The Oviedo Court will begin the trial this Tuesday of the married couple who They kept their three children locked up For nearly four years, they were held captive in their home on the outskirts of the Asturian capital. The parents, a 53-year-old German man and a 48-year-old woman with dual German and American citizenship, kept their children—eight-year-old twins and a ten-year-old boy—locked up between December 2021 and April 2025 due to an unfounded fear of contagion, according to the prosecution. The couple was remanded in custody last April after a neighbor reported the situation. Both face individual sentences totaling 25 years and four months in prison for habitual psychological abuse within the family and unlawful detention. The trial is now beginning, which the court has ordered to be held behind closed doors "given the seriousness of the crimes" and the "entirely unfavorable harm that could result for the victims, who are minors." A case that shocked Asturias

According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the couple locked the children inside the house, completely isolating them from the world "and denying them contact with other people, both physically and through any means of communication," thus depriving them of their educational, health, emotional, and social needs. When the children were rescued, they were in a chalet in extremely unsanitary conditions and surrounded by feces. The children had not attended school, so the twins could neither read nor write, and they had no medical monitoring of their health. All three were in very poor condition and possibly suffering from malnutrition. When they were rescued, they were placed in the care of the Asturian government institutions and transferred to a children's center in Oviedo. The Civil Guard was in charge of the investigation.

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This has been Asturian Literature Week, a key time of year to vindicate Asturian, a language in danger according to UNESCO's classification. It does not have recognized official status and is not even a language of compulsory teaching in schools, as it is a voluntary subject. But the battle for its official status has returned to the forefront this term, and this Saturday there will be a demonstration with that objective and also with the objective of making Galician-Asturian—or Eonaviego—official in the western part of Asturias. For the first time, this issue will be voted on in the Asturian parliament—although currently not three-fifths of deputies are in favor—after the last legislature missed the opportunity to achieve thisAlthough there was initially a majority, a twist of events ultimately meant that the vote wasn't held: the PP was against it and Vox was especially aggressive, while Foro Asturias changed its mind at the last minute and also joined the rejection of official status. Adrián Barbón emphasizes in ARA that official status "is a priority" and that "it has never been voted on," making the vote "historic." They add that they are clear that "official status is inevitable; if not this term, the one that comes to law." The government already formally defended it in the regional chamber in April, where experts appeared and the project process began.

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At least 17 people were injured as a result of a strong gas explosion in a residential building in the Asturian town of Mieres, which collapsed, according to the Emergency Service of the Principality (SEPA). Three of the injured suffered serious injuries and were taken to a hospital in Oviedo, while firefighters and a canine unit are searching through the rubble to see if there are more people trapped. Among the less seriously affected are two minors, according to details in the local press.

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