Month: December 2025

Has anyone had a historical error?

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The history of Baikonur Area 31 It is also the story of the Russian space race: an infrastructure born in the 1960s, a direct heir to the Soviet era, which has supported the most reliable manned launches on the planet for decades. However, a simple mistake on a service platform has now put that legacy in check, leaving Russia on the brink of being temporarily outside the human orbit. An oblivion like a mirror. The apparently routine launch of the Soyuz MS-28 was hiding a silent catastrophe: A service platform weighing more than twenty tons, essential for preparing the rocket at Baikonur’s historic Area 31, was not secured before takeoff. The result was devastating. The colossal pressure of the engine the structure was torn off and threw it into the pit of flames, destroying it and severely damaging the only Russian complex still capable of launching manned missions and Progress freighters to the International Space Station. The later images showed a scenario typical of the Soviet era in decline, while Roscosmos I was trying to downplay to a ruling that calls into question something deeper than a procedural error: Russia’s real capacity to sustain its role in the last great space cooperation that still links it to the West. Baikonur as a symbol. The incident breaks out at the worst moment for Moscow. After years of underfunding, talent drains and diversion of resources to the war in Ukraine, its civilian capabilities have been reduced at levels that contrast with official rhetoric. Until recently, Russia cut back on manned launches to save money, now it faces the possibility of not having any operational means for months or even years. What was once a simple routine (tuning up a Soyuz rocket) has become a political test for the Kremlin: repairing Area 31 will require investments and prioritization, something difficult when all resources are absorb in front. The question, inside and outside Russia, is whether the government is willing to spend what is necessary to maintain its seat on the ISS or whether it prefers to let the infrastructure degrade while its narrative assures that “there will be spare parts” and that “everything is under control.” Eñ Area 31 Inverted dependency. The historical irony is clear. In 2011, the United States was completely dependent on the Soyuz after retiring the space shuttle. Today, Russia is at the mercy of SpaceXthe only operational door to the station. And it’s not just about astronauts. The Progress freighters are critical to maintaining the laboratory’s orbit and to managing the Russian attitude control system, which desaturates the US gyroscopes. Its possible absence would force us to improvise maneuvers with docked ships, consume more propellant or increase the pressure. about Dragon and Cygnusat a time when Boeing Starliner was still is not ready. Temporary loss of Russian launch site makes SpaceX the sole logistical support total of the station and leaves Russia without the minimum tool to claim a role equivalent to that of yesteryear. The structural risk. The blow to Baikonur reveals another vulnerability: the lack of redundancy in global spatial architecture. Russia had already closed the iconic Site 1 to turn it into a museum, leaving Area 31 as the only option. Now that single point fails. Alternatives within Russia cannot be quickly configured to handle manned missions, and rebuild or adapt such infrastructure takes years. The incident, far from being anecdotal, shows the accelerated decline of the Russian space ecosystem and questions its ability to fulfill international commitments as basic as keeping the only inhabited space station alive. The space community will have to watch whether Moscow prioritizes this repair or whether, as some analysts fear, the war will absorb even this last vestige of cooperation. Uncertain future. The platform accident not only damages a pit of flames: erodes the Russia’s position on the ISS and forces NASA to plan for a scenario in which Russia is partially or completely excluded from manned launches for years. This would reinforce dependence on US systems and anticipate a possible political outcome: that Russian participation becomes merely nominal. until 2030. At a time when the station is facing its final years, the breakdown represents an extremely fragile balance. A single mechanical failure, caused by human forgetfulness, could speed up separation of the space trajectories of Washington and Moscow and mark the beginning of the end of the last scientific enterprise that still unites the two powers. Image | NASATV In Xataka | Russia wants to know how trips to Mars will affect us, so it is going to launch a thousand flies and 75 mice on a rocket In Xataka | SpaceX is on track to have more money than NASA. He has achieved this, in part, because he does not pay taxes

AEMET knows that what is coming is not just a train of storms, it is a ‘master class’ on how winter works in Spain today

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This beginning of December comes with a train of Atlantic storms, several cold fronts in a row, snow, wind and a lot of sudden thermal changes. But it goes much further than all this: what we are going to see is a perfect example of how winter in Spain works today (in the midst of the climate crisis). What is going to happen? The quick summary is that the start of December 2025 in Spain will be marked by a very active Atlantic circulation. And that takes the form of a “squall train” that will cross the Peninsula during the first 10 days of the month. The most immediate will be a cold front that will leave abundant rains in Galicia and the Cantabrian Sea (with local accumulations of up to 50 l/m²), snow above 1000 meters and strong gusts of wind on the coast. But, as I say, it is the first of at least four. The reign of the negative NAO. We said it a few days ago, the European Weather Forecast Center pointed because the first days of the month we were going to be in negative NAO. The ‘NAO’ is the ‘North Atlantic Oscillation‘ is what meteorologists call the relentless fight between the Azores anticyclone and the Icelandic low, the two great atmospheric phenomena that govern the meteorology of the North Atlantic. When the index we use to “measure who is winning” is negative, the Azores anticyclone is weaker than normal and, for this reason, it cannot block deep Atlantic storms. The direct consequence is that they circulate further south than normal: right at our latitude. This is exactly what is happening. For this reason (and as a novelty) “squall train” is not a funny journalistic metaphor: there are four very active fronts heading towards Spain. And it goes without saying that this is good news: we are coming from very dry and irregular autumns and, despite the cushion of dammed water that we havea phenomenon of this type is going to be really good for us. It remains to be seen if we will be able to take advantage of the rainfall that will arrive. Why do I say this is “a perfect example of how it works today (in the middle of the climate crisis) winter”? Because although the pattern of “chained storms” is classic of the Atlantic winter, these dynamics are encountering a warmer basal situation: the atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean Sea is warmer (and therefore have more energy). It’s “business as usual”, but at higher speeds. In this situation, in fact, a scenario is feared for Europe in which there is less rain in summer in the Mediterranean and more episodes of extreme rain in the cold seasons. This feeling that everything is very similar to the same as always, but in a completely different way, is very strange. Image | Tropical TidBits In Xataka | The most beautiful, exciting and hopeful thing about November has come out of England and it is a weather forecast

how to see your statistics and what’s new this year

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Spotify Wrapped 2025 has arrived. Like every year at this time, the dominant music streaming service offers its annual summary, giving users the statistics of everything they have listened to in 2025. You will be able to know your most listened to artists and albums, your most played songs, your favorite musical genres or the podcasts where you have spent the most hours. Let’s start this article by telling you how to access your statistics. But then we go to the important part, where we will tell you everything you are going to find in your annual summary and the main news that you will find in the Wrapped of this 2025. How to see your Spotify Wrapped To access your Spotify Wrapped, the first step is make sure you have your application updated. For that, you will have to review your application in Google Play for Android and App Store for iOS, and see if there are any updates. Having the app updated, just by entering it you will see an ad for Wrapped to click on it and access the experience. You can also enter with the browser from any device, through the address spotify.com/es/wrapped. What you will find in the Wrapped This year, users will have the ability to use Wrapped in a slightly more flexible way, controlling the pace of the experience. You can go back to specific moments without having to start from the beginning. As for the content, on the one hand you will have classics like watching your most listened to artistsas well as podcasts and the total listening minutes you’ve spent on Spotify. You will also have the classic messages from some of these artists. Each of this data will be a vignette that you can share in social media stories. There are also some classic visualizations that are renewed slightly modifying its content. They are the following: Most listened to genres: Come back to see the musical genres you’ve listened to the most. Perhaps the most listened to song: A kind of interactive game to guess what your most listened to song is. Artist career: You will see a visualization with the race towards your most listened to artist, being able to see how they have varied over the months. Most listened to songs and their playlist: You will see your five most listened to songs, and a playlist will be generated that you can listen to whenever you want. This year there are some new things interesting, about a dozen of them. These are the most notable: musical age: Your musical tastes are compared with those of other people in your same age group. Most listened to albums: It seems unbelievable, but until now you couldn’t see the albums that you had been listening to the most during the year. Creator Tip: You can receive messages from one of your favorite podcast creators, just like with artists. Clubs: This story shows you the listening habits that have defined users’ 2025. There are six different clubs with a different listening style, and each user will be assigned one. Wrapped Party: This new interactive feature allows you to compare your music tastes with those of your friends. All the stories that make up the Wrapped will be able to be shared. But also, when you get to the end you will have a last story with classic data such as your favorite artists and songs, as well as the total minutes and your musical genre. So, you can share this summary on your social networks for everyone to see. In Xataka Basics | 53 third-party tools and apps to get the most out of Spotify with statistics, playlists and new features

What he has seen leads him to propose that retirees go back to work

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Spain moves towards a demographic scenario that increasingly resembles that of Japan: fewer births, more longevity and a demographic structure that concentrates more and more weight at the top of the pyramid. This transformation is forcing Spain to reformulate the relationship between retirement and work with a new modality called reversible retirement, which aims to “recover” those who they have already retired to reintegrate them into the labor market and relieve pressure on the pension system. A country that ages rapidly. As they point out statistical dataat the beginning of 2024, Spain reached 48.6 million inhabitants and in 2025 we have already overcome the 49.1 million inhabitants. Of them, about 9.93 million were 65 years old or older (20.4% of the total), and about 2.95 million were over 80 years old (around 6.1%). This means that the demographic pyramid has reached cruising speed in the widening of its peak, while the base narrows at the bottom. decline in birth rate. In 2024, only 318,005 babies were born, which represents a historic low and 0.8% less than the previous year. as published The Country. With a life expectancy that already exceeds 84 years, the country faces a growth of number of pensioners and a progressive decline in the active population. The worst nightmare for a government. Japan: the canary in the mine. Japan has been facing a reality for years that now reaches Spain, so Spain can take advantage of its learnings to adapt its policies to the new demographic reality. The current situation in Japan is a snapshot of what awaits us in the near future. According to data of The Japan Times, In 2024, 29.4% of Japan’s population was 65 years old or older. The extension of working life is now almost a norm. In 2023 they worked 9.1 million Japanese over 65 years of age, chaining twenty years of consecutive increase. More than 33% of retirees between 70 and 74 years old were still active In 2022 and from 2021, companies are obliged to offer employment up to 70 years of age. This retention of the workforce beyond retirement age has allowed Japan to maintain its contributions, reduce pressure on pensions and mitigate the labor shortage experienced. Delaying retirement is not enough. Spain (as well as the rest of Europe) has been progressively increasing the legal retirement agea process that will culminate in 2027 with the ordinary age set at 67 years. However, the demographic data published by the Bank of Spain show that these measures, although necessary, are insufficient. The population that joins the labor market is inferior than the one leaving, and the constant drop in the birth rate implies that this trend will be accentuated in the coming years, so the balance between retirements and incorporations will continue to be insufficient, and the immigrant population He can’t even compensate for it. Reversible retirement: Spain is taking note. In July 2025, the Ministry of Inclusion and Social Security presented the proposal for a Royal Decree that transforms the current flexible retirement to make it more attractive for people who have already retired. The reversible retirement proposed by the Government allows those who have already retired, return to the labor market without losing their status as pensioners or penalizing their pension, but rather increasing it while become active again. Its objective is clear: encourage work beyond the legal retirement age to compensate lack of labor that the labor market suffers and, at the same time, alleviate the growing spending on pensions. Working improves pensions. The Ministry’s proposal eliminates previous restrictions and allows make pension compatible with work employed and adds the novelty of being able to do it also on one’s own, as long as the beneficiary had not been self-employed in the previous five years. For employed employment, a working day for retirees of between 40% and 80% of that of a full-time worker is allowed. The pension is reduced proportionally to the working day: if someone receives a pension of 1,200 euros and works half-time (4 hours), they would receive a pension of 600 euros plus the half-time salary. He big change It is in the 10% and 20% incentives for those who return to work after six months since they retired. Continuing with the previous example, the compatible pension of 600 euros would increase by 10% (60 additional euros), reaching 660 euros plus your salary. If the working day were 70%, the increase would be 20%. The reform seeks make reintegration attractive, eliminating the feeling of penalty that until now discouraged this modality. In Xataka | The future of pensions has a price: millions of payrolls will pay a little more expensive starting in 2026 Image | Pexels (Andrea Piacquadio)

Google has OpenAI cornered. Altman has reasons to go into crisis mode

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Sam Altman has pressed the red button on OpenAI. After three years of being the startup that terrorized Google, it is now Pichai’s company that has the creator of ChatGPT on the ropes. Why is it important. OpenAI’s CEO sent an internal memo on Monday declaring “code red”: all resources are focused on improving ChatGPT. Projects like advertising in the free versionAI agents for health and purchasing or the deployment of the personal assistant Press are postponed. The company that forced Google to react is now the one that reacts. The backdrop. In 2022, Google panicked when ChatGPT changed our expectations about generative AI. Three years later, the roles have been reversed. Gemini 3, launched a few weeks ago, has surpassed OpenAI models in benchmarks key and in general it has arrived with a great reception. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, he said it bluntly a few days ago: “I’ve been using ChatGPT every day for three years. After two hours with Gemini 3, I won’t go back.” The figures. Google has gone from 450 million monthly active users on Gemini in July to 650 million in October. ChatGPT maintains leadership with more than 800 million weekly usersbut the speed at which Google is advancing is what has set off all the alarms. The difference in spending capacity is abysmal: Google brought in $102 billion in just the last quarterwith three quarters coming from advertising. OpenAI projects to reach 20 billion revenues this year, but will need 200 billion by 2030 to be profitable according to their own projections. Its infrastructure commitments add up 1.4 trillion dollars in the next eight years. The money trail. Google can afford to spend between $91 billion and $93 billion this year on AI infrastructure because it has a high-margin cash machine behind it. OpenAI, on the other hand, continues to rely on funding rounds while racking up record losses. Yes, but. OpenAI still retains advantages. Its 800 million weekly users represent a moat that can only be conquered person by person. ChatGPT is today synonymous with conversational AI in the same way that Google is with search. Changing the habits of hundreds of millions of users is much more difficult than convincing a few CEOs to switch chip suppliers. Between the lines. OpenAI’s refusal to monetize ChatGPT through advertising is increasingly inexplicable. Google dominated search precisely because it understood that an advertising model not only generates revenue: it improves the product. More users generate more feedbackmore purchasing signals allow for more personalized responses, and margins improve as scale grows. OpenAI has been avoiding this evidence for three years, but it has not stopped signing spending commitments exceeding one trillion. Unexpected twist. three years ago It was Google who declared code red in the face of the ChatGPT threat. The empire now counterattacks with an overwhelming structural advantage: control of distribution (Android, Chrome, Search, YouTube, Docs…), comfortable financial capacity and its own chips. OpenAI has users, but Google has the money, infrastructure and patience to fight a war of attrition. At stake. The question is whether OpenAI will survive as an independent company when its technological advantages evaporate and its business model continues to fail. Altman He usually says that he doesn’t like to think too much about the competition.. Those days are over. In Xataka | NVIDIA is the most valuable company in the world because it had no competition. Until Google started making chips Featured image | Google, OpenAI

MediaMarkt has all these Google Pixel phones at a very discounted price starting at 339 euros

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Although MediaMarkt already has its own outlet on the main website, local stores also post many deals on the outlet they have through eBay. These devices come with a MediaMarkt warranty and are mostly refurbished. This time we can find quite a few Google phones on offerso in this article we are going to review the five most interesting bargains. Google Pixel 9a by 339.15 eurosa very interesting mobile if we are looking for a cheap phone that takes good photos. Google Pixel 8 by 399 eurosa mobile that will be updated for a few years. Google Pixel 9 by 509.15 eurosan interesting option considering that it comes with 256 GB. Google Pixel 10 Pro by 976.65 eurosan alternative to the previous mobile with better specifications and more internal storage. Google Pixel 10 Pro XL by 996.75 eurosa phone similar to the previous one but with a larger size. Google Pixel 9a One of the most attractive offers for its price is the Google Pixel 9aan economical mobile phone that, for 339.15 eurosoffers a good photographic result. This is an exhibition device previously used which may present superficial deterioration, but which works perfectly. Among its specifications, we find that it is a compact phone 6.3 inches which offers a refresh rate of 120 Hz, its processor is the Google Tensor G4 and it comes with 128 GB of storage. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 8 The good thing about Google mobile phones is that many of them will be updated for many years, as is the case with the Google Pixel 8 which is currently discounted by 399 euros and that it will be updated until 2030. It is an exhibition, it is used and may show superficial deterioration, but it works perfectly. The most notable thing is its set of camerasbut also its design and its compact 6.2-inch format. Of course, Back Market has it even cheaper, since it can be found for a price of 310 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 9 If what we are looking for is a more recent generation, the Google Pixel 9 256 GB is on sale for 509.15 euros and it is also an exhibition, it is used and may show superficial deterioration, but it works perfectly. In this case we are talking about a telephone with a excellent multimedia section which also stands out for its set of cameras and artificial intelligence functions. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 10 Pro If we refer to the current generation, one of the most attractive proposals is found with the Google Pixel 10 Pro that, for 976.65 euroscomes with 512 GB. It is also a used display device that may show superficial wear but is in perfect working order. In this case, we are looking at a phone with an excellent design whose cameras are perfect for everyday use. Besides, It has a very interesting 100x. Google Pixel 10 pro (512GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 10 Pro XL And if we talk about the brand’s top mobile phone, the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL It is also on sale at the MediaMarkt outlet for 996.75 euros in its 512 GB configuration. It is a display device that is used and may show superficial deterioration, but it works perfectly. It is a model similar to the previous one, but with a larger screen, a larger battery capacity and better fast charging. Google Pixel 10 Pro XL (512GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | MediaMarkt and Compradicción (header), Google In Xataka | The best mobile phones (2025), we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | The best quality-price mobile phones (2025). Their analyzes and videos are here

The terror of wars was always stepping on a mine. In Ukraine they carry scissors, because the panic is thinner: a spider web

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In May we count that an unexpected weapon had begun to be added among the Ukrainian troops: scissors. Given the brutality of the conflict, a technology had sneaked in to evade electronic warfare and enter the enemy camp on both sides as he had not done before: destroying the lines, making attacks invisible and evading any attempt at interference. Now, the tangle of cables has intensified. A deadly web. In 2025, the Ukrainian front is no longer understood without a sky and ground crossed by thousands of drones and by kilometers of optical cable that transform the land into a physical and tactical tangle. What started as a technological revolution to compensate for human shortcomings has evolved into an industrialized war in which each innovation immediately generates a counter-innovation, and where Ukraine, which for years led the initiative, now faces a scenario in which Russia obtains a sustained advantage. Fiber optic drones (invulnerable to electronic shielding) have colonized trenches, roads and wooded areas, leaving visible and invisible networks that slow down every movement and that, in the middle of the night, they get confused with real traps. Narratives from units like the Ukrainian Rangers show a landscape in which advancing is as dangerous as retreating: cables hanging from trees, entrenched in mud, or accidentally attached to weapons and vehicles after each mission. There is no “safe zone.” The great transformation is not in territorial advances, but in the Russian ability to hit supply lines tens of km from the front. What yesterday was a rearguard today is a vulnerable gray zoneand what once required manned aviation is now accomplished by swarms of small, remotely guided vehicles. The explosions that convoys have reached on theoretically protected roads confirm that Moscow has given absolute priority to the war of attrition: attacking where it hurts most, preventing rotations, exhausting Ukrainian drone pilots and forcing brigades to walk dozens of kilometers on foot to avoid detection. This logistical pressure not only undermines military resistance, but also alters the political balance: a country that loses strategic depth also loses negotiating capacity. The Rubikon unit. It we have counted before. The appearance of Rubikon, the elite unit that reorganized Russian doctrine after the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk, marks a before and after. Recruiting the best pilots, integrating optical drones, FPV and “mother” platforms like the Molniya, they exported a lethal model to the Donbas: attack supply before infantry, eliminate enemy pilots before riflemen, destroy capabilities before positions. Its success lies less in technology than on the scale: Russia produces more, deploys more and lets China nurture its fiber optic industry without limits. In Pokrovsk (the crudest laboratory of this mutation) Ukrainian soldiers calculate that Russian drones surpass them in a ratio of 10 to 1. The city, turned into a puzzle of ruins where the front line changes every few hours, exemplifies how tactical air dominance has become the decisive factor in controlling the terrain. The Ukrainian crisis. Ukraine continues to cause severe damage in the final strip before the front, where traditional FPVs remain lethal. But the rest of the board has leaned against her: a shortage of optical cables, pilots forced to launch from ever greater distances, disrupted logistics chains and a military industry struggling to produce what Russia receives on an industrial scale. Some controls they insist in which the strategic error is to prioritize the destruction of Russian infantry instead of replicating the Rubikon model: hunt down the operators, saturate the logistics nodes and act in depth. However, any solution requires resources that Ukraine does not have and that its allies provide too slowly. Chinese fiber optics, the officers point outis tipping the balance with more weight than many Western diplomatic decisions. Between swarms and cables. The conclusion is disturbing: war no longer depends so much on territorial advances as on who controls the drone ecosystem, who has more operational pilotswho can saturate the most kilometers of enemy rear and who turns rival logistics into a prohibited zone. The front, turned into a spider web physically by wires and digitally webed by unmanned swarms, is being redefined at a speed that Ukraine struggles to match. If kyiv does not regain the technological initiative and achieve a steady supply of optical capabilities and long-range platforms, 2026 could be the first year in which Russia’s structural advantage in drones not only complicates Ukrainian offensives, but seriously limits its ability to sustain current defenses. Image | reddit In Xataka | Russia had managed to manufacture drones and missiles despite the sanctions. So selling Zara clothes was a matter of time In Xataka | The round of peace meetings in Ukraine has ended. Russia says it is “ready”, but for war with Europe

They are eight more than the Roig Arena in Valencia

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On September 6, the Roig Arena, the stadium of the owner of Mercadona. It is a covered venue that will be the new home of Valencia Basket and also the new reference center for events and concerts. It has 20,000 seats, which makes it the covered venue with the largest capacity in Spain. Now Madrid has proposed taking the title away from them. Well, me more. Isabel Diaz Ayuso has presented a Self-Protection Plan with which the Movistar Arena will be able to increase its capacity, which is currently 17,543, to 20,008 spectators. The capacity of the Roig Arena is 20,000 seats, so Madrid would only overtake it by 8 seats. Until the inauguration of the Mercadona owner’s stadium, the largest covered venue in Spain was the Palau Sant Jordi with 18,500 seats. Why it is important. Concerts have become the favorite cultural event of the Spanish. According to SGAE datathe music business grew 77% this year, compared to declines in other cultural sectors such as cinema or television. The macro concerts that saturate ticket sales platforms and the exorbitant resales They are clear symptoms of this exacerbated culture of eventism. Ayuso’s plan is a declaration of intentions: to become the city with more, better and larger venues. TObasketball forum Ayuso’s plan also includes increasing the number of seats for sporting events from the current 13,000 seats to 15,000. During her visit to the venue, the president of the Community of Madrid stated that the change will be a boost for the celebration of Eurobasket in 2029 and that it could open the door to major sporting events, such as NBA games. However, in the case of basketball, the Movistar Arena will not be able to say that it is the venue with the largest capacity since the capacity of the Roig Arena is 15,600 seats. A short, but intense career. Since its inauguration on September 6, the Roig Arena has already received more than 1 million spectators, as noted in Lift-EMV. Of all of them, 600,000 have attended concerts, many of them with the sign ‘sold out’. Currently, there are already events scheduled until January 2027 and among the confirmed artists are Aitana, Amaia, Rod Stewart and Hans Zimmer. It is a fact: the Roig Arena has become one of the country’s leading music venues in record time. Madrid and the concerts. As we said, this plan underlines the importance of being the reference city for holding large concerts. A year ago Madrid believed it had its mega-concert cathedral at the Santiago Bernabeu. Pharaonic works were carried out to hide the grass and make an underground parking lot to accommodate all visitors. The problem came with sound problems, specifically poor soundproofing that has forced cancel concerts and move them to the Riyadh Air Metropolitan. While this is resolved, Madrid’s plan is to praise another of its reference venues. Images | Roig Arena, Movistar Arena In Xataka | The problem with concerts in Spain is not the lack of audience, it is the distribution of money. And Wegow is the best example

direct aid for the purchase of electric cars with doubts to clear up

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New year, new help. That is what the Government has presented with the Auto Plus Plana project that replaces the MOVES III Plan and the discomfort with which the consumer has encountered until now if he wanted to receive aid to buy an electric or plug-in hybrid car. The aid plan is part of the Spain Auto 2030 Plana broader and more ambitious project in which 300 million euros in aid are also contemplated to promote the installation of charging points and the confirmation that another 580 million euros will be available to launch industrial activities with the PERTE VEC designed to promote the production of vehicles and automotive-related components in our country. Regarding aid, the Government will make up to 400 million euros available to buyers starting next January 1, 2026. It will do so with direct intervention in them, so this time the budget will not go through the Autonomous Communities, one of the main criticisms that consumers and manufacturers have been making for some time. What can we expect from the new Auto Plus Plan With almost two years of delay, it seems that we finally have a date for the electric car buyer in Spain to receive a discount just at the time of formalizing the purchase of the vehicle. And it is that in February 2024the Government committed to having this new deal available in the next aid package to be approved. In December of that year, without reaching an agreement, the Executive confirmed that MOVES III Plan funds were expanded with the same conditions as until now. In January 2025 the scare came: the omnibus decree that contemplated aid fell and the funds with him. days later would be reactivated with a new vote in the Congress of Deputies. Now, the Government assures that from January 1, 2026buyers of an electric car will have the funds available at the time of purchase. That is, at the promotional price they can discount the help they should receive for buying an electric or plug-in hybrid car. The presentation has not mentioned what the discounts will be, which, until now, are the following: Electric cars and plug-in hybrids with 90 or more kilometers of autonomy: 4,500 euros guaranteed discount and an additional 2,500 euros if a car that is more than seven years old is scrapped. Plug-in hybrid cars with more than 30 and less than 90 kilometers of autonomy: 2,500 euros guaranteed discount and an additional 2,500 euros if a car that is more than seven years old is scrapped. It has also not been confirmed if these aids will be available for kilometer 0 and pre-owned cars, a modification that applies from 2023. Or the price ceiling to which these aids are applied, which, until now, has been 45,000 euros before the application of VAT. What is certain is that the funds will not be transferred to the Autonomous Communities, such as It had been happening with the successive MOVES Plan. In that case, each region received some funds, which caused a buyer to find that their Autonomous Community lacked them and in other cases there was availability. But, also, bureaucratic obstacles are eliminated that required documentation to be presented in each region in a different way (in some areas it was mandatory for the beneficiary to present it and in others it was allowed for the concessionaire to manage it). Likewise, waiting times to receive aid should be completely eliminated, in some cases reaching 18 months and which have taken manufacturers to advance aid to the buyer with credits of up to 7,000 euros at 0% that had to be returned as part of a last installment or an intermediate installment after 18 months. Photo | European Union on Wikimedia In Xataka | An electric car is 54% cheaper to maintain than a combustion car. And it may not compensate because the data has a trick

Of course there is a museum with more than 900 rocks with the “face” of a human being. And of course it’s in Japan.

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Japan is a country that seems taken from another dimension, where the craziest and strangest things (for us Westerners) can happen. The only place where we can find beautiful manhole coversmajestic snow sculptures, very strange contestsbizarre television seriesas well as restaurants with robots and a few other wonders that leave us with our mouths open. Rocks with human faces. Today’s protagonist is another gem that can only be in Japan, since it is the only museum in the world that exhibits more than 1,700 rocks, of which 900 have one characteristic in common: they all have the appearance of a human face, well, or at least a face with eyes and a mouth. It is about from the Chinsekikan museum. Where. In Chichibutwo hours northwest of Tokyo, we will find a very peculiar and unique place in the world, a museum with an impressive collection of rocks, which were collected for more than 50 years by its founder Shozo Hayama, and where we will find rocks that resemble everything from the face of Jesus to Elvis Presley. Its origin. The museum, which means ‘The Hall of Curious Rocks‘, is currently managed and curated by Yoshiko Hayama, the wife of the founder who died in 2010, and it is she who maintains the museum as her husband left it, since she wanted to pay tribute to him after dedicating much of her life to collecting ‘jinmenseki’ (rocks with a human face). All stones are like this, they occur as is in nature, and do not have any type of modification. The names. Mr. Hayama not only collected the rocks, but also named them according to their features, which is why we will find rocks named in honor of Boris Yeltsin and even fictional characters such as Donkey Kong, ET, Nemo, and many more. However, there are still several unnamed rocks, so occasionally Mrs. Hayama comes out to welcome visitors and takes the opportunity to ask opinions about possible names for the rocks that have not been named. In Xataka | Japan depends too much on Tokyo. So you are already thinking about a “reserve” capital just in case In Xataka | In Tokyo, schools are threatening to use lawyers and police. The reason: “monster parents” In Xataka | The tea that was born to stop time now runs against it: the matcha crisis in Japan Image | Chinsekikan Museum

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