The best biographies are often the result of an obsession. And then there are those driven by a love of art, which adds a plus to any portrait of an artist. The writer Marta San Miguel (Santander, 1981), journalist and José Hierro Poetry Prize winner, has novelized the life of Enric Granados (1867-1916) alternating the not so well-known story of the composer from Lleida with a narrative that follows his footsteps from a contemporary perspective.
The feared Tren de Aragua gang, which was born in a Venezuelan prison, has transformed the type of crime in Chile, where it has accumulated a long list of crimes. The one that most evidences the power of the organization; the kidnapping and murder of a Venezuelan opponent who was found buried under a layer of cement. Not only because of the cruelty, but because of the diplomatic crisis it opened between countries. Cells of the Mara Salvatrucha, with a historic presence in El Salvador, have sought new alliances in Mexico, causing a serious threat on the southern border. The expansion strategy of the Primeiro Comando da Capital of Brazil is turning the group into the most dangerous in all of South America, like a parallel power within the States. These criminal actors have demonstrated their evident capacity to cross borders and corrupt institutions in Latin America. But they aspire to more. To make the definitive leap to Europe, taking advantage of migration routes. And they see in Spain, which perceives the phenomenon with maximum alert, an opportunity to start, although the National Police intends to make it difficult for them.
Dahiye has lost nearly 500 buildings in the last war against Israel, but not its pulse. This city of at least 700,000 inhabitants, divided into 16 neighborhoods, which is part of the southern suburbs of Beirut, remains the main stronghold of Hizbullah in Lebanon. Much of the future of the country and the region is decided here.
The FBI considers her a top-priority terrorist threat. Europol monitors her due to her transnational nature and extreme danger. She is called 764 and is a nihilistic violent extremism network that uses the internet to recruit and sexually exploit minors, subject them to extortion, and, in some cases, induce them to self-harm or participate in acts of violence.
Is the conflict between the countryside and the city a breeding ground for votes for the far right? Some data would support rural unease: an aging and masculinized world, with a large demographic void in which one in five children under 13 is of foreign origin.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso completed seven years at the head of the Community of Madrid on Friday at the peak of her political power. When she was sworn in as president on August 14, 2019, she needed the votes of Ciudadanos to push forward a coalition government that was already expected to be turbulent. Seven years later, she has absorbed the now-defunct orange party, reduced Vox – an indispensable partner in the 2021 elections – to irrelevance, and achieved an absolute majority in 2023 that allows her to govern without negotiating with anyone. The political phenomenon built around her figure seemed to have reached the status of an impregnable regime.
In the last decade, Catalonia has become one of the main laboratories for housing regulation in Spain. The puzzle of the housing emergency has left behind a trail of measures promoted by the administrations to protect the most vulnerable households, expand the stock of social housing, or contain rents amid the unstoppable rise in prices, while new rules have been introduced to define who is a major holder or to limit the use of seasonal contracts. The latest of these laws promoted by the Generalitat, against the “speculative purchase” of properties, did not pass the examination of the Consell de Garanties Estatutàries this summer. The Catalan government has committed to modifying the regulation, which has been strongly criticized by employers’ associations and real estate sector entities, as they consider it will worsen the supply crisis. While property owners warn that overregulation has generated even more legal uncertainty, the movement for the right to decent housing alerts to the loopholes in these regulations.
When the young socialist Zohran Mamdani won the mayoralty of New York last year, a revolutionary hope swept through the left wing of the Democratic Party. With a close and charismatic style, a message that put the pocket at the center, and a viral campaign on social media, the assemblyman went from being a complete unknown to the beacon of progressivism in the United States in just a few months. His victory against the candidate supported by the party establishment, former governor Andrew Cuomo, who received eleven times more money in donations, was then interpreted as a national singularity, one that could not be replicated beyond the progressive stronghold in a country where, a year earlier, the far-right Donald Trump had won the presidential election by winning the popular vote and in all the competitive battleground states.
If it weren’t because it’s real, because that happens in the Oval Office of the White House, in the so-called Resolution Desk (the resolution desk, where orders to bomb anyone are signed), the image illustrating this article would seem taken from one of those screwball comedies with canned laughter so typical of American television.
The Romanian Minister of Defense, Radu Miruta, reported this Sunday that two Spanish fighter jets deployed on the NATO mission intercepted an unidentified drone after it violated Romanian airspace during a surveillance patrol.