Long before it emerged that James Talarico would be the winner in Texas, the Republican engine room already knew they had lost. Ken Paxton, their candidate for the United States Senate, was not gathering enough support in traditionally Republican districts. For this reason, the watch party that they had organized in Dallas to follow the election night, with popcorn and all kinds of drinks with ice cubes –everything has ice cubes in the United States, even wine–, was anything but a party. Not only did Talarico beat Paxton, but Texans looked to the left in the vast majority of votes that were at stake. This, despite the investment of more than 200 million dollars by the tycoon Elon Musk in the Texas campaign. In fact, the Senate race between Talarico and Paxton has broken the record for spending in a non-federal election.

Barça deactivated Rio Breogan in time (99-91) and added their seventh consecutive victory. The blue and garnet team, who lost Kevin Punter to injury, recovered from an eight-point deficit. The game was tied entering the final five minutes, but the 60 points scored in the second half were decisive. "We did many things well to overcome the injuries," said Sekulic. Darío Brizuela celebrated his birthday with 16 points.

It has taken almost a month since ERC closed its list for November 29th for Gabriel Rufián and Oriol Junqueras to have taken the stage together. In fact, the republicans' first pre-campaign event two weeks ago was shared: Irene Montero and Gabriel Rufián starred in their first joint act in Barcelona –this Saturday they did it in Madrid–. It was not until this Sunday that ERC organized its first pre-campaign event, in Badalona, bringing the party president, Oriol Junqueras, onto the stage. This is the first rally that Junqueras and Rufián have shared after weeks of tension over the lists and over the attempt at a common left-wing front that the republican candidate has defended for months.

Monaco is by far one of the safest places in Europe and also in the world. According to the Numbeo index, which is based on surveys of citizens in each location, the principality on the French Riviera ranks eighth in the European ranking. The data provided by this ranking indicate that walking alone during the day can be done with a perception of safety of 82/100 and, at night, 79/100. Furthermore, social concern regarding theft is “low” and regarding assaults is “very low.” If you add to all this that it is one of the places on the European continent that has the most police presence and the most video surveillance presence, imagining that something could happen to a member of the royal family there is practically implausible.

A few years ago, most people preferred cash to pay for and make their day-to-day purchases. Today, with a smaller proportion using it, but still above half, the objective is different, and the option of cash has more to do with turning it into a kind of safety net to face unforeseen events. An important reason is to deal with electronic failures, such as the one caused by the blackout the country suffered on April 28th of last year. Back then, many discovered that it is important to keep cash at home because many ATMs, the main way to obtain money (80% of the citizenry claims to use them habitually); and many card terminals stopped working for hours.

At 75 years old, Miyoko Seto is not considering retiring. “I would like to be able to continue working until I am 80,” explains this Japanese adult film actress, who debuted in the industry at 70, after spending decades dedicated to her family. Until then, she had been a housewife, but when she tried to find work after her second divorce, she encountered a barrier that closed doors on her even before she could submit her application: age. According to what she explained in an interview published in October by a local magazine, the companies she called rejected her as soon as she told them how old she was.

A soldier from the land army has died during an instructional activity at the San Gregorio base, in Zaragoza, for causes that are being investigated, as reported this Sunday by the Ministry of Defense. In its statement, the Army headquarters expressed its "deep sorrow" for the death and conveyed its "most sincere condolences" and "unconditional support" to the soldier's family and colleagues.

“I will leave for Greece and then to Cyprus”. At 22 years old, Reem works in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and already has a plan to leave. She has a job and a stable economic situation, but she does not imagine her future there. Her family lives abroad and she wants to follow her path. “I cannot continue in a country where every other moment we are at war, I want to have better opportunities”, she explains. Her case reflects the unrest of a part of Israeli society that, after three years marked by the conflict, is beginning to wonder if it still makes sense to stay.

Moscow, late October. A room full of men in suits and ties. The most important ones, seated. The melody begins to play and they recognize the song instantly. They smile and some begin to clap along to the beat. The head of state does not move. The Russian singers, boys and girls with high-pitched voices, dressed in white, begin to sing a song in Arabic, one of the best-known in Sudan: "Uhibbu Makan Watani al-Sudan" ("I love my homeland, Sudan"). It is the ceremony for the awarding of an honoris causa doctorate to the head of state of Sudan and army leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, 66 years old, in the framework of the third Russia-Africa Summit.

The first thing that comes to my mind after reading this eloquent 800-page volume is a question: how is it that the lyrical work of Segimon Serrallonga (Torelló, 1930 - Badalona, 2002) has lived hidden for so long? We knew, of course, some of his accomplishments, but the majority of these poems remained to be discovered. The impression that the work now produces on us is staggering, although it is true that it contains pieces of extremely high lyricism and others of intention –though not of writing– that are rather more rugged.

Supermarkets with sabotaged refrigeration systems, a blood bank victim of a cyberattack, commercial airplanes threatened with bombs –and now also some media outlets–, banking and personal data of thousands of Moldovan citizens exposed, multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency thefts... Europe has recently been chained by a series of incidents of a very diverse nature that proclaim the same concern: to what extent can a society be destabilized without declaring war on it? Are we European citizens aware of our vulnerabilities, largely derived from the interconnection of our lives?

Catalonia, as it happened in 2019, will once again be a key territory ahead of the next general elections. Three years ago, the socialists managed to retain the Spanish government thanks, essentially, to how the Catalan electorate voted, where the PSC won the elections. Looking towards November 29th, all polls predict another victory for the candidacy that this time will be led by Jordi Hereu, but without it being as resounding as it was three years ago. ERC, for example, is the party that comes closest to it, while the Comuns would plummet, and the left-wing parties would be condemned to lose representatives. The electoral race until November 29th will bring to the surface the disputes in a Catalan key that are not cut from the same pattern as the state ones.PSC vs. ERC: struggle between allies

Since Pedro Sánchez called for elections, it has become clear that the paradigm of this election will be based on the left-right axis, and this is where the battle that ERC and the PSC have maintained over the last decade—especially in the metropolitan area—takes even more shape. Despite the alliance in the Government of the Generalitat and the government pacts in various city councils, the two parties are trying to fish in a part of the electorate that they share. And this is visualized above all in general elections. According to the latest barometer of the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO), the socialists have a leakage of votes of up to 11% towards ERC. On the other hand, this leakage is reduced within the republican ranks: 8% of those surveyed would opt for the PSC ballot.

Matthew O. Jackson (Elmhurst, Illinois, 1962) holds the William D. Eberle chair in economics at the prestigious Stanford University, in the United States. His research focuses on the decision-making of economic agents and its consequences for society, placing special emphasis on the role played by the connections between the different individuals in society. His research is considered pioneering and extremely influential in this area of study, a fact that earned him an honorary doctorate from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) this October.honoris causa by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) this month of October.

When in a few years the Camp Nou is finished and operating at full capacity, it is very likely that all the delays and setbacks that have occurred in the remodeling will be forgotten. Or that they will be remembered as simple anecdotes. But a lot of time is still needed to reach that point. Not even now, when the theoretical final stretch is underway, is there any sense of calm in a club that cannot afford any more delays in this last phase of the reform.

The playwright Àngel Guimerà (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1845 - Barcelona, 1924) took practically two years to give his approval for Terra baixa to be performed in the United States. "I don't think he took this project very seriously and he didn't know who Mrs. Fiske was," explains Sharon G. Feldman, a professor at the University of Richmond (Virginia). For a decade, she has traced the journey of Guimerà's works in North America to confirm their impact on theaters at the beginning of the 20th century. The result is explained in Guimerà a Amèrica. Set dones per a un fenomen transatlàntic (L'Avenç; translated by Pere Bramon), a book that demonstrates that Terra baixa and Maria Rosa made a mark on the North American stage.

I remember the date when I signed up for the waiting list to access assisted reproduction treatments through social security. Wait, think about it, evaluate it, the day will come, don't back down despite the uncertainty, even without having a stable job. When my turn came, I embraced the opportunity with all the fear in the world, and it went well. What a small, great miracle, life! Already pregnant, I often thought about the greatness of nature, which had wanted “everything in me to be a yes” at the first attempt, without too many obstacles, although I had counted on great help from science and technology. It remains curious that at that moment I recognized the little wooden figurine in my parents' home study, a Ghanaian fertility deity. It inspired me and I felt protected.

Coincidence (providence, some believe) has meant that Barcelona will host more than 2,000 executives on November 26, two days before the day of reflection and three before the day to vote in the general elections, at the congress organized by the CEDE Foundation. Management of uncertainty, digitalization, artificial intelligence (AI), geopolitics, and the experiences of high-level executives are matters that concern the 170,000 executives who are part of this organization, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary and is presided over by Isidre Fainé, president of the La Caixa Foundation and its investment arm, Criteria. Politics will not be the subject of the meeting, organized many months ago, but it will surely hover over the sessions, which have the motto "Creating value, building the future".

When Noemí Blazquez saw that the inclusive decree was approved in Catalonia in 2017, she didn't have children yet. "I thought: how advanced we always are here in Catalonia, how good it is that they want to ensure there is no separation of children in special education centers, that there is no apartheid". A couple of years later she became pregnant, and by experiencing it from the inside, her perception began to change. "My son is wonderful, but the educational path we have had to follow has been hard and one also goes through a grieving process," she explains. Her son, who is now seven years old, has level 3 autism (the highest), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and epileptic episodes.

131 million bags of potato chips, snacks, and nuts per year and 73,200 kilos of daily production establish Frit Ravich as a leading company in its sector. Its CEO, Judith Viader (Maçanet de la Selva, 1968), who welcomes 'Empreses' at the group's central offices in Maçanet de la Selva, aims to lead the company, which combines the production of its own brand with the distribution of third-party products, to sales of 600 million euros by 2030, compared to the 400 it expects to close with this year. Its roadmap includes a new factory to double production and a distribution center in Madrid with an investment of 115 million by 2030. It bets on digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) as a driver of transformation and business model redesign.

Barça visits Atlético de Madrid in a duel to decide the lead of La Liga. It will be the first clash between both teams this season, after a last campaign in which the Madrid side eliminated the Catalans from both the Copa del Rey and the Champions League.

Every day we eat and we decide. But do we really know what we are eating? Surely you will have heard it said that additives are toxic, that eating fruit at the end of meals makes you fat, or that juice loses its vitamins if you don't drink it quickly… All these are false beliefs related to food that are increasingly present among the population. In 'No m'ho empasso' (I don't swallow it), a new video podcast from the ARA newspaper in collaboration with the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Canal Aliments, we will debunk frequent myths about food.

Scientific research is once again the protagonist with the 31st edition of Science Week (SC’26), organized by the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI), with the support of the Department of Research and Universities of the Government of Catalonia and the participation of more than a hundred institutions and entities. Universities, research centers, large infrastructures, academies, museums, schools, scientific associations, libraries, and companies are collaborating on an event that kicked off this Friday and will run until November 15, with more than 300 free activities planned throughout the country, including talks, guided tours, routes, exhibitions, workshops, conferences, and other outreach activities.

In the last decade, Donald Trump has become the central figure of the ultra-conservative movement. But he did not invent Trumpism. The Republican became the catalyst for a deeper phenomenon that began with the Tea Party during Barack Obama's first year in the White House and in the middle of the epicenter of the great economic crisis at the end of the 2000s. Trump is the symptom of a change in the political cycle that had much deeper and structural roots. Once the dog is dead, the rabies is gone, the saying goes. The president has been left wounded, but that does not mean the movement is as well.

The Atlantic storm Bruna will continue to send fronts towards our territory and will keep bringing plenty of rain to the west of the Peninsula. In Catalonia, very little water is expected, at least this Sunday, and beyond some drizzle or very weak showers during the afternoon, the day is expected to be quite calm. Nevertheless, a more active front could leave more widespread light rain or weak showers heading into Monday afternoon and during the early hours of Tuesday. Temperatures will clearly rise starting Sunday, as the counter-clockwise rotation of this storm – located off the western peninsular coast – will push warmer south-westerly winds towards us, a prelude to the traditional St. Martin's summer.

The President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, has tasked Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and main political rival of Benjamin Netanyahu, with forming a new government. The decision was announced this Saturday, after several days of consultations with the political forces that emerged from the October 27 elections. "I will do everything possible to be worthy," wrote Eisenkot on X, where he called for the formation of "a national emergency government."

Broken English was the opening film of the magnificent In-Edit festival that is just ending today. The immense luck is that you can recover the documentary on Filmin. It is a true treasure, for its approach and for the originality and sensitivity of its directors, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. The protagonist is Marianne Faithfull, but even if you do not know anything about the artist, it is very much worth it. It has nothing to do with any audiovisual biography you have seen before, because it is not just about reviewing someone's life, but also about understanding how memory about someone is built. And the way to do it is a stroke of genius.

I asked five artificial intelligence agents to help me decide my vote for the 29-N election. It is not that I need it –outsourcing judgment, as popular as it is becoming, is not in my DNA–, but I was curious to see what they would answer. As expected, all five (Grok, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, and ChatGPT) acted very dignified and told me that under no circumstances would they tell me which ballot to pick. That they cannot interfere in elections. Once I recovered from my fit of laughter, I asked them, “In what way can you influence people's votes through the algorithm?” and here they could not avoid admitting that there were multiple ways in which, whether intentionally or not, AIs have the ability to put their finger on the scale and favor one political option over another.

The conflict between Barcelona residents affected by co-living and the Barcelona City Council will end up in court. This Saturday, the Tenants' Union (Sindicat de Llogateres) announced the filing of an administrative litigation against the city council due to "municipal inactivity" in enforcing the 30% affordable housing reservation in various buildings owned by the Vandor fund.

We like mushrooms, and a sign that confirms this is the variation we find in the country when it comes to naming them. To understand each other, all speakers from Salses to Guardamar and from Fraga to Maó, we explain what all these names are.

Next week, the first general strike under Pedro Sánchez's mandate in the Spanish government will take place. By a matter of days, the call will be part of this legislative term. The protest is fundamentally driven by an increase in the cost of living, closely linked to the conflicts in Ukraine and the Persian Gulf, which especially affects food. And citizens perceive this when they go grocery shopping. But the other reason that has triggered the discontent has a more distant origin, and has to do with the difference between the increase in wages and that of an element that is a basic right enshrined in the Spanish Constitution. Specifically, in article 47, which defends the right of all citizens to decent and adequate housing.

This time, polling experts are more cautious than in 2023, but the majority opinion is that for now the PP and Vox can maintain hope for a victory wide enough to govern on the upcoming November 29th. Even so, the voices of the left do not falter and are intensely looking for a foothold. They do so with the usual arguments, such as Pedro Sánchez's capacity for resistance and survival, but above all with the idea that Spain cannot have changed so much and that the center-left sensibility continues to be the majority. They are aware, in any case, that this time it will not be enough to rely on the increase in pensions and the minimum wage as the central appeal for the vote. We are living through a pre-campaign marked by tragedies and at the same time accompanied by outbursts and flashes. Everything happens at hypersonic speed, and almost every day the main focus of attention shifts.

Salvador Illa was supposed to turn the page on the 'Procés', restore stability in Catalonia, and promote major infrastructure projects, such as the expansion of El Prat airport, the Fourth Beltway, and the Hard Rock complex. Or that was the hope of Foment del Treball and, for this reason, they maintained a frankly good relationship with the President of the Generalitat, especially when he was in the opposition. The honeymoon, however, lasted a short time. The leader of the PSC, who depends on the support of Esquerra and the Comuns, has pushed forward measures regarding tax, financing, and housing that have displeased, and very much so, the business association presided over by Josep Sánchez Llibre. The relationship between the two leaders has broken down and, as sources knowledgeable about the matter confirm to ARA, attempts at reconciliation have failed. Three agenda changes by the Government—by President Illa himself, by Minister Òscar Ordeig, and by Minister Ramon Espadaler—in the last two weeks confirm this, although the Palau denies that it is a pattern and that there is an order to the members of the executive to belittle Foment's events.

The 2008 economic crisis ended, at least theoretically, in 2013. It was the last year in which the Spanish economy recorded negative growth. The consequences of the recession still persist today, and are exacerbated by the more recent rise in price of a very specific group of products in the shopping basket. They are fundamentally two: housing and food, as made clear by the Generalitat in the Social Report 2025. These two elements are also the main drivers of the general strike called for November 11th.

The US midterm elections will have repercussions both inside and outside the Trump administration. The wave of change has been of such great magnitude that it is not manipulable and will stir a landscape of stagnant and fetid waters. To begin with, the electoral result allows for several conclusions to be drawn, and there are two that are so basic they seem obvious: the first is that in democracy nothing is guaranteed, ballot boxes must be filled; and the second is that one cannot conduct politics without taking social reality into account.

Donald Trump's 2020 defeat did not bury Trumpism. It only made it take root. Evicted from the White House by a seven-million-vote margin, but by the thinnest of margins in a handful of decisive states, Trump incited his supporters to insurrection and, when the mob's assault on the Capitol failed, he retreated to his Mar-a-Lago mansion to plot his extraordinary comeback.

Enric Aragonès (Reus, 1991) arrives directly from work—in a job that has nothing to do with activism—at the space in the central headquarters of the University of Barcelona from where the Sindicat de Llogateres (Tenants' Union) is organizing the general strike of November 11. Between photographs, he is grateful that we are conducting an in-depth interview to discuss the call to action on the eve of the elections, in a fast-paced world where current events usually move from one statement to the next.

Anna Puigdevall (Barcelona, 1968) has worked her entire professional life in the business sector, after studying physics, and for less than two years she has been part of the property owners' association Som Habitatge. They claim that they are financed through member dues and donations, and that they do not receive resources from any large real estate management company.

Perhaps it is obvious by now, but in these elections the independence of Catalonia is not at stake, eclipsed by an urgent problem of a global nature: the risk of seeing an authoritarian extreme right in power and –in the case of Spain– assimilationist and traditionalist. Therefore, the Catalan parties, including the pro-independence ones, are adapting to this framework that, as Gabriel Rufián usually says, "can no longer be ignored". How are the various political options in the country handling it?

Watching him stroke the lever that activates the mechanism to start the Blue Tram, it might seem as if time has not passed. Lauren Quer was the driver of the last trip of this iconic transport on January 28, 2018. "I tried to make that trip last forever," he recalls more than eight years later in conversation with ARA. He does so from the cabin of that vehicle, which this weekend symbolically returns to tread the city streets, but which continues to await its definitive return.

The Eder Sarabia era began with the Basque coach in a grandstand at the RCDE Stadium and his assistant, Jon López, directing from the bench due to the one-match suspension the new blue and white manager was carrying. The perspective granted by the height of Cornellà-El Prat allowed him to scrutinize the strengths and weaknesses of a team unaccustomed to taking the initiative, which lacked a bit of ruthlessness to turn the good football shown against Deportivo de La Coruña (0-0) into three points. It became clear that from now on the blue and white fans will be entertained, though it remains to be seen if they will also celebrate victories. With the first diagnosis in hand, Sarabia now has two weeks of the international break to polish the details of a proposal that, for the moment, is more convincing in its play than in its results.

Next Wednesday we are called to a general strike to demand better wages, affordable housing, and measures against the rising cost of living. And this at a time when Catalonia is recording one of the lowest unemployment rates since 2008, the minimum wage has increased by almost 66% since 2018 and monetary poverty has decreased in recent years. And yet, many families continue to have difficulty making ends meet. How is this explained?

Novaya Gazeta [The new newspaper] appeared in 1993. The person who provided the money was the now former president Mikhail Gorbachev: he invested in the company the million dollars he had received, in 1990, with the Nobel Peace Prize. The Soviet Union had disappeared. Millions of Russians were going hungry because of the perestroika, the economic reform promoted by Gorbachev himself.

Subscriber Eduard Carrera denounces “a very pronounced degradation in the information provided by the sports newspaper”. I reproduce the four examples of what he considers deficiencies:

I do not know if there is full awareness of the importance of the challenge that American society has posed to Donald Trump. The capitulation of the Republican Party to Trumpist delusions has cost it dearly. And a good portion of its voters have crossed the dividing line: voters are human beings—therefore, there are all kinds of them—but they still retain a certain level of sensitivity and perception, and they are capable of being outraged when a government loses the notion of boundaries and acts with total impunity. Trump cannot understand this because his miserable ego is desperately in need of recognition. But the defeat has been so monumental that it seems unlikely he could choose to push forward by breaking the rules of the game. Given the reaction of the citizenry, it is hard to believe that the institutions would allow themselves to be contaminated. Americans have set the limits of what is possible. And Trump has been left disoriented. Out of dignity, he should go home. Recognize his lack of sense of reality. He will not do it; he will hardly be able to understand why so many people have reacted against his delusions and wanted to save the institutions before democracy declined.

The resounding slap to Trump, Lula's triumph, the changes in Bulgaria, and the youth riots throughout Europe are good news. They seem to announce that the growth of the far right is stopping, halted by its own rashness and omnipotence. I must say that, personally, it was my most optimistic hypothesis; while these parties presented themselves as an alternative to the democratic parties that have held hegemony for years, which have clearly worn thin in power and, above all, have lost power due to the growth of multinationals, they could channel the hope of many people who have been becoming impoverished in this stage of toxic capitalism. But the far right's haste to change everything, to impose its law of the strongest, has been so great that the population has very quickly understood what they intended and is reacting and seeking other alternatives.

Luck smiles on Marc Márquez. The rider from Cervera could be world champion for the tenth time this Sunday (5 pm / DAZN). The Catalan has seen everything go his way in the sprint race of the Qatar Grand Prix, a race in which the Italian Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia RS-GP) tried to put up a fight, but ended up crashing when he tried to overtake Márquez on the fourth lap in a very controversial action. Márquez ended up winning the sprint race and on Sunday he will have the first match point to become champion. He would have to win the race and Jorge Martín would need to score no points.

The editor of the magazine JotDown, known by the (false) name of Mar de Marchis, caused a revolution in the Spanish press not only with her publication but by becoming friends or a confidante to numerous figures with media power at the time without leaving home, due to agoraphobia and depression. The journalist and correspondent for El País Daniel Verdú wanted to explain who was really hiding behind this pseudonym, but, above all, to show what the media landscape was like a decade ago, which was sensitive to this gale of ideas, shamelessness, mystery, brilliance, and deception that was De Marchis.

Six people have died and sixteen others have been injured in a shooting this Saturday at the main square of the Polish city of Krakow, the second-largest city in the country. According to police reports, officers managed to shoot the perpetrator, who has been admitted to the hospital in serious condition. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski detailed that the attacker, a 25-year-old Polish citizen, has "very radical views" and that "everything points to the fact that he was influenced by far-right ideology, a matter that will be the subject of investigation"

When he finished his shift from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Rieju factory, August Castellà (Figueres, 1992) would go out for a ride on a motorcycle. The next day, all his colleagues already knew they would have work to do. Castellà, a mechanical engineer and head of development for the Rally and Trail projects of the Empordà-based brand, would return with ideas to improve the Rieju 307 Rally that he himself had developed. And after testing it, he would tweak things to make it more competitive. At first he didn't know it, but he was beginning a path that this January will take him to the Dakar Rally. Always on top of the Rieju 307 Rally he has been working on for nine years.

A few weeks ago it was Gabriel Rufián and Irene Montero who presented themselves as a tandem in Barcelona ahead of the 29-N, and this Saturday Ada Colau's Broad Front did the same. At the unveiling in Catalonia of the candidacy headed by the former mayor of Barcelona, the main visible faces were present: Colau, Ernest Urtasun –number two for Barcelona– and Emilio Delgado –number one for Madrid–. From La Sagrera, they wanted their main message to be aimed at the upper classes of the State and Colau herself warned that if the Broad Front reaches the Spanish government it will "fry the posh with taxes". In fact, she addressed the number two of the PP candidacy ahead of the 29-N directly, Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo. "Mrs. Marchioness Cayetana, we will raise taxes a lot for you and your posh friends," she said at the event reported by the ACN.

The Podemos event in Madrid this Saturday had a touch of ERC. And not just because Gabriel Rufián, the Republican candidate for 29-N, acted as an opening act for Irene Montero—it was their first joint pre-campaign event in the Spanish capital—, but because they both coincided in the color of their sweater: yellow. "That's how connected we are," said Rufián, who assured that they had not discussed it beforehand. He also revealed that he had never held a pre-campaign rally in a circus. Militants and supporters of the purple party were summoned to the tent of the show The Island of Neverland, which these days is hosted at the city's Espacio Delicias. A leisure proposal inspired by Neverland, the island of Peter Pan where children never grow up. Party sources explain that it is the only place they found with such short notice: initially, Rufián and Montero were supposed to debut in Madrid last Saturday, but they suspended it due to the tragic train accident in Urda, Toledo, in which 69 people lost their lives and for which three days of official mourning were decreed.

After the family made their request public this same week, the Spanish government has committed to recognizing Guillem Agulló as a victim of terrorism. In fact, the commitment was adopted by the Spanish president himself, Pedro Sánchez, before the family, with whom he met this Friday in Valencia before the pre-campaign event, as reported by Cadena SER and confirmed by ARA. This week, Guillem Agulló's family sent a letter to Pedro Sánchez and also to the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, in which they demanded that the young anti-fascist murdered 33 years ago at the hands of the extreme right be recognized as a victim of terrorism. In fact, until now the request has received the support of more than 200 personalities from the legal, political and media worlds.

As the days go by, the PSOE tries to put behind it the crisis over the railway tragedy in Urda (Toledo) and tries to refocus on the campaign that had begun before the accident that left 69 dead. This is what Pedro Sánchez did this Saturday from Tarragona: appealing to the dilemma of a progressive government in the face of the "far-right international" that in Spain is personified by the PP and Vox. The Spanish prime minister, however, added an element that until a few days ago he could not yet use in his favor: the victory of the Democrats in the United States, which is added to that of Lula da Silva in Brazil to give hope to the Spanish left-wing electorate. For this reason, the socialist leader has called for mobilization and has asked for a "broad majority" that will allow stopping the aspirations of the PP and Vox to reach the Spanish government. "If we vote en masse, we send Feijóo and Abascal home," shouted Sánchez.

First it was various supermarkets in Northern Europe and, later, the refrigeration system of a French blood bank. Europe is experiencing a wave of cyberattacks that the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and the European Commission describe as "serious" due to the impact it may have on essential services and infrastructure and the significant economic losses it may entail. The authorship of none of the incidents has yet been confirmed, and national and community authorities have not verified whether they are part of any coordinated operation. However, the temporal coincidence has alerted one of the sectors that accounts for two out of every five cyberattacks in Europe: the healthcare system. The Cybersecurity Agency managed about 2,200 incidents against the Catalan healthcare system last year, although none forced a disruption of activity, according to government sources.

Robert Yale Shapiro is a doctor of political science and associate dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and specializes in American politics, public opinion, and political leadership. He speaks to ARA by phone from New York to assess the historic midterm elections that have given the majority of both chambers to the Democratic Party.

A century after the death of Antoni Gaudí, his work continues to raise questions. From October 22nd to the 25th, La Pedrera hosted the first International Gaudí Congress, featuring more than 40 unpublished research projects, ranging from construction techniques and conservation criteria to historical documentation and the contemporary reading of his legacy. The program also included presentations on the vegetal ornamentation of Palau Güell and the documentation of Gaudí's intervention at the Cathedral of Mallorca. These are three of the featured presentations:

Marisol Galdón (Sabadell, 1962) is one of the pioneering voices of Catalunya Ràdio, one of the first women to work as a DJ on the nights of the Catalonia of the 80s, an icon of television in the 90s and 2000s, a cultured, passionate and vehement person, who has always gone her own way and who was sought after by the best programs of all the networks. But all that changed one day. In 2021 she posted a video explaining her precarious economic situation and asking for work. This conversation comes five years later, now that she has returned to live in Catalonia.

Carles Sans is back at it. After closing his silent stage with Tricicle, he flew solo with the help of the spoken word in a highly successful show that toured for five years: Finally alone! And he keeps on talking. Even a bit too much, because his verbal gags work less well for him than his gestural ones. He says I'm leaving, but in the end, he might act like bullfighters who never quite leave the bullring. The leitmotif of the new proposal is precisely what to do when he stops performing and has time to do whatever he feels like.

Police crackdown on human trafficking in Catalonia. The Mossos d'Esquadra have arrested fifty members of a criminal network that is estimated to have earned more than three million euros by irregularly bringing Pakistani immigrants into the country. Three have been sent to prison. The organization charged its victims up to 30,000 euros, who often ended up in jobs verging on exploitation. The network made use of business owners who faked fraudulent contracts.

.

"We are taxing the rich from the Ritz". Ada Colau has presented in Madrid the tax proposal of the Broad Front, which plans to tax net assets exceeding one million euros with an annual tax of 2%, which would rise to 3% for fortunes of more than 50 million. This Friday, the candidate claimed the redistribution of wealth from the Ritz hotel, where the Nueva Economía Fórum event was held, and argued that "there is no right to accumulate wealth, but there is a right to health, education, and a dignified life".

The former president of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, was arrested this Saturday at dawn at his residence in Asunción, where he has been placed under house arrest, a few hours after the Senate removed him from office in a political trial for “misconduct in the performance of his duties.” The Public Prosecutor's Office has requested pretrial detention for Peña after formally accusing him of alleged "breach of trust and administration for personal gain" in relation to the collapse of Ueno Bank, a conglomerate where he held shares until March 2025 and where millions in funds from state pension funds went during his mandate. The judge has accepted the request and imposed pretrial detention.

The only request that Jaume Duch Guillot (Barcelona, 1962) made to President Salvador Illa when he proposed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to him was to change the order of the job title. That is to say, to go from Minister of Foreign Action and European Union of Catalonia to Minister of European Union and Foreign Action of Catalonia. Europe at the forefront. In a decisive and urgent moment for the continent, Duch reviews current international affairs and the role that Catalonia can play. The conversation takes place weeks after having met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, on a trip led by the president, Salvador Illa, and the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni.

"That is why I speak to my daughter in Catalan. Because I do not want her to be unaware of where she comes from, nor what shields she has to defend herself against a stateless globalism, and, worst of all, one that imposes our dissolution to give away what is ours to others." This sentence is not from any leader of Aliança Catalana, but of Vox. Specifically, from their head of the list for Tarragona, Jordi de la Fuente, who wanted to recall on X some words from the French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, in which he had supposedly regretted before dying not having learned his language, Breton. He also cited an appeal from an identitarian Twitter user: "Learn your language, do not let it be a lifelong regret." This defense of Catalan by Vox, even to prevent it from disappearing, as has happened in part with Breton, is new –and this is admitted internally–. But it is not entirely surprising, especially if one takes into account the identitarian path that the far-right party has been taking.

“A Jewish and Arab government, together” was the demand repeated last Saturday at one of the demonstrations in Jerusalem after the elections. On the street, some Israelis were asking that Arab parties be able to participate in the future government. In Parliament, this possibility remains the main obstacle to ousting Benjamin Netanyahu from power.

This November marks sixty years since the arrival of Snowflake in Barcelona. Hunters sold the then-gorilla infant for 15,000 pesetas to the primatologist Jordi Sabater Pi, and he was transferred first to Ikunde, the center established a few kilometers from Bata (Equatorial Guinea) which supplied collections for various institutions linked to the Barcelona City Council, and then to the Catalan capital. He became an icon and an endearing figure, but behind it there are also some darker episodes linked to Spain's colonial past.

Marc Pubill will meet Barça again this Sunday (9 pm, Movistar LaLiga), this time from a place that only a few years ago seemed difficult to imagine. The Atlético de Madrid defender is now a starter on a Champions League team and has just been proclaimed world champion with the Spanish national team. In front of him will be a club that knocked on his door several times and was interested in him both during his time at Levante and after winning the Olympic Games. Pubill's path to the elite had begun long before, when Espanyol decided to let him go and he had to return to Manresa.

The Italian magistrate Lorenzo Salazar has a long career in the Italian judiciary – he has been, for example, a prosecutor in Naples – and is also completing an extensive stint in European institutions, currently leading the European Committee on Crime Problems of the Council of Europe. He is in Barcelona these days for a conference of the European Notarial Academy on international crime, which is being held at the Notarial College of Catalonia.

"Immigration is out of control and if Aliança does not run, we have no alternative in these elections." David, a middle-aged man from Reus, will vote for Sílvia Orriols' party when elections are called in Catalonia, but on November 29th he will choose the Vox ballot, as one in five Aliança voters will in fact do, according to the latest poll by the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO). "We have a party against immigration in Spain and another in Catalonia," he celebrates to defend this dual vote. Until now, he had always voted for the PSOE. ARA has spoken with several people who have decided to cast this dual vote, and the migratory factor is the main reason.

Oliver A. Ryder, an American geneticist and conservationist, has dedicated nearly fifty years to investigating how molecular biology can help preserve threatened animal species. Director of Conservation Genetics at the San Diego Zoo (California, United States) and co-chair of the Animal Biobanking Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, he is one of the founders of the Frozen Zoo, a collection of thousands of animal cell samples that is, he claims, a “genetic insurance policy” for the Earth.

It is Wednesday morning at the Estany de la Ricarda Institute in El Prat de Llobregat. Today, groups of 3rd-year secondary school students are training in media and information literacy (MIL) with an activity that has them very intrigued: an escape room. These teenagers are part of the so-called alpha generation, characterized by being digital natives, having grown up surrounded by screens and having no analog frame of reference. Today, however, they are not accompanied by mobile phones, but by journalists from local media and Learn to Check, a non-profit association that promotes media education across different age groups.

"I don't understand how I could have separated myself from you. I am just like this! It is my lamentable nature. If you didn't love me I would die, you love me and here you have me writing to you that enough is enough. I am repulsed by my own imbecility." That is how passionate and forceful Gustave Flaubert (Rouen, 1821 - Canteleu, 1880) sounded when, at 25 years old, he communicated by letter with Louise Colet, the great love of his life. Eleven years older than the future writer, married and mother of a girl, Colet began a relationship with Flaubert that lasted for almost a decade and grew above all at a distance, thanks to the correspondence that the two authors sent each other.

The challenges from Putin, Trump, and Xi have led Europe – including the United Kingdom – to formulate a policy, which has been called "strategic autonomy," that will have consequences for the competitive framework in which our companies operate, both those that exist and those that may come.

Although electric cars have been among the winners of the Car of the Year in Europe award for several editions (in 2011 it was won by the Nissan Leaf, the 2012 edition by the Opel Ampera, in 2019 by the Jaguar I-Pace, in 2022 by the Kia EV6, in 2024 by the Renault Scenic and the 2025 edition by the Renault 5 E-Tech), this year's edition is the first in which all seven finalist candidates are fully electric vehicles, without internal combustion engine versions.

The mushrooms have arrived and this treasure cannot be missed. For this reason, the chef of Semproniana, Ada Parellada, proposes three techniques to preserve them.

Just past the border between the Costa Brava and the Vermilion Coast begins the most protected stretch of sea on the Roussillon coastline. It is a zone where navigation is prohibited and even an exclusion area where divers are not accepted. It is part of the Gulf of Lion Natural Marine Park, between Cerbère and Leucate, which covers more than 4,000 km² of French coastline. It is the area with the coldest water in the entire Mediterranean.

The Consortium for Linguistic Normalization (CPNL) will open a new registration period for Catalan courses from December 16 to 21. Interested individuals will be able to choose the course that best suits their level and needs. To formalize the registration, it will be necessary to previously certify one's Catalan level, if applicable. The 012 citizen service telephone number of the Government of Catalonia also offers information on the training offer and registration procedures.

"Everywhere we go we are welcomed in an incredible way, but truly you have something that is completely different, I swear it". That is how Amaia Montero opened up at this Friday's concert in front of a sold-out Palau Sant Jordi. It is clear that the vocalist is no longer the same as she was eighteen years ago, when she decided to leave the group, but she does not pretend to be either. "The energy here cannot be compared," proclaimed the singer, who since the start of the tour has been analyzed and questioned on social media. The criticisms –especially harsh at the beginning of the tour– have gradually dissipated and the feeling is that La Oreja de Van Gogh is starting to feel a little more comfortable on stage. Montero, mainly in the second half, passed the test of leading one of the most listened-to bands in Spanish pop after the controversial split with Leire Martínez in October 2024.

The Ministry of the Interior has revealed to the National Court judge María Tardón, who is investigating the massive entry of migrants into Ceuta, that Morocco arrested two people who administered a WhatsApp group that was used to spread calls to enter the autonomous city on July 30 and 31. The information that the Spanish government has shared with the magistrate comes from an informative note prepared by the Spanish embassy in Morocco, to which Efe has had access. The arrests of these two suspects took place on August 6.

Polls have been warning for some time of a transfer of votes from Vox to Aliança Catalana in the event of elections to the Parliament, as Sílvia Orriols' party is seen, even by Spanish nationalist voters, as the most competitive in the field of immigration in Catalonia. Specifically, in the YouGov poll published by ARA in May, 23% of Vox voters said that this time they would lean towards Aliança. Aliança is not running in the upcoming Spanish elections on November 29, so the far-right voter has only one option, which is Vox. Is it possible that, in the same way that there are Spanish nationalist voters willing to vote for Sílvia Orriols in a Catalan election, there are pro-independence voters from Aliança who lean towards Santiago Abascal's party in a Spanish election? ARA has collected testimonies from Aliança Catalana sympathizers who claim that this coming November 29th they will vote for Vox. Sílvia Orriols herself already opened the door to this possibility in an interview, highlighting the fact that voters belong to no one, ergo giving permission, if one can call it that, for her supporters to vote for a neo-Francoist style party, yet one with which they share the core of the anti-immigration discourse.

The Mossos d'Esquadra have published on their social media the photograph of a motorcyclist who was driving on October 31st, around four in the afternoon, at over 200 km/h on the C-17 road. A radar installed at kilometer point 64.4 –near Gurb– caught the motorcyclist driving at a speed that doubles the maximum speed allowed on this stretch, which is 100 km/h.

A week after the dramatic train accident in Urda (Toledo) –and also the new revelations of the Koldo case–, Pedro Sánchez has returned to the pre-election rallies for November 29th. The Spanish president and leader of the PSOE has chosen Valencia to return to defend the handling of the tragedy by Óscar Puente, now former Minister of Transport. In fact, he highlighted the "dignity and exemplariness" of the politician from Valladolid after he announced his resignation in Congress on Tuesday night. "We have faced the situation with absolute transparency and we have assumed political responsibility with the resignation of a great politician like Óscar Puente," repeated Sánchez, who then insisted on the fact that the progressive leader has stepped aside, unlike a PP that has never been capable of doing so in the face of other tragedies.

“Data kills narrative!”, exclaimed Javier Ruiz, editorial director of the new channel La Séptima on the day of its premiere. But this is an empty mantra, with the same truth as “Cat crushes duck with a cheap shoe”, because just because something rhymes doesn’t make it any truer, Bertha. The first impressions of the new channel have already been written by comrade Mònica Planas, with her usual precise scalpel. I only want to point out the intensive use of electoral polls: every night, the channel presents a tracking that presumably captures the moment, as if voters en masse thought one thing on Monday and something very different the next day. On the debut night, Ruiz said that media polls seek more to shape reality than to describe it. And that his –in which, oh surprise, the PSOE was winning–, on the other hand, was indeed accurate. The favored party rushed to retweet it, of course. But the viewer had no resources to evaluate its reliability. At least El País, for example, has the good habit of offering the data in the raw, in case someone wants to try to unravel the cooking that has been applied to them.

If the midterm elections were an opportunity to curb Donald Trump's "bad ideas" – in the words of American diplomat Daniel Fried – the Democratic victory could be read as a counterbalance to the U.S. president's fluctuations in his positioning regarding Ukraine. And it will be, in part, but possibly not as much as the Ukrainians would like because the New York tycoon will continue to have the final word on foreign affairs. However, paradoxically, an internally weakened Trump could also use foreign policy to project power and seek victories that could also reinforce him internally.

Shock in Chilean cinema with the sudden death of Sebastián Lelio, the director of the Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman, among other films. Lelio was one of the great Latin American directors of his generation, a regular name at festivals such as the Berlinale and Toronto who made the jump to Hollywood in 2017. According to sources from CNN Chile, the filmmaker was found lifeless at his home, in the Las Condes neighborhood of Santiago, Chile. The family has confirmed his passing: "With great sadness we announce the death due to health reasons of the Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio. We are living through a moment of great pain and his memory will be with us forever". The director was working on his next film, the film adaptation of Alejandro Zambra's novel Poeta chileno, which began filming at the end of September with a cast led by Felipe Zepeda and Clemente Rodríguez.

After the shock of the electoral defeat, Donald Trump finally reacts and opts for a hardline approach. The US president has announced that he is replacing White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and in her place promotes the hardliner Stephen Miller. The hitherto deputy chief of the presidential cabinet is one of the most extremist figures within the administration, the mastermind behind the campaign for mass deportations and the transformation of ICE into the tycoon's armed wing.

The 2.9 million clients of Ueno Bank, one of the most popular financial institutions in Paraguay, are experiencing the uncertainty of a corralito that has blocked their savings and pensions. The bank's collapse has simultaneously caused an earthquake in the country's government, given the business ties of President Santiago Peña, who has resigned, with the bank. These links have triggered an impeachment trial against the far-right leader, a friend and ally of Vox leader in Spain, Santiago Abascal. A tweet from the president's daughter, Constanza Peña, wearing a t-shirt calling for taxes to be imposed on the poor, has also sparked controversy.

“I mean, who cares about prostitutes? Who cares about a plot like that?” These questions were rhetorically posed by actress Laia Marull in an interview that Alejandra Palés conducted with her a few weeks ago for this newspaper. They were talking about the series El castillo, on Movistar +, where Marull plays a police officer who participates in the investigation of the criminal and economic web of a network of macro-brothels from the late nineties. Marull made this reflection regarding the hardness of the story, because, despite being fiction, it is based on rigorous documentation work about this world. There are six episodes, each of which has a title based on a type of client who frequents these venues. Marull is right with her reflection: it is not easy to digest a story about the trafficking and sexual exploitation of people. First, because it is sordid, and second, because tropes have been associated with it that have simplified it. And this is the virtue of El castillo: its ability to enter a subworld of business, crimes, and miseries that end up surprising the viewer. The series allows you to poke your nose where you would never want to enter. And viewers who are more familiar with these environments might discover everything that moves around them.

Whenever a general strike is called, one looks back in order to continue looking forward. Life in common –and that of each one of us– binds and intertwines with the general strikes we have experienced. The first one I remember, a rearview mirror of an absorbed child, is with grandfather Saturnino –imprisoned in the immediate postwar period for years and moving from strikes against the dictatorship to the stoppages of the eighties for an economic and social democracy that never arrived and that we still do not know–. That 14-D of 1988 with the city at a standstill against a PSOE that took power with the left and touched it with the right, in the restructuring of capitalism in the Spanish state ordered by the EEC after the darkness of Francoism. These were the Solchaga times when the minister said: "España es el país donde se puede ganar más dinero a corto plazo de toda Europa". The next one was in 1994 against labor precariousness –and also against the PSOE, and there was already talk of a generation of young people adrift in neoliberalism–. With more clarity I remember the one in 2002 against José María Aznar. And then, to make the leap, the one in 2012 –with the indelible memory of the infinite dignity of Ester Quintana–. The last one was the most overwhelming categorical general strike I have ever seen: that of October 3, 2017, in unanimous protest against shameful and infamous repression. I remember business sources speaking of a 92% turnout and that in the neighborhood there was no need for pickets. It is urgent to add that the last exile will arrive home before Christmas. Nine years later.

For the fourth consecutive year, the grandchildren of Manuel Carrasco i Formiguera have organized an Autumn Event, and this year’s they have dedicated to the enduring relevance of their grandfather’s example: a Christian supporter of independence who did not fit into the Catalonia that persecuted religion during the Civil War and who ended up criminally executed by Franco's Spain in 1938. A politician who, despite his efforts to negotiate everything with his opponents except his ideals, ended up succumbing to the black-and-white nature of an era in which some reproached him for being a Christian and others for supporting Catalonia, the Republic, and democracy.

Graphic jokes, intelligent graphic jokes, are my weakness and my ruin. I always have on my writing desk the books of jokes about literature (about writers, above all) from the magazine The New Yorker, which was my first book purchase when I first stepped into the luminous city of New York. Every joke world it is so, so fun, it makes you feel so, so smart, so member of the circle... Thursday, November fifth, this newspaper surprised me with a graphic joke on the front page, which made me laugh with complicity and surprise. “Wow”, I whispered. It was a front page that could make young and old, students and workers laugh or smile or open their eyes in that way.

1. In less than a month, the ballot boxes have brought Bolsonaro, Netanyahu, and Trump down to earth. The far right was having it very easy until democracy put them in their place. Bolsonaro didn't take long to catch a plane and go into exile in Florida before they could arrest him in Brazil. Paradoxically, Trump says that if he goes to Israel and runs in the elections, he would win by a landslide. Should we encourage him to try it?

For days now, an acute sensation of overload and irrepressible vertigo has been invading me. I don't think this is just something personal, individual, but rather a sensation shared with those who, to a greater or lesser extent, try to follow current events with attention and somewhat closely. I also don't find it to be a capricious ailment. Even more, I would say that, if we stop for a moment to ponder it, we will immediately realize that this dizzying and elusive sensation that I believe is shared presents perfectly real causes.

"A 30-year-old boy cannot die playing football". This was stated by Faustino Afonso, one of the CD Tenerife doctors, after the death of Jesús de Miguel. The striker collided with the Andorra goalkeeper in a dispute for the ball during the final minutes of the match at the Heliodoro, suffered a cardiorespiratory arrest and died the following day at the hospital.

I grew up in a country where war has marked entire generations. A country where many decisions have been made far from the people who have suffered the consequences. Perhaps that is why, when I think about democracy, I think about the responsibility we have, one towards the other, and the value of being able to decide our future without resorting to violence.

The time has come when everyone will have to decide, in the shadow of AI, whether they want to continue being human?

Trump is responsible for everything but is never to blame for anything. How enviable. If something goes wrong, as is the case with the result of these elections that we have followed more than the Americans themselves, it is not because of his desire to enrich himself by taking advantage of the presidency; nor because of his immigration policies that the police execute without batting an eyelid; nor because of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein; nor because of his permanent sexism; nor because of cutting the few public services that exist in the USA; nor because of making tax cuts for billionaires like him. Perhaps a little bit because of the Iran war that made oil prices rise, that yes. He acknowledges that. But he also acknowledges that he would do the same thing again because it is what had to be done and because Trump and remorse are two terms that never go together anywhere. This man goes through the world light as a cobweb. The weight of his actions is carried by the world.

The sun and the absolute calm of these last few days will not have much continuity. Starting this weekend we will be under the indirect effects of the great Atlantic storm Bruna, which will bring a lot of rain to the west of the Peninsula. At home, however, very little water is expected, for the moment. We will have a Saturday and a Sunday with a more changeable sky due to the presence of quite a few intervals of clouds. But beyond some light rain or a very weak, local and passing shower, no rain is expected. Temperatures will rise clearly starting on Sunday, as the counter-clockwise rotation of this storm – located in front of the western peninsular coast – will push warmer winds from the southwest towards us. The models indicate that next week could begin with an increase in instability.

Messy conversations about love (in all its forms), entanglements, and pop culture with cultural analyst and communicator Estela Ortiz and psychologist and sexologist Beti Badia.

Thomas Markle, Meghan Markle's father, has been arrested in Florida for alleged possession of child pornography, as reported by the CBS News network. Last month it emerged that Markle, 82, was being investigated by Philippine authorities for allegedly possessing graphic child abuse material after his son, Thomas Markle Jr., reported him for files he found on a computer. The Duchess of Sussex has not had a relationship with her father, a figure who has always been controversial, for years.