Rafa Jódar will play his first Masters 1,000 semifinal in Montreal after defeating Arthur Fils last night (7-65 and 6-3), a victory that temporarily moves him up to 11th in the world. The 19-year-old from Madrid had fallen in the quarterfinals of Madrid and Rome. His next opponent will be American Brandon Nakashima, ranked number 25, who had also never reached this far in a major.
There are swimmers who keep all the juice inside, whose talent only needs that day to come when someone or something uncorks it automatically. An emotion, a unique setting, an insurmountable challenge, or swimming alongside your idol in a European semifinal. And this last is what has happened to Luca Hoek (18 years old), the torpedo from Sitges, with a French mother and Dutch father, but born and raised by the Mediterranean Sea.
Sensational. Spectacular. In April, she couldn’t even run. A lumbar ailment had sent her to the stretcher and she couldn’t train. Excessive gym workouts had short-circuited her preparation and she was theoretically out of shape. But she is a top competitor. A wonderful athlete who inaugurated the Spanish medal tally at the European Championships in Birmingham. Marta García from León (28 years old), a trained doctor, earned her doctorate again by winning silver in the 5,000 meters final with a time of 15m39s98. Two years ago in Rome, she won bronze and this time she climbed one step higher. As in 2024, at the very top was the untouchable Italian Nadia Battocletti (15m37s84), who defended her title. “You had to believe it like in the Football World Cup and I believed it. Everything went as I wanted, I gave the maximum I could. I was always where I had planned to be during the race,” García said. Behind her, the bronze medal went to the Italian Micol Majori (15m40s65).
The Consell de Garanties Estatutàries de Catalunya has endorsed the proposed Chambers law, including the scheme of the silver seats, those seats reserved for the companies that contribute the most money to the entities. These had been the focus of controversy due to their reservation, which led in July to the Comuns and the CUP requesting an opinion from the Consell regarding this chapter and two others, focused on their representation and their role in vocational training (FP). The advisory body sees the entirety as compliant with the framework of the Statute and the Spanish Constitution. The law is being processed in the Parliament, which is inactive until the end of September.
The first measures of the European regulation on packaging and packaging waste, which came into force in February 2025, will begin to be applied tomorrow progressively until 2040. The regulation will affect the design, manufacture, marketing, recyclability, reuse, and management of packaging used in various sectors.
The case of the luxury penthouse in Chamberí acquired by the Community of Madrid has experienced in recent hours a qualitative leap that tightens the seams of the regional Government presided over by Isabel Díaz Ayuso. What began as a first-rate political controversy due to shadows of opacity and the changing explanations from Puerta del Sol has formally entered the courts, after the head of the Court of Instruction number 8 of Madrid, magistrate Rosario de Fátima Espinosa, has opened preliminary proceedings in relation to five complaints focused on the purchase of a property worth 6.3 million euros executed by a Madrid public company.
Mercedes López Romero, Ciudadanos deputy in the Andalusian Parliament, advises not to look at the eclipse even with protective glasses, and if they are children, even less so. Romero suffers from 90% blindness due to having stared directly at the sun during an eclipse when she was only 8 years old, without using any type of protection.
Barcelona is not the ideal setting to watch Wednesday’s eclipse. Despite this, the public does not want to miss this historic event. These paragraphs are a guide on what one can do, and also what one should not do, to enjoy this phenomenon close to home.
The solar eclipse today reaffirms our human condition. Since always, humanity has paid attention to this phenomenon. With curiosity, with fascination, with devotion or with fear. For some time now, moreover, its observation has turned into a social event. This afternoon,…
An extraordinary deployment of forces, with 700 Mossos d’Esquadra officers mobilized for the total solar eclipse and coordinated with the various local police forces, 180 from the Traffic unit, and also resources, with a helicopter permanently flying over the AP-7 south in Catalonia during the midday and afternoon of the astronomical phenomenon. The main concern of the Servei Català de Trànsit (SCT) is to prevent a major collapse on Catalonia’s main road infrastructure. With a solar eclipse that will reach totality this August 12 around 8:30 p.m. in the regions of Tarragona, Terres de l’Ebre, and Ponent (Lleida), a very significant increase in mobility is expected throughout the afternoon.
