The Mossos d'Esquadra pointed out that The death of five young people in a storage area of ​​a building in Manlleu (Osona) The fire on February 16th was accidental: the cause appears to have been a fire in a mattress, likely started by a cigarette butt. Initial investigations by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) indicate that the young people did not die from burns, and that the burning mattress was in a different storage room from the one where the young people were found. The police have now concluded their initial investigation and have sent their findings to the court handling the case. Instead of fire, they concluded, they found no accelerant or explosion. The young people were fully clothed and showed no signs of foul play or burns, as confirmed by the autopsies. Emergency services also found no locked doors to gain access to the fire and did not have to force entry. The investigation also confirms that the fire did not cause structural damage to the building. To gather all the necessary information, the Mossos took seven statements, allowing them to study and analyze what happened during the afternoon and up until shortly before the fire. Although these initial steps have been completed, more work remains to be done, and further checks by the investigation unit are also needed.

"To José Manuel, who died in his cabin." This was the dedication of my first book, published in 1982, which commemorated the fourteen-year-old boy who, a few months earlier, had burned to death in his cabin—his refuge—on the outskirts of the city, near where TV3 would later take root. I've been thinking again about this first tragedy of my professional life upon hearing the news of the deaths of five teenagers, also by fire, also in their refuge, now more urban. Although history doesn't repeat itself, I can't help but recall how, decade after decade, teenage boys and girls seek out spaces of supportive companionship and affection, and, especially, how some, lacking other spaces and companions, seek refuge from adult society. It's the adolescent periphery beyond the periphery of the city: young people on the margins of society.

Roger Saborit breaks with Aliança Catalana. The first councilor the Islamophobic party had in Manlleu has decided to part ways with Sílvia Orriols' party. Saborit already resigned his council seat last May and ceded his position toa well-known Espanyol supporterJordi Rierola, from the municipality, cited work-related reasons (he works as a truck driver) for leaving the City Council, but there are other reasons behind his departure. Saborit himself explains, having contacted ARA to explain what prompted him to leave the party. "I'm leaving Alianza because of the lack of involvement and communication, and the internal sabotage," summarizes the former councilor from the city of Osona. Saborit explains that the party's lack of support when he was a councilor upset him. "They abandoned me. Once I won the council seat, they left me when I needed support, and I had to deal with it all on my own when, with my trucking job, I didn't have the time." He reveals that they assigned him an external assistant to prepare the paperwork, but that the assistant was remote and he couldn't always count on him when he needed him. "I expected much more support, and when I called or wrote to Silvia (Orriols) with a question, she wouldn't answer the phone or reply," he laments. This is especially concerning given his crucial role in hastily putting together the candidacy: "We created a Frankenstein list. From number 3 onwards, they were acquaintances we convinced to join in order to reach the 21 people needed, and half of them got on the list because of me." The difficulties in forming a candidacy for the second most important municipality in Osona are now recurring, and, as ARA reported, Management is considering not doing it if they can't find peopleThe final straw was the drawing up of the lists, but for the Catalan Parliament. Saborit claims that the party leadership initially offered him the number 3 spot for Barcelona, ​​but ultimately moved him down to sixth. "If you're deeply involved in a project and then see that they're not counting on you, it's disappointing," he says. He was one of the party's first members. In fact, he was member number 33, and now the party has 2,500 members after entering Parliament: "It was a coincidence that I got that number," he says, referring to the fact that it symbolizes the Catalan "Catalunya" that the far-right separatists defend, alluding to the third letter of the alphabet.

A group of girls gather near number 66A on Montseny Street in Manlleu because they are confused. They knew some of the five minors—one 14-year-old, three 16-year-olds, and one 17-year-old—who died on Monday night in a fire in the blog's atticThey went together to the Antoni Pous i Argila Institute in the Osona municipality, and while hugging her friends, one of the girls says they came to "try to process what happened." While the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) investigate the events—officers coming and going—another group of teenagers gathers, looking at the images circulating of the burned-out storage room. They also shared a classroom at the institute with the victims, and they too are baffled as to how an afternoon of leisure ended so tragically. "The storage room was a place to hang out, like all young people do," says one of them, the tallest, while his classmates' eyes fill with tears. Throughout Tuesday morning, the area outside the building where this tragic event took place has become a place of pilgrimage for friends and acquaintances of the victims. Residents of the Erm neighborhood in Manlleu also came, many to offer their condolences to the young people and their families. Whether due to the low temperatures, typical of a February morning, or the curious onlookers who had gathered, the atmosphere was cold. This was an expression, in fact, used by the municipal architect, Enric Gil, after inspecting the building to rule out any structural damage. "It's cold in the building today, and it's cold in Manlleu," he said, underscoring the tragedy.

In the last municipal elections, Aliança Catalana, making its debut, gained representation in three towns: Ripoll, Manlleu, and Ribera de Ondara. In the capital of Ripollès, the candidacy headed by Silvia Orriols increased its representation from 1 to 6 councilors and won the mayoralty thanks to the opposition of the other political forces. In Ribera de Ondara, the far-right pro-independence party... from having a provisional mayor to being left without representatives after the leadership distanced itself from the then mayor, Albert Puig, over some statementsin which he labeled the LGBTI community a "cancer".The former mayor's ties to members of the candidacy led to the number two candidate becoming an independent councilor, and the Aliança Catalana project in Ribera de Ondara ultimately failed. In Manlleu, however, the party remains represented in council meetings, despite the resignation of its lead candidate, Roger Saborit, who ceded his position to a well-known Espanyol supporter From the municipality, Jordi Rierola. The fact is that in the second largest city in Osona, there might not be a Catalan Alliance list in the upcoming elections. According to information obtained by ARA, last Friday, the regional leadership convened a coordination meeting, during which the party president in Osona, Marina Quintana, implied that there would be no candidacy.

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The Catalan Alliance boasts of being the only pro-independence party and labels other pro-independence forces as "pro-independence." The arrival of people from unionist parties or those who have professed their Spanish nationalism into the party, however, calls this into question. The most significant case is that of Jordi Rierola, the new councilor for Sílvia Orriols's party in Manlleu. Ribeiro, who replaced Roger Saborit in Tuesday's plenary session, is a well-known pro-Spanish nationalist in the town of Osona, according to several residents consulted by this newspaper, who claim he has deleted some "compromising" photographs he had on social media, such as photos of Spanish national team celebrations in his town. "He's changed his tune and now acts like an independentist, when before he was pro-Spanish, but he's always been racist and xenophobic," they assert.