had determined the severity of the cases.

Formula 1 fans gave their verdict on Sunday regarding the Formula 1 race in Madrid. Searching with the keywords Madring (which is the name of the circuit) and boring resulted in endless lists of complaints from viewers. So much so, that even Minister Puente saw an opportunity to weigh in and described it as a "dud".

My nose tells me that when you have to exaggerate the success of an event a lot, it is because something is failing. These days one can verify the level of nervousness that reigns at Ayuso's place regarding Formula 1 by watching Telemadrid turned into a NO-DO that is shameful. Saturday's news program began with the following headlines. First: "The consecration of Madrid as a temple of F1" (??). Second: "Ayuso and Almeida tour the circuit". Third: "Madrid makes history". Fourth: "The fans crown Madrid". And the fifth was, naturally, about Ceuta.

The 485-square-meter penthouse that the Community of Madrid bought as a "temporary office" for Isabel Díaz Ayuso cost 6.3 million euros, according to the newspaper El País. The luxury home, located at number 35 on Paseo del General Martínez Campos, in the Chamberí neighborhood, was put up for sale for 6.6 million on the real estate portal that managed the purchase. Ayuso's government acquired it three months ago through the public company Planifica Madrid, which manages the Community's land.

More than 80,000 hectares. This is the territory burned by the serious fires declared and still active in the regions of Madrid, Ávila, and Castellón. More than 80,000 hectares is the equivalent of ten natural parks of Collserola, it is more square kilometers than those on the island of Menorca or represents eight times the city of Barcelona. After another intense day, the forecasts are not entirely bad, but the arrival of the fourth heatwave threatens to complicate containment efforts and places the danger of fires at "very high or extreme," according to Aemet. Emergency services cannot lower their guard, with a dozen worrying fires across the country.

After a weekend of immense efforts to extinguish them, the flames continue to ravage various parts of the State affected by the fires. The forest fire that originated on Wednesday in Burgohondo (Ávila) has burned 50,000 hectares and covers a perimeter of about 280 kilometers. According to the third vice-president of the Spanish government, Sara Aagesen, it has become the largest in recent history in the State. This Sunday afternoon, the wind still gave it more strength, and since Friday it has become complicated due to the simultaneity with the Madrid fire, which has affected more than 25,000 hectares. Added to the 2,000 that have also been scorched in Toledo, this front – which ishas been jointly fighting as a single fire since Saturday– has burned 77,000 hectares in total. In addition, it has affected 90,000 people: 60,000 evacuated and 30,000 confined.

The fires in Madrid and Ávila continue without control. Mid-morning, seeing the evolution of the fires, the Military Emergencies Unit (UME) decided to create a “unified emergency command” to work with a single sector: “It is the best way to manage and save time”, justified Francisco Javier Marcos, head of the UME, from the advanced command post in Cenicientos. “Treating this catastrophe and this fire as one [...] will contribute to the efficiency, coordination, and agility of all the decisions we make”, he stressed. But the presence of the authorities in this municipality eighty kilometers from the capital was numbered. In the evening, the territory under joint operational direction was also extended to the province of Toledo.

Today we have published an article that begins by saying “Brussels reminds…”.Specifically, “Brussels reminds Spanish courts that they must apply the CJEU ruling on the amnesty”. The news could continue by saying “Brussels reminds and Madrid disobeys”, or “Brussels reminds and Madrid doesn't remember”, because the disregard shown by the Court of Auditors, the National Court, or the Supreme Court towards the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the full conformity with European law of the amnesty law is nothing but disobedience. The meaning of it all is clear: President Puigdemont's return to Catalonia is an humiliation for the entire political, media, police, and judicial state apparatus, especially the judicial one, which turned the prosecution of hundreds of Catalans into a reason to live with the rojigualda flag hanging on the balcony, and a merit for advancement. And, therefore, they will prolong the punishment as much as they can, because exiles and disqualifications prevent a strategic reorganization of the independence movement, which, however much it is here and no longer leaves, has not only failed to find new forms of widely accepted expression or new leaderships, but has also revealed the worst face of disorientation and division.The Spanish obstructionist impulse, which refers, therefore, to its essences, also has a tactical component which is the countdown waiting for the fall (and who knows if prosecution) of Pedro Sánchez, which would place the mechanisms of the executive and part of the legislative in the same hands as the judicial.

In Junts, the polls have not been good for some time in general. It is not only the latest CEO barometer, but since Salvador Illa's investiture as president, everything has been going downhill. This situation was discussed at the summit last Monday, reported by ARA, in which the secretary general, Jordi Turull, convened about twenty leaders, including mayors and heads of lists from regional capitals. "The party is doing well in Madrid, but not in Catalonia," was one of the most repeated phrases at the summit, according to various sources consulted. And it is not new: a large part of the party considers that Junts is functioning correctly in Congress, but not in Parliament. What is the criticism?

The invitation from the French embassy to the national celebration of July 14 in Madrid already included watching the World Cup semi-final in the program. What they didn't know a month ago when they sent it was that the match would be between France and Spain. And even less so that it would be the same week that a former Spanish government president – Mariano Rajoy i Brey – would make a racist comment about the French players. This has undoubtedly been one of the most discussed topics this Tuesday at the small palace on Calle Serrano 124 in Madrid, where the ambassador, Kareen Rispal, resides, and where the commemoration of the storming of the Bastille has been celebrated with hundreds of guests in the Spanish capital.

New revelations complicate the situation of Isabel Díaz Ayuso's partner. A report from the Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT) indicates that a company owned by Alberto González Amador did not have "the necessary means for the provision of consulting services" that it billed to Quirón Prevención, as it was a company for aesthetic and beauty treatments.

Traveling from Barcelona to Madrid by high-speed train now costs 44% less than five years ago, when the sector's liberalization began. Although prices have rebounded this year by 9% compared to 2025, the ticket price is now clearly lower than in 2019, according to data from Trainline, the train and bus ticket sales platform.