The academic year has begun with alarms ringing in the unions, but also in the public administration, after the Volkswagen group put the Seat brand in play, which has placed the Martorell factory in the crosshairs. "Martorell will not disappear," stated the secretary general of CCOO, Unai Sordo, this Monday morning during an intervention at the Ateneo de Madrid. The message seeks to provide reassurance, especially to the employees, and the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, also joined in this Monday. In fact, they have all rushed to defend the Seat brand: "It is historic," Sordo affirmed. "It is a product that must continue to be championed," he reiterated.

Tomorrow school begins, and it will start with the teachers' strike that the unions already announced when the school year ended, around Saint John's Day. The Government has not managed to deactivate the strike, even though it has had two months to do so. The unions feel strong and are carrying momentum based on real shortcomings, dragged on for a long time, and this protest speed of the unions cannot be stopped with a standard negotiation. Education in Catalonia needs a top-to-bottom reformulation, and the turbulence that will begin tomorrow will continue for several months. We already said it here last week: if there is any public service that requires a generous, country-wide pact, it is education. But today all the front-page headlines are for the victory of Alternative for Germany in Saxony. The far-right wins in a German state talking about closing borders, expelling criminals, and reclaiming Germany for the Germans and not for immigrants. The reasons for this victory resonate here: voters who feel abandoned by the traditional parties, who have become impoverished, who have seen the street landscape change, resentful of what they consider the failure of reunification, who pay many taxes that do not improve public services, etc.This resentment based on real events, but which is conveniently stirred up by the verbal violence of social networks, ends in a protest vote, the one that hurts the most, against the system.The problem is that these parties do not have solutions for these problems, and in the long run they only end up making things worse. And behind the anti-immigration discourse there is an anti-democracy discourse. This vote is an invitation to gradually change democracy for an authoritarian and violent system (Russia, China, Trump's United States) that seems to solve problems because it does not accept the limits of these trifles called laws or human rights.It is true that the usual parties do not provide the best answers either, and for a long time, the normal, ordinary people who used to vote for them have become fed up because they do not listen, and because they do not notice that the wonders they explain during the campaign improve their lives. Agreed, the solution to serious problems is never quick, but the lifelong parties or ideological spaces are more comfortable with dialectical fighting than defending people from powerful private interests. An example: this morning President Illa was interviewed on 3cat and he assured that the government of the Generalitat is assessing whether to take the leader of Aliança Catalana to the Prosecutor's Office, Sílvia Orriols, for her tweets about the fatal attack in Manresa.Ricard Ustrell: Will they report Sílvia Orriols' tweets to the Public Prosecutor's Office as a hate crime?Salvador Illa: Whenever it is observed that there are behaviors that violate the legal framework and that incite hatred, the Government will act. We are assessing it, and if that is the case, in this instance and with everyone we will act the same.

Catalonia recorded a 10.1% increase in housing purchase costs between April and June 2026 compared to the same period last year, according to the housing price index, updated this Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE). The increase, although it is slowing down slightly compared to figures recently recorded –with rises above 11% in some quarters of last year–, remains among the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic, and has chained rises above double digits since the end of 2024. In fact, the increase between April and June is the third highest in the historical series, only surpassed by the second quarters of 2007 (+10.3%) and 2025 (+11.6%).

The entire leadership of the PP and the vast majority of the barons of the party had an appointment in Madrid this Monday: an informative breakfast by Juan Jesús Vivas at the Nueva Economía Fórum. The president of Ceuta traveled to the Spanish capital 39 days after the massive entry of migrants into the autonomous city that still marks the day-to-day of political news, and in the midst of multiplying political tension and crossed reproaches with the Spanish government. The person in charge of introducing him was Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who praised him for having “embodied the dignity of the State like no one else” and for acting as an “ideal president” to defend Ceuta in “times of unrest”. “You have a place in the hearts of millions of Spaniards,” he said.

The most feared forecasts for Brussels have come to pass. For the first time since the fall of Nazism the German far right has real options to govern a state. The results in Saxony-Anhalt have fallen like a bucket of cold water on the community capital, where the victory of Alternative for Germany (AfD) is read as a harbinger of the penetration of this intolerant ideology not into the hemicycle –where it has had a few seats reserved for some time– but into the front line of executive power. A reading contrary to that made by the most populist leaders, who see the results as a political springboard.

Frit Ravich will allocate 115 million to a new plant in Maçanet de la Selva, where it has its current factory and headquarters, and to a new distribution center in Madrid. The works, which will begin next year, represent "a decisive step" in the execution of the strategic plan of the family business specialized in the production of potato chips, snacks, and nuts, as highlighted by the group. The production plant, where it is expected to create up to 500 jobs progressively, will occupy 33,000 square meters. The Madrid center will be used to optimize logistics and "continue raising service standards in the central and southern area," according to the company.

On the eve of the start of the school year and a new educational strike, Salvador Illa announced this Monday that, in the coming weeks, the Government will present a complete program to air-condition all educational centers in Catalonia. The president of the Generalitat explained this on Monday in an interview with Catalunya Ràdio: "We will explain to the public where we stand and what we will do to resolve the situation," he said. The measure, he said, will also be implemented in nursing homes for the elderly.

An explosion at the practical laboratory of the Faculty of Chemistry of the Rovira i Virgili University, in Tarragona, has left at least three people injured. According to the Generalitat Fire Department, which received the notice at 9:17 a.m. this Monday morning, the explosion occurred while chemicals were being handled. Seven units are working on the incident at the Faculty, located on Marcel·lí Domingo street. The three workers, who were able to notify 112, have been transferred to the Joan XXIII Hospital and the Santa Tecla Hospital. All three are in mild condition, but one of them requires special medical attention for personal health reasons, according to Carvajal.

Eva, my eldest daughter, got married before the summer and, if I were still writing The Worst Mother in the World, I would have liked to explain the impact and the emotion I felt seeing her take that step. I would confess that I cried like a baby. Perhaps soon it will be your turn to write The worst grandmother in the world.

The German intelligence services have classified Alternative for Germany as an extremist organization, the far-right party that this Sunday swept the elections in the eastern federal state of Saxony-Anhalt with 44% of the votes. If it ultimately comes to govern (it fell just three seats short of an absolute majority and depends on the support of the pro-Russian nationalists Sahra Wagenknecht), the party wants to impose decisive changes that threaten basic democratic rights. These are the most prominent points of the electoral program that has led the AfD to a historic result and which could allow the far-right to govern a German state for the first time since Nazism.

Enes Kanter Freedom, the controversial former NBA player who caused an unexpected storm by declaring himself eligible for the draft of the WNBA, continues to fan the flames. The Turk has filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Sky and the owners of the Wintrust Arena, who threw him out of the arena for causing a disturbance.

At least five people have died and five more have been injured this Sunday at 2 PM (8 PM in Catalonia) after an Amazon cargo plane went off the runway during a landing maneuver at Miami International Airport.

The massive influx of immigrants into Ceuta last July 30th has triggered an unprecedented crisis in the city itself, but also in Spain and Europe. ARA journalist Albert Diumenjó has produced numerous reports on this crisis from Ceuta. He will explain what he has seen and what has surprised him, accompanied by the Head of International News, Francesc Millan, who will offer a geopolitical perspective. Both will answer the questions that readers have sent us.

The chef of the restaurant Semproniana Ada Parellada returns to the ARA. Every week she will prepare two recipes for us, which you will find on the newspaper's website and on social media. What type of recipes? She summarizes it like this: "Real cooking with homemade ingredients". Precisely, the first dish she brings us is a local classic of what in English is called comfort food: traditional, simple and comforting food. Let's start the week with some macaroni au gratin.

In Teoria de gèneres, the second book by Josep Girós (Tarragona, 1968), the architect and writer focuses on a temptation as old as the human being: to classify what they do not understand. Literature does not escape this either: novel, poetry, essay, thriller, autobiography, science fiction... Genres, subgenres, labels or compartments that promise to guide us before opening a book and that, often, only serve to tell us what we should expect from them. Girós writes precisely against this need to put everything in its place. The author plays with the very idea of classifying until it wavers. And he does so with a paradox that runs throughout the book: he plays at classifying while questioning classification. Instead of accepting the academic divisions of genres, he proposes his own view, deliberately eccentric, and turns literary taxonomy into a playground. The book does not seek to resolve what a novel, a poem, or an essay is, but rather to ask why knowing it calms us. Classifying a book is also domesticating it: anticipating it, reducing its mystery. Girós seems to suspect that literature begins to lose something just at the moment we believe we have understood it. Theory of genres moves away from the solemn literary essay, the kind that seems to demand that the reader maintain a certain gravity even when talking about books. Here, there is no desire to build a definitive system or to erect a new Bible of classification. The proposal is more interesting when it resists being turned into doctrine. And here one of its best weapons appears: humor. Not as an ornament, but as a way of thinking. Girós uses the joke to dismantle the formality with which we often speak of literature and culture, this ridiculous need to turn any reading experience into an operation of prestige. Leave room for error and surprise

Theory of genres is less a manual than a provocation. It does not offer a compass so that the reader does not get lost, but rather suggests a much more uncomfortable idea: perhaps getting lost is, in fact, the best way to read. The paradox is delightful: to rebel against classifications, Girós must manufacture others (unfinished narratives, admirably incomprehensible narratives, narratives translated more than once into Catalan, etc.). The game also has rules, but these do not intend to imprison literature, but rather to demonstrate that every border is provisional, artificial, and revisable.This awareness saves Gender Theory from becoming a mere catalog of eccentricities. Beneath the game lies a deeper question: what happens when we stop reading to confirm what we already knew? In an era in which algorithms increasingly decide what we read, leaving room for error and surprise is almost an act of resistance. Josep Girós does not ask us to abandon genres, but rather not to turn them into borders. The most vibrant literature has always been a bit of a smuggler: it enters territories that do not belong to it, mixes registers, steals forms, and disobeys the labels that try to contain it. After all, the book starts from an apparently modest question and ends up touching on an essential issue: to what extent do we need to order the world to be able to inhabit it? Girós responds with a proposal that prefers the crack to the wall, curiosity to certainty, and disorder to the tranquility of having everything classified. Perhaps reading does not consist of knowing which shelf we should put a book on. Perhaps it consists of taking it off the shelf and seeing what happens.

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Aliança Catalana presented last Wednesday as mayoral candidate for Lleida the lawyer Meritxell Feliu, who went on the Junts lists in the last European elections after having been a member of Unió and Demòcrates. And on Friday, the Islamophobic party announced its latest candidate, Lluís Areny, who will lead the list in Sant Quirze del Vallès. Although in the last elections he ran for an independent list, Areny, the party's communications secretary, was a member of Junts from 2018 to 2021.

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After the holidays and a resumption of the political term marked by the Ceuta crisis, the courts return to the forefront of current events. This week, Pedro Sánchez will see two executives from Plus Ultra, the manager of the PSOE, and the former director of the Civil Guard file through the National Court in the two investigations that have gained the most momentum in recent weeks and which could shake him the most: those of the Leire Díez and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero cases. What is expected to happen in the coming days and weeks?

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The academic year has begun in Catalonia with a substantial change at the helm of Parlem, one of the key companies of the business independence movement of the last decade. Furthermore, the end of summer marks, for all intents and purposes, the starting point of Marc Armengol's tenure as CEO of Banc Sabadell, with various organizational changes and a focus on digital activity. In the chamber sphere, the Association of Real Estate Agents (COAPI) has chosen its representative to the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce; while the Spanish government has appointed a new Secretary of State for Housing and Urban Agenda.

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Aisha stays on the sidelines, sitting on a stone between the rubble and the new houses that are under construction. In front of her, her village community is celebrating an Amazigh wedding. Even though it is a festive day, her thoughts are anchored to a pain too deep to let go. She holds it between her hands, tightly interlaced over her skirt, before lifting her head and telling me: “Life goes on, but my heart still hurts.” The earthquake took the older of her two children, who died while sleeping under the rubble of the house, of which now only the memory remains. Since the earthquake, three years ago now, she has lived in a tent in a camp without basic services. Water arrives intermittently, and electricity depends on a few solar panels that are often covered by the dust and debris stirred up by the strong winds of the high mountains.

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Artificial intelligence has already slipped into practically every crack of social life. In recent years, since the entry into play of the first versions of ChatGPT, experts and promoters of the technology have asserted that the ceiling for the implementation of AI solutions is exponential; and that the productivity gains they will generate in the short term are incommensurable with other technological disruptions. In a recent speech before Catalan business leaders, the president of Telefónica, Marc Murtra, asserted that "in thirty years in the world of technology, I had never seen such a rapid impact" as that of AI.

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Barcelona is preparing for the final sprint before the municipal elections in May. With all the runners in their positions once the uncertainties regarding the heads of the lists for Junts per Barcelona and Barcelona en Comú have been resolved, and the entry of Aliança Catalana into the capital confirmed, everything is ready for the start of the final political term before the elections. A short term—less than nine months—but with burning issues such as housing, the increase in homelessness, or the recent shootings in the city that will surely condition the plenary that emerges from the polling station.

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A high-mountain journey as a routine gesture to get to school. In isolated indigenous communities, the right to education is measured in kilometers of mud, rivers without safe crossings, and paths with dangerous terrain. Meanwhile, classrooms endure in precarious conditions, sustained by teachers who multiply resources where public investment arrives late or only halfway, and families convinced that taking their children to school is both a right and an obligation. Every day is an epic, a reflection of a structural gap: the physical distance between remote areas and opportunities. What real options do children have when the first obstacle is the environment itself? This photo essay focuses on the determination of the families and the slowness of the solutions that puts the children of the Ngäbe-Buglé comarca, in western Panama, near the border with Costa Rica, at risk.

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At a time when waiting lists and the difficulty of obtaining a medical appointment are part of the daily life of many citizens, continuous care services are gaining prominence. Sanitas is committed to this model with centers without prior appointments that allow for a quick and high-quality response to the care needs of patients. In this line, the Sanitas Provença Medical Center in Barcelona and the Sanitas Sabadell Medical Center are now expanding the insurer's care network with modern facilities and the latest technological advances, thus reinforcing more agile, accessible, and efficient care.

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Since March 17, 2024, the day Manolo González debuted on the blue-and-white bench, Espanyol has changed its president and owner, its sporting director –Garagarza, on leave, keeps the position, but his duties are performed by Monchi– and, even, its division. One of the few things that has not changed is, precisely, the coach. A Manolo who yesterday managed his 100th match in charge of the first team.

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The polls were already warning about it, and yesterday the results confirmed it resoundingly. The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has swept the elections in Saxony-Anhalt and could end up governing if it finally achieves an absolute majority in seats – at the last minute it was at 44.6% with 95% of the vote counted – or if its potential partner, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) party, which for the moment exceeds the 5% threshold of votes that allows for representation in the regional Parliament, supports it or abstains in the vote. Be that as it may, what is clear is that it was voted for by an overwhelming majority of citizens of this federal state, one of the 16 into which Germany is divided and which has a population that just barely exceeds two million people. In fact, the first thing that has been surprising today is the spectacular increase in turnout, which exceeds 70%, more than ten points higher than that which occurred in the previous elections of 2021.

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The nightmare of this atypical and historic heat is numbered. This Monday we will no longer reach 40 °C in the Ponent area, although it will still be very hot. The drop in the thermometer will be slight, around 3 or 4 degrees in some places, enough so that no more records are set. However, it will still be hot, with highs around 38 or 39 °C in Ponent and in the interior of the Ebro. From this Sunday it is worth highlighting new exceptional values, not at all common in the month of September, such as 42.5 °C in Vinebre and 42.3 °C in Torroja del Priorat.

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About a week ago, in this same newspaper we read a headline that made us proud as a country: "The most beastly Sant Fèlix". And the fact is that, to a greater or lesser extent, we are all moved by this very characteristic ability of ours to raise human towers defying balance while counting on a strength: that of building community, sticking together.The image and the praisesfor the 'verds' of Vilafranca making history for a new achievement, to a servant –who does not come from the 'casteller' world– serve as a metaphor to speak about school and the perspective that it needs. For too long, the stones in society's shoe have been entrenched within the walls of our classrooms. They have been piling up little by little, as if by chance, and now they are slowing our pace. What happens on the street bounces and impacts classrooms in a much more frantic way. But it turns out that we are playing with an exceptional variable that we cannot ignore: it is at school –though not solely– where it is appropriate to improve everyone's possibilities to live in the out-of-school.In order to adjust one's pace, sometimes it is necessary to change footwear. The "we have always done it this way" turns out to no longer work for us, neither in classrooms nor in offices. In an interview, the journalist and writer Nora Ephron said: "If the shoe doesn't fit in the shoe store, it will never fit you well." If we do not choose the right footwear for school, the shoe will not serve to walk comfortably and with guarantees.Luckily, we already know what we need because we know what works. We know that 0-3 matters a lot, we know that the language needs an urgent shock plan and that this seriously impacts learning processes at early ages. We know that the coffee for everyone formula is obsolete. We know that qualified leadership and stable, cohesive projects and teams are needed, that out-of-school is a necessary link, that the system needs evaluation processes... But neither the character limit of this article nor its purpose allow for listing everything we know.And while we talk again and again about what is already identified and evidenced, or while we generate only catastrophic headlines, we waste time focusing on solutions and continue to wallow in a spiral of discouragement and discredit. Negative messages also shape the view we have of school.

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It has always seemed unfair to me to confuse a cheapskate with a rat. They are completely different categories.The miser has every right in the world to spend little. The money is theirs. If they want to buy a second-hand car, wear the same coat for twenty years, or ask for tap water at a restaurant, they are perfectly free to do so. Their austerity is paid for by them, and no one has any reason to reproach them for it.The cheapskate plays a different sport. His specialty consists of managing to have the expense that corresponds to him end up coming out of the money of those around him. He is an expert at shifting small costs onto others. He is not a swindler or a liar; he is someone who, simply, manages to make it you who ends up paying a part of what corresponds to him.The penny-pincher saves their own money without harming anyone. The cheapskate saves with other people's money.We all know one. There is that person who, after ordering the most expensive wine, the steak, and dessert, suggests splitting the bill because "it's much easier that way." On the other hand, the day they only order a salad and a mineral water, they propose dividing the bill based on what each person consumed.But there are bolder ones. After splitting the bill, he discreetly collects the receipt before anyone can react. He approaches the bar and asks for an invoice in his company's name. In other words, he gets his friends to pay for part of his meal and, furthermore, he deducts it. If he manages to deduct the expense, from three diners onwards, the cheapskate is already making money from the lunch. It's not bad at all.My best friend told me that he used to have lunch once a year with an old university classmate. When they brought the bill, my friend, even though he knew he had already paid the previous year, would politely reach for his wallet. Then the other would say to him: "Are you paying this year?" "Yes, this one and the last one," he would always think to himself. And, out of politeness, he would keep quiet and pay. In the end, he decided not to call him to go to lunch again.We all understand that a friend might go through a bad patch and not be able to pay. What is hard to accept is discovering that someone is turning friendship into a permanent funding model.The cheapskate is also the one who calls you to have you review a contract "because you know about these things," the one who asks you to introduce them to a client even if it could affect your own business, the one who needs you to dedicate an afternoon to them because "it costs you nothing," but who, when you are the one who needs a favor, is usually very busy.The stingy person does not consider themselves stingy. They define themselves as a practical person who knows how to take advantage of opportunities.I have already said it: the miser protects his own money; the rat makes business with yours.

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At this point, the only interest of the political figure of the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is to personify the idea of banal power: raw power that has no other objective or purpose than to keep power itself running –and to benefit from it, of course, herself and a circle formed by accomplices and usurers (to whom favors must be returned with interest)–. Her ideological positions are inconsistent, vague; even her anti-Catalanism is routine, a chapter from the same instruction manual that also includes Madrid nationalism, the exaltation of the “Christian roots” of Spanish culture (whatever it is that these people understand by Spanish culture), the vindication of Spanish colonialism in America, anti-feminism, or the denial of climate change and the pandemic.The Community of Madrid –an administrative and political artifact that should be discussed in depth, starting with its very reason for existing– has long since become an optimal gear of this way of understanding power, in which politics, finance, justice, and the media configure, in effect, a state within a state, with its own laws written nowhere but known to everyone. An oligarchy, if you want to call it that. The most forceful staging of the effectiveness and refinement achieved by this gear is the confrontation between the Community of Madrid and the government of Spain presided over by Sánchez and with the Generalitat presided over by Illa, as powers aligned within the socialist sphere. The most raw and spectacular episode –so far– of this confrontation has been starred in by Ayuso and her advisor Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, a character who completely contradicts the profile of spin doctors as brains hidden in the shadows or behind the scenery of power. Rodríguez, who is a loudmouth, is enthusiastic about cameras, microphones, and social media, and he allowed himself the luxury of announcing step by step the fall of an entire Attorney General of the State without the judiciary, which had to carry out the script that Rodríguez was anticipating –the Supreme Court–, having any hesitation at all when it came to carrying out such a clumsy and brazen move. On the contrary, there was clear self-satisfaction in it all.One of the most recognizable ingredients in this recipe for understanding power is impunity, which has intoxicating, stupefying, and aphrodisiac effects. Just as it acts as a state within a state, the power of the Community of Madrid also likes to act as a party within the party, and Ayuso and her circle have created the myth of having toppled a secretary general and presidential candidate (Casado), and of having the next one (Feijóo) in their hands. But lately, Feijóo has allowed himself to leave Ayuso alone in the penthouse scandal and at Friday's meeting of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, which was attended by all the barons of the Popular Party, in contrast to Ayuso's snub. Impunity is a substance that has powerful highs, but also sudden crashes.

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A few days after the assault suffered by a minor Barça fan at the Elche stadium for carrying an estelada, Europa has reported a similar case during the match that pitted the Gràcia team against Alcorcón, a Primera RFEF match that ended without goals (0-0).

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"In a complicated, hostile moment with little hopeful news, this year we want to reclaim the act of celebrating," says the director of Fira Tàrrega, Anna Giribet. The event, one of the most relevant in the world of performing arts in Catalonia, will take place from September 10th to 13th and will host almost sixty shows by established artists and emerging talents. We have chosen 10 that focus on the theme of this 46th edition: the party and the gathering.

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Sergi was 36 years old when he lost everything. A bakery on Passeig Maragall, a rotisserie on Ronda del Guinardó, and a Mediterranean cuisine restaurant in Lliçà d'Amunt. But "a bad turn of events" pushed him to live on the street: he lost his businesses and the bank foreclosed on his house. But what cost him the most to recover was his identity. He had gone from having 38 employees and a business under his charge to having nowhere to take shelter. For six years, he lived inside ATMs, under restaurant awnings, looking for shelter inside parking lots in Nou Barris and the Paral·lel. But his worst enemy came inside a glass bottle. "I was drinking about twelve liters of alcohol a day. By the time I realized, it was already too late," he explains. But he did it, and his life has taken a turn. Now he runs the kitchen at the Arrels Foundation workshop, where he prepares breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks. "What do I cook? Whatever they give me," he says with a smile.

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Now that school is starting, one could try the pedagogy of Enric Arderiu Valls (1868-1920). He was seven years old. His parents dragged him from Linyola to Lleida. They got it into their heads: off to the seminary. The whole thing was so devilishly didactic that he had to repeat a year for arriving late to mass. That divine failure led him to embrace two other infernal beasts: culture and Catalonia.

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This Tuesday will be the sixth time that Catalan teachers have been called to strike across Catalonia in less than a year. In fact, if all the territorial strikes that were organized at the end of last school year are taken into account, a teacher or professor in the Catalan educational system who has participated in all of them will have been on strike for almost ten days – and, therefore, without pay – this 2026. Nevertheless, USTEC and the CGT, the two unions on the board calling for the stoppage – joined by the Intersindical and COS – and the brand new Catalan Educational Assembly (AEC) clearly see that the strike for the first day of school is "necessary", since, in their view, the Government has not properly reopened negotiations following the teachers' rejection of the pre-agreement in May.

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One random morning, the universe sets a trap for Nofre Canadell, and when he comes to, still dazed and with the word spricka tattooed on his thigh, he gets in touch with his wife and children and realizes that, without knowing how, fifteen years have passed. "His life will never be the same again –anticipates Ramon Mas (Sant Julià de Vilatorta, 1982), who this September publishes the novel Sempre és massa tard (L'Altra)–. I have been turning this story over in my mind for a long time. I must have had the first idea seven or eight years ago. It revolved around a father who could not regain contact with his children or his wife after falling into a temporal rift".

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With the new academic year after the summer break, young Juan Pich-Aguilera Blasco joins the seminary, after resigning as a Vox member in Valldoreix and leaving everything behind to become a priest. He followed the example of his brother Pablo, who has been a priest for seven years. It so happens that they are all descendants of an important Catalan textile dynasty –the Pich-Aguileras–, which began its textile foray in 1886 and still owns the historic company Sedatex. But this lineage not only has these priests, nor has Juan been the only family asset within Vox. What is the dynasty that nourishes the Church and Santiago Abascal's party like?

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Miquel (a fictional name) is 36 years old and is about to buy an apartment in Barcelona, in the Sarrià neighborhood. His mother "has paid quite a bit more than half of the apartment" and he will take out a mortgage to secure the rest of the financing. "Without my mother's help it wouldn't have been possible, and we had to have many meetings with the bank to see exactly how we would do it," he explains to the ARA.

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During the promotion of the film Cronos, about the August 2017 attacks, the actor Enric Auquer asked himself what we did wrong "if there are some Catalan boys who commit attacks speaking Catalan among themselves against other Catalans and an imam from Ripoll who is capable of radicalizing these kids".I was in Ripoll those days, walking the streets and talking with teachers, social mediators, entrepreneurs, politicians, members of the Catholic and Muslim communities, former classmates and football teammates of those who, incredibly, had become terrorists. The conviction was unanimous: if there were any children of North African emigration on their way to a future life in Catalonia, it was them. They had studied and some had good salaries. Those who could help them did help them, and knew them by their first and last names, them and their families.In Ripoll, many things were done well. But in Ripoll, I was also told what a police officer in the film comments: these boys, who were no longer from there, still did not quite feel from here. And Western values are not transmitted solely by place of birth or language. Islamist radicalization can occur in any country. And these young, disoriented, and half-formed personalities are susceptible to believing someone who lectures them, making them feel important and transcendent, talking to them about infidels and paradises. This is what happened, and this harm was not caused by the Ripoll society but by the imam, previously contacted and known by the Spanish secret services and not sufficiently monitored.That cannot be fixed anymore. What should worry us is what we might be doing wrong now, especially so that it does not happen again. Let us watch out for radicalization. And surely the path of hatred that begins against a religion and always ends up turning against anyone who disagrees is a tragic and proven path to failure as a country.

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The American actress Susan Sarandon, who in February received the International Goya in Barcelona, denounced this Sunday in Venice, where she presented the film The echo chamber, having been excluded from some projects due to her criticism of Israel and her support for Palestine.

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The 2026 Concurs de Castells now has the definitive list of participating groups. With the classification closed, it is now known who will compete in each of the three days of the event, which will be held on September 27th and October 3rd and 4th in Torredembarra and at the Tarraco Arena Plaça.

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Scandalous victory for Barça in their latest La Liga visit to Mestalla that we all know (0-5). The 'culers' imposed their law from the first minute against a Valencia side that looks very poor. Below, some hot takes:

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The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has swept the elections in the eastern federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, where it has remained at the gates of an absolute majority. The AfD has obtained 43.8% of the votes, more than double that of 2021 (20.8%) and only three seats away from being able to govern alone.

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An inscription engraved in Roman capitals with the letters EN and others that are only hinted at. Jardí has chosen for his profile picture a fragment of a tombstone from the National Archaeological Museum of Tarragona, which could –could, he says– coincide with part of his name.They told me I was affected for writing with certain fonts.

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Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, a few minutes from Washington D. C. Donald Trump and his assistant, Natalie Harp, step off Marine One, the helicopter of the President of the United States, to board Air Force Onebound for Houston. The photograph shows a scene very typical of presidential routines. These are iconic moments of power representation: the epic of the leader preparing to act, to demonstrate his strength. The photograph does not seem to have any particularity. However, the political context makes the image not innocent. Trump walks in the foreground, moving across the tarmac with his heavy gait. But Reuters photographer Kylie Cooper makes him appear blurred. Instead, she focuses on the secondary character: Natalie Harp. A former television presenter turned advisor and personal secretary. Her silhouette is perfectly defined, her confident smile is visible and the vivid green of the dress catches the observer's eye. She walks gracefully and with a firm step, in the background. On the day of the photo, August 27th, it had been only two weeks since the Washington Post had revealed that Trump, on his trip to Turkey, secretly abandoned the official plane at Ankara airport by hiding in a catering truck. He flew secretly in another aircraft while Air Force One, with journalists and part of the cabinet on board, served as a decoy in the face of a supposed dangerous situation due to threats from Iran. The press, which believed that Trump was traveling on the same aircraft, received the order to lower the blinds to prevent the light from inside from making the plane more visible during the flight.The Washington Post revealed that Natalie Harp was one of the few people chosen to accompany the president on the secret flight. Faced with a great threat, Trump prioritized his assistant over higher-ranking politicians. The opposition has taken advantage of this proximity of Harp to the president to make sexist insinuations about a possible sexual affair. On social media, images have circulated accusing her of being the trigger for an argument between Trump and Melania.Power, information and influence

The photographer has captured the moment when Natalie Harp walks under the large 'United States' sign, personifying that idea of dominance it represents. The secretary witnesses confidential conversations and meetings of the president. For some time, the press has dubbed her "the human printer" because she is the one who selects and provides Trump with emails, messages, news, and documents, always in paper format. In the image, Harp is the only one carrying a black bag that seems very full: the zipper does not quite close. She holds it tightly by the handle. The symbolic weight of the information she manages.This photograph hints at an influence that has nothing to do with official hierarchies. Despite her angelic pose and advertising-style beauty, the photographer points out the woman who holds great sway over Trump. Or perhaps a new weak point of the President of the United States.

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Until January of next year, when you buy a preserve labeled as zamburiña you will likely be purchasing Pacific scallop, Galician scallop, or variegated scallop. All three have an affordable price, and have traditionally been passed off as a more expensive mollusk: the variegated scallop, zamburiña in Galician. However, all this will end in January, because a new law will force canning companies to label with the correct name: they will not be able to pass one off for the other, neither in the name nor in the labeling photograph. Meanwhile, they have these remaining months of the year to finish the preserves that have the erroneous labeling, the one that tries to pass off as something grand what it is not.

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The announcement of adjustments and staff cuts at the Volkswagen group last week – the first of this magnitude in the 89-year history of the brand– will be accompanied by a historic restructuring of the models manufactured by the group to reduce production costs and maintain the competitiveness of the brands.

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A user on X uploaded a video after the Betis - Real Madrid match on Friday in which a group of Betis fans could be seen shouting the typical, not-so-subtle anti-government chant of "Pedro Sánchez, son of a..." So far, so normal. The internet is full of them. The surprise comes when we see that the official profile of El Español writes to them: "Hello, good evening! We have seen the video and would like to share it on our social media. Would you give us permission? Obviously, we would cite you and mention you as the author. Thank you very much and best regards".

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White House emissaries, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met this Sunday in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an attempt by the Trump administration to revive peace talks after more than half a year of deadlock, since the United States and Israel launched their offensive against Iran. It is the first time that the two White House envoys have set foot in Ukraine, while they have been to Moscow several times. This same Saturday they made a stop in the Russian capital to meet with President Vladimir Putin.

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Imagine entering the website of an appliance store to buy a refrigerator. The company, through your personal data, knows if you live in a rented property or if you own your home, detects your zip code, and recognizes if you have children. It also knows what you do for a living, what brand your mobile phone is, and how many times a month you go to a restaurant. Taking all these variables into account, it shows you a price just for you, different from what might appear to the neighbor next door or your friend who lives three streets away. In the end, the goal is to charge you the maximum amount you are willing to pay for a product according to the calculations of an algorithm. It is what is known as surveillance pricing.

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He died on August 28th and until September 9th he has been and will continue to be news. It seems like an eternity for a heart that no longer beats, but the demands inherent in burying a king seem not to allow it to be done with more haste. And even more so in the case of a king like Harald V of Norway, a monarch loved by his people and who was in office for 35 years. Perhaps if the farewell were faster, Norwegian society would view it negatively. For this reason, the funeral rites for the late king will have all the necessary pomp and circumstance. Including 21 cannon shots and a whistle from his royal ship.

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With a beer in his hand, on his luxurious boat, he defended the arguments of the ultra-flotilla that sailed to Ceuta to "support" the autonomous city, claim its "Spanishness," and blame the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, for the migration crisis. It was Marcos de Quinto (Madrid, 1958), a former Coca-Cola executive and former deputy for Ciudadanos, who left politics six years ago but enjoys living in controversy.

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A man is in critical condition after jumping from a fourth-floor balcony in Barcelona. The man had stabbed three people inside the home. One of the injured is in serious condition. The events took place this Sunday at a residence at number 162 Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, in the Sants-Montjuïc district of Barcelona.

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The impression is that Tash Aw (Taipei, Taiwan, 1971), an English writer born to Chinese parents who grew up in Malaysia, has conceived and written his latest novel, The South, as a compendium of many of the frictions, contradictions, and clashes that define the vast, heterogeneous, and highly complex world of Southeast Asia.In the just under two hundred and fifty pages that the novel has, generational disputes and discrepancies, class conflict, instability and the changes brought about by the rapid transition from a society with an eminently rural economy to a society with a mostly urban economy, a sexual awakening that does not fit into the prevailing rigid social codes, the gaps between tradition and modernity, the ravages of an incipient but already severe climate emergency all play a central role... Although, as I have already said, the novel does not reach two hundred and fifty pages, it has a panoramic ambition and a totalizing breath that are quite considerable. Perhaps because, as the author has announced, it is only the first volume of what is to end up being a tetralogy.Epic of detailism

The plot premise of the novel is literarily and humanly flammable. An old Malaysian farmer has just died and has bequeathed the family farm to his daughter-in-law, Sui. The farmer has willed it this way partly because Sui is a clever and resolute woman, but also because he had two sons, one with his wife, the other with his mistress. As if all this were not complication enough, the farmer's legitimate son, Jack, Sui's husband, abandoned the farm years ago and has worked as a teacher for decades in the city, while the illegitimate son, Fong, is the one who, with great effort and toil, breaking his back from sunup to sundown, has kept the farm from becoming an unproductive desert. Melodramatic? That is nothing. It turns out that Jack's son, Jay, and Fong's son, Chuan, who could not be more different – Jay is a sensitive and educated seventeen-year-old from the city, while Chuan, two years older, has been raised wild – are attracted to each other, and they desire each other and get involved.Melodrama materials, all things considered. But it is well known that, in literature, it is not the materials that matter but the way in which they are approached, worked on, directed, and made expressive. From the plot of The south, one could just as easily make a daytime TV movie out of it as a Faulkner novel. Tash Aw is closer to Faulkner, although it would be a Faulkner of sensitivity and self-awareness queer, less violent and more intimate.Set between the past of the 90s (the farm plot) and an indeterminate present, and narrated by one of the protagonists, Jay, who shifts from the first person to the third, The South grows and unfolds based on a kind of epic of detail. It is a detail that explores precisely and intensely both the awakening to life of a pair of adolescents and the frustrations and failures of a group of adults forced to live in a world shaken by economic and climatic crises, but who nevertheless strive to try to find meaning in life, even if it means clinging to a dry and inhospitable piece of land.

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For Ray Downey, 9/11 was his last act of service as chief of special operations for the fire department. For his son Joe, also a firefighter, it was eight months among rubble and smoke searching for his father's remains. For his grandsons, Connor and Joseph, it is an inherited memory: that of their father, Joe, leaving them at a neighbor's house as he rushed toward the World Trade Center.

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On the ship Winnipeg, the children were the only privileged ones. The ship set sail in August 1939 from France bound for Valparaíso (Chile) with more than 2,200 exiled republicans supported by the poet Pablo Neruda. It was a cargo ship that was only intended for a hundred passengers. The exiles slept in the belly of the ship and had to work to keep the ship running. The Winnipeg was also the playground for Lola Patau, a five-year-old girl who now, at 92 years old, tells the story of her parents, who fled the Francoist repression after the Spanish Civil War. Patau narrates the years of exile with a smile. Chile became "a home”, she says, while holding a folder full of old press clippings and yellowed photographs.

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Gabriel Jesus is the big news for the visit to a struggling Valencia at Mestalla (4:15 PM, Movistar) in a squad list that also sees the return of Gavi, who had missed the last two matches due to injury. The expectation is that the Brazilian could make his debut with Barça in the second half. This was detailed by Hansi Flick in the press conference, where he said he was satisfied with how the former Arsenal player had trained, even though he is not yet at 100%. Jesus landed in Barcelona on Monday, was presented on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, since the team had the day off, he trained alone. On Thursday he took part in part of the training with the group, and on Friday and Saturday – with a lower workload because it was the day before the match – he did complete both full sessions with his teammates. His compatriot Raphinha is acting as his master of ceremonies. He also knows Cancelo, Rodri, and Eric Garcia from his time at City.

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Salvador Illa arrived at the Palau de la Generalitat with the motto of "uniting and serving". To leave behind once and for all the years of the 'Procés', which he considers "divided" the country, and to dedicate himself above all to the management of the Catalan administration. These were supposed to be his main strengths. Halfway through the term, nothing suggests that the pro-sovereignty aspirations are reviving, but he has faced one crisis after another and has already suffered –for the moment– the farewell of a minister and three general secretaries in recent weeks (two just this week). And this start of the school year, which began with an important photo for Illa with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, also does not augur a calm second half of the term, which will be marked by the municipal elections and the shadow of electoral polls showing a PSC stalled or even with a slight loss of support.

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When the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York collapsed onto the asphalt and claimed nearly three thousand lives, a new geopolitical order began to be built. If today we are witnessing a gradual transformation of the world order, which is also disrupting old global structures, that was a clean cut, a turning point for the world that barely lasted two hours. The Bush Doctrine, which was promoted as a response, dealt the first major blow of demolition to international law, in the name of the so-called "war on terror." The strategy devised by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other neoconservative hawks surrounding George W. Bush imposed the concept of preventive war as a blank check for Western powers, basically the United States, to attack other countries unilaterally. A new type of war was then set in motion that was no longer between states but pitted governments against insurgent groups with international tentacles. And the era of surveillance also began, with state control over privacy in the name of national security.

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With the end of the summer holidays and the arrival of autumn, the debate on workplace absenteeism will return. One of the highlights will be the white paper that at the end of this month (it could be the 28th or the 29th) Foment del Treball plans to present, and which is being prepared by a group of experts. The group is headed by Jordi García Viña, who is a professor of labor law, as coordinator and president; and the rest are Fernando Casado, who is the president of Asepeyo; Pedro Pablo Sanz, who is the director general of the association of mutual insurance companies, Amat; Daniel Torró, CEO of Geseme, dedicated to occupational risk prevention; Antonio Salas, who is a great specialist from Madrid, within Amat; the lawyer Manel Silva and Yesika Aguilar, who is the director of labor resources at Foment.

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"Things have changed. It is now more common for women to access positions of responsibility in family businesses. They tend to be better because it is harder for them to get there." This is the statement of the president of a large Catalan company who handed over power to a daughter to run the business. And this is no longer as unusual as it was a few years ago, although there is still a way to go. The fact is that family businesses in Catalonia "are clearly more inclusive of women".

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After 35 days in Ceuta, Aiman is returning to Morocco. He crossed the border shortly before the massive entry of thousands of people in late July with the hope of achieving a better life, but he has not endured the blockade situation experienced in the city. He says he is exhausted after having spent a month sleeping on the street and this Thursday, finally, he decided to make the journey back. Like the majority of immigrants who remain trapped in the city, he is dirty, wears flip-flops, and carries a small bag where he keeps everything he owns. Although he tried, he did not manage to enter any of the temporary accommodation resources provided by the State, saturated by the high demand of people who are still in the city, and he has fed himself mainly on the food distributed by social organizations. On some occasions, he has even taken food from the trash.

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Fireworks to say goodbye to Mestalla (0-5). Barça, which has put all its repertoire of offensive tricks on the table, has thrashed Valencia in a match in which it was favored by the calamitous state of a rival that, normally, used to make things difficult. Now it is experiencing an internal civil war that is bleeding it dry, with the fans fed up with a management that is sinking them. If Barça lives relatively happily, Valencia does not. And the match, which could be Barça's last at Mestalla pending a possible duel in the Cup, has highlighted this reality. In fact, attacking as it has done today, Barça would also have won at the Mestalla of before, the one where all rivals suffered greatly. Barça has scored five goals and did not even need to play at 100% during the second half.

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Two matches, two routs. Barça does not forgive on the Sevilla field and continues with a firm step in this start of the Liga F thanks to the goals from Esmee Brugts, Clàudia Pina, Marta Torrejón, and Vicky López (0-4). Graham Hansen was once again the protagonist with two assists in a special match for Pere Romeu. 727 days after sitting on the bench for the first time as head coach of Barça –with a 0-3 victory on the field of Deportivo de la Coruña–, the Catalan coach managed his 100th match at the helm of the blue and garnet team. Throughout these two years, Romeu has lived very sweet moments –such as the triumph in Oslo against his former coaching staff colleague, Jonatan Giráldez, to lift the fifth Champions League of the season– and more bitter moments –such as the defeat a year earlier in Lisbon in the Champions League final against Arsenal.

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The runaway heat that continues to set temperature records across the country is numbered. This Saturday, the highest maximum for a September since 1914 was once again recorded at the Fabra Observatory, reaching 35.3 °C. With this historic value, there are now four records broken in the city of Barcelona since the beginning of the month. In Ponent, in the interior of the Ebro, and in regions like Priorat, temperatures have reached or neared 40 °C again, with a new September record at 64 of the 128 #XEMA stations with more than twenty years of data.

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The unbridled heat continues to set temperature records across the country. This Saturday, the highest maximum for a September since 1914 was recorded again at the Fabra Observatory, with 35.3 °C. With this historic value, there are already four records broken in the city of Barcelona since the beginning of the month. In Ponent, in the interior of the Ebro, and in regions like the Priorat, temperatures reached or brushed against 41 °C, with a new September record at 64 of the 128 XEMA stations with more than twenty years of data.

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The facts: Ceuta has a population of a little less than 90,000 inhabitants. Between 1995 and 2025, 85,000 people have arrived there irregularly. It has a population density of 4,500 inhab./km². An area of almost 20 km². And a GDP/capita of €23,000 (Spain, €34,190; Morocco, €4,600). The population with Moroccan nationality in Ceuta is 12%. The Muslim population, 45%. (In 1970 they were 10%.) The proportion of income coming from the General State Administration is 47%.Based on this reality and evolution, the future situation is foreseeable. 50% of the income is public. Little wealth is generated from private activity. The income is 68% of the Spanish one and five times the Moroccan one, which ensures intense irregular immigration destined for Ceuta or in transit to the EU.Spain's military and economic superiority over Morocco is indisputable, but the weapon of demography is an advantage for Morocco. The population versus the army: the Green March 50 years ago and the invasion of Ceuta a few weeks ago. Human life does not have, in Morocco, the same importance as in Europe.It is hard to understand why, in the long term, it is necessary to maintain Ceuta as a Spanish enclave in Morocco (except for the historical reason and the will to protect the population). There is no economic motivation. Spain, in case of conflict –and despite its military and economic superiority– would have two problems: 1) Morocco's demographic weapon (the population is used for political ends despite the risk it may pose to them). 2) An armed conflict would produce a rift in Spanish society that would be difficult to resolve (the right would probably be in favor and the left, probably, against). Morocco knows this and exploits it. Any alternative that is proposed in the short term must establish the Spanish nature of Ceuta. We cannot get out of one problem and enter another.

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The illusion of a certain order based on democratic expansion in the world ended, most likely, on September 11, 2001. Perhaps it was only an illusion that justified the hyper-leadership of the United States, but the fact is that the instructions for use of international relations began to be torn apart until reaching the chaos of today.

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The Venice Film Festival dressed up this Saturday and enthusiastically applauded the return of Nanni Moretti, one of the great Italian filmmakers of the last few decades. It had been thirty-seven years since the director of Caro diario had stepped onto the historic stage, since 1989 when his film Palombella rossa –which offered an acidic portrait of the bewilderment of the Italian left– was excluded from the Official Selection supposedly for political reasons; the film ended up being presented in a secondary section of the festival, the Critics' Week. However, Moretti has not shown any resentment during the presentation of Succederà questa notte, which is competing for the Golden Lion this year. In fact, the filmmaker wanted to downplay his almost four-decade distancing from the festival: “It is not true that I had anything against Venice; simply, in all this time, my films were never ready in the summer, which is when the festival is held. This time, instead of filming in the spring, I did it in the autumn and, therefore, it seemed natural to present the film there”.

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Politics is the art of the possible, and we must demand that our public representatives be capable both of maximizing political conjunctures and of making a realistic reading of the correlation of forces. In this sense, it can be debated whether the new financing system that the PSOE has put on the table, and which would mean an injection of 4.7 billion extra for the coffers of the Generalitat, is sufficient or not. But taking into account historical experience (it has been 17 years since any new model was proposed), and making a realistic reading of the political moment, with the PP and Vox at the gates of the Moncloa, there is no choice but to conclude that it would be a great irresponsibility to renounce this money.

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The 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has generated premieres on platforms to commemorate, above all, the victims. There are affected and tearful tributes, such as the one proposed by Netflix with Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror, a production that tries too hard to argue that a transformative social legacy remains from that tragedy. They are interviews with young people who were children on the day of the catastrophe and also survivors and relatives of victims who explain how their lives changed. A dispensable option for being forced and sensationalist.The Disney+ platform has released a three-episode series from National Geographic. Each 9/11 anniversary, this label seeks an alternative approach to the attacks. 9/11: One Day in America retells the experiences of the Twin Towers and Pentagon survivors in a very emotional way. It encourages the reunion between rescuers and the rescued amidst the chaos and panic. Each episode collects several unheard-of stories, those that make one shudder but have a, at the very least, moderately happy ending. Each witness separately explains the hours leading up to the catastrophe, remembering what seemed like it would be a normal workday until the planes crashed into the building where they worked. The stories will intersect in the midst of the desperation. There are incredible ones, where you notice how the most insignificant detail becomes a providential fact for the resolution of the drama, such as a window cleaner entering the elevator of one of the towers at the last minute. The reunion after twenty-five years brings a bit of comfort to the harshness of the tale. The insistence of the music, which tries too hard to underline an emotion that does not need embellishments, is unnecessary. It is very likely that you will need a few tissues before finishing each episode. In the documentary, a psychological emotional response that runs through all the productions commemorating the tragedy appears repeatedly: survivor's guilt. An irrational reaction that the protagonists often mention as an aspect that has hindered their ability to recover. Despite this, 9/11: One Day in America has the ability to speak to us about the possibility of rising from trauma through real examples. In the productions, terms like jihadism, Bin Laden, Mohamed Atta or similar are never mentioned, so the trigger for it all is deliberately erased.If you are still in the mood for more air disasters, Netflix has released this summer the British miniseries based on true events Lockerbie. An excellent recreation of the 1988 terrorist attack that blew up a plane flying from London to New York and crashed over the town of Lockerbie. A key precedent for understanding some aspects of the management of 9/11. The rigorous reconstruction of the investigation, the clarity with which the events are exposed, and the actors' performances make the series an addictive option that, furthermore, manages to provide a humanistic reading of great tragedies in a very pertinent way.

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The United States military attacked three Iranian oil tankers this Saturday, according to the Central Command (Centcom) in a statement, in which it justified the action as a response to attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard against two US warships patrolling in the region's waters. This episode of cross-attacks represents an escalation of the conflict, which remains deadlocked after more than half a year.

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Pedro Sánchez stood alone this week in Congress defending Morocco, although for the first time he introduced nuances into his speech. Previously, the Moncloa's position was argumentatively unsustainable, since if Morocco is characterized by anything, it is by having its territory under control (can one really argue that they did not notice that thousands of people were heading to the border?). Furthermore, it is not the first time that Morocco has used migrants to challenge Spain (let us remember, recently, Ceuta in 2021).

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"Europeans are facing a harsh truth: that this is the new normal." This sentence from the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, brings to mind that "new normal" of restrictions on individual freedom in favor of public health to which we had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. The statement, however, is not from six years ago, but from this week. Now, the new normal to which we must get used to is that of systematic attacks by Russia. "We are in a new era of European security," insisted the leader of the EU executive. The message arrived after German authorities directly blamed Moscow for an attack with an explosives-laden drone at Leipzig airport at the beginning of August, one of the most serious sabotage attempts recorded so far on European territory, at a key NATO logistics center.

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We are concerned that AI will cause massive job destruction. Influential and sensible voices—the latest being Bill Gates—tell us that perhaps this time it will be different and that when the shock of the technological transition stabilizes, we will see that enough jobs have not been created to replace the ones that disappeared. Below, I point out some of the factors that may influence this possibility.

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A quarter of a century has passed and the horror of that day still seems near. And that of the following ones, when in sleepwalking New York we breathed the ashes of the corpses carbonized and dissolved in the atmosphere.

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In mid-August, the American entertainment world was stunned by the news of the death of actress Hayden Panettiere, who was only 36 years old. She was well known for the series Heroes and Nashville, but she had been working in film and television since she was 5 years old. She had grown up in front of viewers, like many other child actresses, some of whom have also met a grim fate. Besides Panettiere, in the last year three other former child actresses have died: Michelle Trachtenberg, aged 39; Sophie Nyweide, 24, and Daveigh Chase, 35. In all cases, the deaths occurred after years of struggling with addictions and various psychological problems. Another constant in most cases is difficult relationships with parents, especially when one of them is involved in their children's careers.

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Public debt yields have experienced a significant climb in recent weeks, reaching levels not seen in two decades. Fears of inflation and, therefore, the forecast of new interest rate hikes have driven sales of these assets. The fact is that if the cost of living becomes more expensive, the fixed interest paid by a bond loses purchasing power and, consequently, investors sell the securities they hold in their portfolios and demand higher profitability on new issues.

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Fermín could not go to summer camp because of some inopportune mumps. He was devastated. It was his greatest wish. He spent his holidays at his grandparents' house, in Peñíscola, where in 1961 the film El Cid, starring Charlton Heston, was filmed. Now, fully recovered, he has settled back into his parents' home in La Barceloneta. He is tanned, blonder, with curly hair, without the shaved sides he had been wearing lately. The beginning of a mane, like his friend Ferran, who changed schools this year, has been wearing for some time.

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Girona is finally starting to fire on all cylinders and has secured its second consecutive league victory at Sporting's ground (0-2), placing them in the upper part of the Second Division standings. Standout performances came from top scorer Yáser Asprilla, Carles Pérez, who opened his account with a fine goal, and Paulo Gazzaniga, who made amends for past performances. The Girona players survived a very hostile atmosphere with professionalism and efficiency.

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These days we are seeing how the Ceuta crisis is causing Pedro Sánchez to collapse. The Spanish president had found a tone and a profile that allowed him to take advantage of the gaps produced in a Europe that is brazenly shifting towards post-democratic authoritarianism. This had worked for him in Spain and abroad, at a time when the left is rapidly blurring. Management—and it was noticeable day by day—wears you down, but a certain sense of anticipation and a style contrasted with the permanent state of irritation of the right gave the president some leeway.

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There are words that explain a generation better than many sociology treatises. “Farming aura” is one of those expressions. If a teenager tells us that someone has farmed aura, they are not talking about any spiritual energy or a mysterious property, we don't need to think that it has to do with esotericism, no. It means, more or less, that that person has done something that has made them gain presence, charisma, style, or admiration. They have scored points, ergo they have gained aura.The word farmejar (from the verb to farm or farming, in English) comes from cultivating, growing, etc., but, for young people, its meaning comes from the world of video games and means repeating a certain action to accumulate experience, resources, or points and increase value or level. From video games, it has jumped into everyday life and even real battles are taking place in parks and squares. The logic is fascinating because we too can accumulate social capital through gestures, ways of dressing, attitudes, phrases, looks, or situations that make us seem more interesting to others. Aura is no longer that intangible quality that makes a person acquire a certain magnetism, that which simply emanates from a person, and it becomes a kind of invisible marker.Pierre Bourdieu helps us understand that perhaps there is nothing as new as it seems. The French sociologist had already explained that prestige is not an individual property, but a form of symbolic capital, since something acquires value because a community recognizes it as such. Clothes, musical tastes, the way of speaking, the places we frequent, or our cultural references can function as signs of distinction. What changes now is the speed and, above all, the awareness of the mechanism.Farming aura has become a characteristic expression of the digital slang of generation alpha, also shared with generation z. It is no longer just about having style, but it is necessary to know how to produce it, exhibit it, and manage it. A look at the right moment, a soccer celebration, a way of walking, a witty response, or even knowing how to remain impassive in a ridiculous situation can generate "plus a thousand aura". In aura battles, this logic becomes explicit, because young people compete before an audience that decides who transmits more presence.

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In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt warned against a society divided into two camps: those who believe in omnipotence—capable of organizing themselves to bring order to the prevailing chaos (if necessary, by force)—and those who experience the deepest helplessness.

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The migration crisis in Ceuta represents yet another serious complication for a weary government, now without permanent allies, but led by a president determined to continue and finish the legislative term. The hypothesis of a miracle that would allow the socialists to rebuild alliances and projects for a new stage in power next year seems increasingly implausible. Thursday's debate in Congress highlighted the solitude of Pedro Sánchez, criticized by all the parliamentary forces. Yet once again he managed to remain standing, without falling exhausted onto the canvas. Feijóo tries to strike the socialist leader with ever more force and knock him down for good. There is no longer any kind of respect or consideration between the two. And despite this, the feeling always remains in the air that the president of the PP will have to keep waiting, because his blows—which would be quite forceful against other opponents—do not have much effect on Sánchez, who shows no signs of looking for any other way out than to stake everything on one card whenever he decides to call the next general elections.

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The Spanish government has led the opposition to the creation of extraterritorial deportation centers, that is, centers located outside the European Union where asylum seekers would be forcibly moved while their application is processed, and those irregular immigrants subject to an expulsion order while its execution is resolved. As is known, it had been Giorgia Meloni's government that had led the idea, and it already has two centers in Albania with a capacity for 3,000 people. Although the Commission had expressed reservations, they are part of the European border management policy following the approval, by the Parliament, of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum.As is known, the centers in Albania are not quite working because the Italian justice system has seen many problems with them. Paradoxically, Spain is building the first fully operational European extraterritorial deportation center. In Ceuta.On the one hand, Sánchez is under enormous pressure not to transfer any of the thousands of people who entered irregularly and do not want to return to Morocco to the Peninsula. This pressure comes not only from opposition parties, but also from many European chancelleries, which are very uncomfortable with the recent mass regularization of immigrants in Spain. He also knows that Spanish public opinion would view it very unfavorably. He has tested the possibility of transferring a particularly sensitive group—unaccompanied minor girls—and doing so to private centers at the State's expense, but has not had much success. On the other hand, for a significant part of those who took part in the entry to end up managing to reach the Peninsula would constitute a suicidal precedent. The official policy is, therefore, that all those who entered illegally will be expelled except for those who have the right to asylum and unaccompanied minors who cannot be returned to Morocco with sufficient guarantees. The expulsions, however, will be very slow, as Minister Torres has been quick to warn.Meanwhile, administrations are providing migrants with centers where they can sleep, shower, and receive medical care and food. The rest of the time, these thousands of people, mostly young men, wander around with not much to do in a city of 80,000 inhabitants with very little work to offer them. It would take a miracle for this state of affairs not to lead to conflicts, and, in fact, these have begun very quickly. The Spanish authorities need time to issue expulsion orders with the guarantees required by law, but, once they have done so, the Moroccan government will not make their execution easy. Why should it do so if its strategic interest is to destabilize Ceuta and Melilla?

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The right-wing shift of the country is advancing unstoppably. I am not speaking in electoral terms, but rather about the level of tension and simplification of the debate, ingredients of this turn towards the purest and hardest right, the one that boasts of easily finding culprits and remedies. The right is taking over the landscape and finding fertile ground in a country like Catalonia, where several factors of disaffection coincide: a) a feeling of decadence and uprooting; b) a real strain on public services, and c) the pendular response to the left-wing turn of the years of the 'Procés', when the CUP set the agenda with an impractical and highly moralistic leftism (“Franciscan”, as Enric Juliana called it). The 2010s, in Catalonia, were an Age of Aquarius, with a lot of posturing and clichés. Manuel Delgado has said that “in the face of hate speech, the left has offered urban gardens”. It is an exaggeration, but one based on real facts.I am of a certain age and I remember how the yuppies hedonists of the 80s laughed at the hippies. Everything is cyclical, but each cycle makes things worse. The migration crisis has derailed the left, which has been left without an answer, has worn out the term fascist to the point that it no longer means anything and has left the field open to half-baked Trumpists who preach Manichaeism and ethnic hatred. To face this offensive, anti-fascism no longer has a David Fernàndez, but rather Juana Dolores and other parodies that dare to speak in the name of the working class and continue to point out trivialities instead of addressing what had always been the strong point of the left: real policies against inequality and the collapse of public services. These are major threats that the rampant right will hardly address, because it is more profitable for them to spread fear and hatred towards the weak, and, in the case of Spain, to stimulate a jingoistic resurgence that, even without exaggeration, can be branded as neo-Francoist. The most worrying thing about this phenomenon is not the brainless with their braying, but the police, the judges, and the economic and media oligarchies that hope to fish in troubled waters. It is a coalition too powerful for the PSOE to deal with, considering that the Sánchez government is driving without a steering wheel and with flat tires.Spain is moving with firm steps towards the hegemony of the PP and Vox, which will have a lesser reflection in Catalonia. But in front of it, there is no longer the old transversal, mesocratic Catalanism based on civic strength, but rather a PSC surrendered to the PSOE and, therefore, in a state of shock; two depressed parties managing the shipwreck of the 'Procés' and a local far-right that instead of challenging the State, as it should, prefers to attack those who wear a veil and do not eat pork. A desolate panorama that can only be reversed when Catalan identity—which, despite its thinning, constitutes our core, in a country torn apart by divisions of all kinds—decides to form a common front and stand up. Since October 1st, we know that this means conflict. External and internal. Are we prepared for it?Let us remember –once again– the journalist Agustí Calvet, Gaziel. In 1936, when Companys asked him for advice, the journalist predicted the rise of fascism and the fall of the republic: “Will we have time to organize ourselves (...) so that when the inevitable collapse comes, our freedoms do not also collapse?”, he asked himself. And finally, an appeal to the unity of the Catalans: “It is not (...) an indispensable task: it is THE ONLY ONE”. The difference is that Gaziel advocated for this Catalan unity in the face of “Castilian and Castilianized Spain”, and today we know that it is not possible to make a clean break between these two realities. Here is the challenge we will face.

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After more than half a year with peace talks stalled due to the conflict in the Middle East, Donald Trump seeks to relaunch negotiations to reach an agreement that puts an end to the war in Ukraine. His emissaries, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, landed this Saturday in Moscow, where they met with Vladimir Putin, and this Sunday they will be in Kyiv for the first time to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The visit takes place in the midst of an escalation of long-range cross-bombardments and with the Russian president less willing than ever to make concessions. Despite this, both sides have ended up accepting a three-day ceasefire over the two capitals to ensure the safety of the American diplomats.

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The Spanish government has announced that it is assuming control of the port of Ceuta for the "humanitarian care" of migrants in tents and other spaces, as provided for in a resolution by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility.

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"He has no doubts, his ideas are very clear." The determination of Xevi Pujol, the architect who is rethinking Barça, has helped the blue and garnet club incorporate a group of players with very specific characteristics. The Catalan has opted for young, athletic signings with a good predisposition for work, three premises that he considers necessary to propose a modern style of basketball. The name of Stanley Umude had been underlined for some time in the technical secretary's agenda. Aside from his defensive capacity, the forward has a characteristic that makes him differential: his shooting mechanics, which are substantially faster than those of other perimeter players.

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On September 5, 1976, Joaquim Maria Puyal made the first broadcast in Catalan of a Barça match on Ràdio Barcelona. It was a Barça - Las Palmas game at the Camp Nou and the 'blaugranes' comfortably defeated the Canary Islands team 4-0, with two goals from Johan Cruyff, one from Manolo Clares, and one from Juan Carlos Heredia. Viewed from today, it is hard to imagine the impact that the Catalan-language broadcast must have had at that moment, even for Catalan speakers. I am sure that many years had to pass before the majority of Catalan speakers became accustomed to hearing their own language in spheres that had until then been reserved for Spanish, and that at first, more than one person must have turned up their nose or thought that it would be an experiment with no future.

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Since the arrival of Marc Armengol as CEO of Banc Sabadell last May, practically everything has been positive for the Vallesan entity. During the last four months, the executive has presented almost record-breaking half-year results, with skyrocketing revenues and a net profit of 971 million euros, has exceeded the stock market value prior to the distribution of the extraordinary dividend from the sale of the British subsidiary TSB and continues to boast of its capacity to grow independently after the failed takeover bid by BBVA. Backed by his predecessor, César González-Bueno, and by the group's chairman, Josep Oliu, it is now that Armengol faces his real acid test. This September 1st, the new organizational structure of the bank designed by Armengol himself came into operation. It is the gala lineup with which the former CEO of TSB must now command the fourth largest entity in the State by volume of assets. The composition of the management committee—formed precisely by eleven members, like soccer teams—remains unchanged, but notable changes have been applied in some business areas. Known for his techie profile, Armengol has wanted to make his preferences clear.

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The fight against hunger is part of the daily life of many people in Ceuta. Although many of the immigrants who crossed the border illegally at the end of July have decided to return to Morocco and many others are already in temporary accommodation resources set up by the State, there are hundreds who are still trying to make a living as best they can in the city. They queue in front of supermarkets, restaurants, and bars in the hope that someone will give them something to fill their stomachs, they ask for money, fish, or even take food from the trash. At El Trampolín beach, a couple of boys have improvised a grocery store; they buy food and then resell it at the settlement. "Now we work for Mercadona," joke Ayoub and Imad, who show the purchase receipt to prove that they have not stolen anything. There are so many mouths to feed, however, that the help of neighbors and the solutions they come up with are not enough, and it is the social entities that are ensuring that these people can eat every day, weeks after their arrival in the city.

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It is seven in the evening on an August Wednesday in Barcelona. Under the Arc de Triomf, hundreds of young people summoned by social media participate in a phenomenon that in recent weeks has jumped from TikTok to radio talk shows, television, and all kinds of conversation spaces. These are the aura battles, with the goal of farming aura, a practice as simple as performing actions designed to project an attractive, interesting, or simply different personality.

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For nine months, Collserola has been emptied of hikers and cyclists who found it a quick escape from the city. The outbreak of African swine fever (ASF), which already totals 384 positive cases, has forced extreme measures to be taken to prevent the virus from spreading, and to reinforce the closure of the natural park when the infections reached Barcelona. Aside from farms and slaughterhouses, a sector fully affected by this situation are the restaurateurs accustomed to serving breakfasts and lunches to cyclists and hikers who have not made an appearance for months. Despite the aid approved this week, the restaurants that ARA has spoken to agree in explaining the difficulties they are going through, some to the point of considering closing, and which they all describe as more serious than those caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Many times the artists' desire to maintain creative freedom can exceed the expectations of an official commission. When the French General Tourism Commissioner, Charles Duprat, invited eleven Catalan and Spanish photographers to spend time in Paris, his goal was to obtain "artist images," but it backfired. Those artists, among whom were Joan Colom, Gabriel Cualladó, Eugeni Forcano, Paco Gómez, Ramon Masats, Oriol Maspons, and Xavier Miserachs, did their own thing rather than the pleasant photographs he expected. In the midst of the Franco regime, those artists were captivated by the life and freedoms of the Parisians, who could kiss in public, which captivated Joan Colom, and protest, a sovereign activity that caught the attention of Ramon Masats.

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When last Saturday 38 people died near Kyiv in one of the deadliest Russian attacks of the entire war, many inevitably thought of the unstoppable destructive power of ballistic missiles. But what crashed into the ammunition depot in the suburb of Mila was not a fearsome Iskander, but a new-generation drone. The Geran-4 and Geran-5, the latest Russian evolutions of the Iranian Shahed, have also become the latest headache for Ukrainian air defenses, which see with impotence how, in addition to missiles, they now also have difficulties stopping this new Kremlin weapon.

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Before becoming one of the founders of the iconic group Skatalà in 1985, Josep Manel Pugés—who has died at age 66 as a result of a "serious illness," as announced by the band—played drums and guitar in several pioneering bands of the Barcelona punk scene. Since the late 70s, Pugés was linked to Clinic Humanoyds, Attak, Ruidos Molestos, or Shit S.A.

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The company Blai Peris, from Bot (Terra Alta), wants to demonstrate that innovation can also be applied to the food that has civilized humanity since ancient times, olives. “The idea of personalizing them came to me while thinking about what we could do with our olives to take a step further in the market. Then I proposed to my cousin to try it with his laser machine, and the surprise was to verify that yes, it worked on the first try,” explains Àlex Peris, who together with his brother Blai is at the head of the business. As he explains, olives have the particularity that they are packaged in a liquid that protects them from the outside, a fact that allows them to be preserved even after engraving their skin. And that is how they have made olives with the Barça logo, which they served on the day of the team presentation through the catering offered by the company Cal Blay. “This innovation, which no one had done before, we have not been able to patent, but we hope that we will be able to do so soon, since we are working on a process that will help to better visualize the engraving: olives dyed with natural dyes and personalized,” continues explaining Àlex Peris.

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The new financing model has passed the first vote in the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) with the support of Catalonia and the Canary Islands (in addition to the Spanish government) and the vote against it from all the autonomous regions governed by the PP and the PSOE. The Minister of Economy and Finance, Alícia Romero (Caldes d'Estrac, 1976), is satisfied.What future awaits the new model now?

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Some people look for their roots to try to understand who they are. Carles Lalueza-Fox (Barcelona, 1965) looks for them to decipher where we come from and better understand our past as a species. For more than two decades, this paleogeneticist from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE-CSIC-UPF) and current director of the Barcelona Museum of Natural Sciences has been reading the history of humanity in ancient DNA and is one of the world's leading experts. He has contributed to demonstrating that modern humans carry Neanderthal DNA and has reconstructed migrations and interbreeding of prehistoric populations. He has just published Identidad (Crítica), where he delves into a murky terrain: what DNA can explain about who we are and what it cannot.

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