At the doorstep of summer, many families face a period in which the household budget soars. Vacations, leisure, travel, or the maintenance of a second home increase expenses just at a time when the cost of living remains high. The feeling is repeated in thousands of households: saving is becoming increasingly difficult.
Scientists revealed this Monday the discovery of a new species of small blue octopus in the Galápagos archipelago, located about 1,000 kilometers from the Ecuadorian continental coasts and a Natural Heritage of Humanity since 1978.
María stopped eating bread two years ago. Then she eliminated sugar, the little beer with appetizers, and practically any ultra-processed food. She started walking 12,000 steps daily, stopped using the elevator to always take the stairs, and signed up for daily strength classes. Additionally, she bought a watch that measures her sleep and every morning checks an app that calculates her “biological age.” She is 66 years old and, yet, says she has never felt so afraid of aging.
That one of the most anticipated literary debuts of the year features a tradwife as the protagonist is not something that should be surprising. For those unfamiliar with the term, this anglicism is an abbreviation of traditional wife, or in other words, traditional housewife, and this is how Natalie Heller Mills, a character in the novel Yesteryear (AdN) by Caro Claire Burke, who has just arrived in bookstores stirring much excitement among readers, refers to herself. It is no wonder, as actress Anne Hathaway, who these days can be seen on the big screen starring in The Devil Wears Prada 2, has purchased the film rights to turn the novel into a movie, playing the role of Natalie herself. She will thus go from being a promising girlboss ready to succeed at Runway magazine, directed by Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), to quite the opposite.
The impact of the DANA on October 29 is measured not only in mud but also in unprecedented economic paralysis. According to reports from the Valencia Chamber of Commerce and the Generalitat, the disaster struck more than 54,000 companies and put the livelihood of over 190,000 workers at risk, affected by ERTEs, reduced working hours, and layoffs. With nearly 10,000 shops and local businesses devastated, the reconstruction of the ground zero area demands a specialized workforce that the current market cannot supply.
The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda has opened sanctioning proceedings against Polymarket and Kalshi, two prediction platforms where bets are placed, for a possible violation of gaming regulations. They would be operating in Spain without the mandatory administrative authorization.
This Tuesday, negotiations between the Departament de Educació and the unions resume to resolve the educational conflict in Catalunya. They do so amid a call for a series of strikes and demonstrations that, if supported by public school teachers as they have been so far, will especially pressure the city of Barcelona and its metropolitan area this week. This occurs in a context of rising temperatures that will increase the initiatives of teachers throughout Catalunya to take desks and tables to the streets to highlight the lack of air conditioning in school buildings.
Reducing the number of students per classroom, one of the main demands of the teaching staff, will cost more than 5 billion euros per year and, however, will have a “limited” impact on student learning, according to a study by EsadeEPol. This conclusion contradicts the practically unanimous demand of the teaching staff and has led the Administration to develop new regulations.
Almost all autonomous communities under the common regime are halting the tax cuts they approved in previous years. The years are coming to an end when the prevailing trend was to approve reductions in transferred taxes, such as in the IRPF, inheritance and donations, or wealth tax. The current trend is quite the opposite, warns the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef) in its latest report. The only exception is Madrid, which continues to increase its tax reductions.
The Barcelona City Council is developing a new strategy to stop the group dedicated to the most active illegal tourist accommodation in the city. The idea is to obtain prison sentences against those responsible. They are the Peruvian Swedes, the kings of clandestine boarding houses. This scheme basically rents large apartments to divide them into rooms and sublet them through platforms in a systematic way until the owners manage to evict them. For some time now, their supposed leaders have not been so calm.