Month: May 2026

My PC case makes what’s inside an oven. I want one with good airflow and this is the one I have on my radar

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I assembled my PC in parts back in 2021. Five years have passed and, since then, I have been little by little changing some parts. First it was the graphics card and later came the sudden change: I jumped to DDR5 with motherboard, processor, new air cooler and RAM memory (yes, before prices skyrocketed). The box is the same and that has been a problem lately: my PC is an oven if I demand a little from it. He airflow (i.e. airflow) of it is not good enough for the configuration I have right now and I think it’s time to change. For several reasons that I will explain a little below, the one I have had in my cart for a few hours is this Corsair Air 5400 RS-R ARGB: costs 156.50 euros. That its RRP is almost 280 euros is one of these reasons, but not the only one. CORSAIR Air 5400 RS-R ARGB Triple Chamber Panoramic Mid-Tower PC Case – 3 Pre-Installed RS120-R ARGB Reverse-Rotor Fans – High Flow and Low Noise Ducting – Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A box with good airflow and cable management system Let’s go in parts. The first reason I like this box is not the most important, but I love its design. Both the front and the side are made of tempered glass, allowing you to see the interior at all times. In fact, they are two independent panels that connect and both can be opened. This allows you have much more space and leeway to remove components or to clean the inside (something I have to do constantly because I have two cats at home). The above is combined with a cable management system that is not only quite tidy and easy to place, but it remains hidden. Since you have a box with a very cool design that allows you to see what is inside, it is better if it is with the fewest cables visible. However, the best thing about this box is that it has a triple chamber design. What does this mean? Which is designed so that the parts that generate the most heat (such as the graphics card, power supply or processor) have an independent air flow that allows them to be well cooled. It is worth mentioning that the box includes three 120 millimeter air intake fans, although it has enough space to place three more of these, both in the front and on the top. All of this combined with the fact that it is currently historical minimum price It makes it a box that seems to me to be one of the best options available right now. You may also be interested CORSAIR Air 5400 LX-R RGB iCUE Link Triple Chamber Panoramic Mid-Tower PC Case – 3 Pre-Installed LX-R RGB Reverse-Rotor Fans – High Flow, Low Noise Ducting – Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links CORSAIR Air 5400 RS-R ARGB Triple Chamber Panoramic Mid-Tower PC Case – 3 Pre-Installed RS120-R ARGB Reverse-Rotor Fans – High Flow and Low Noise Ducts – White 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 | Corsair In Xataka | Best laptops in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and seven recommended models In Xataka | Liquid cooling or air cooler? What to choose so that your CPU doesn’t smoke without having to spend a fortune

Anthropic is about to achieve something that seemed impossible for a large AI company: make money

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In a data leak published by The Wall Street Journalthe artificial intelligence laboratory founded by the Amodei brothers has informed its investors that it will close the second quarter of 2026 with revenues 130% higher than those of the first quarter of the year. It is a colossal achievement that also achieves something unusual for these companies: they will have an operating profit of 559 million dollars. They earn more than they spend. According to these data, the company will reach $10.9 billion compared to $4.8 billion in the first quarter. Its quarterly growth rate already exceeds Zoom during the pandemic or those that Google and Facebook had before their stock market increases. It is quite a breath of fresh air for an industry accused of being a gigantic bubble. The rivals, fatal. While Anthropic gives the big surprise, the rest of the competitors are still in a good financial situation. For example, OpenAI confessed to its investors that does not expect to see benefits until 2030. It didn’t work out well for xAI either, which carries losses of 6.5 billion due to investments in data centers. How did they achieve it?. To achieve this milestone, Anthropic has differentiated its strategy from the beginning. It has focused mainly on companies that pay for the intensive use of its agentic tools (Claude Code) and its APIs (Claude Opus/Sonnet 4.7). It also uses chips from manufacturers such as Google and Amazon, and has managed to optimize its spending in the cloud. It is therefore more focused and it is more efficient than its rivals, and that has had a clear effect on its balance sheet. Mythos as reputational success. In recent months Anthropic has fought several political and media battles and seems to have emerged victorious from all of them. Have Pentagon attempt rejected By controlling how its AI models were used was a clear boost to that brand image. But also the launch of its Mythos model It has been especially striking because although it is not publicly accessible, it does not stop giving headlines that seem to confirm that what Anthropic said (“it is so good that we better not release it”) was true. But. Although the figures are promising, there are nuances in these estimates. Not being a public company, Anthropic uses accounting methods that benefit it in this forecast. For example, it includes as direct revenue the sales of its models through its partners, such as AWS or Google Cloud, something that OpenAI does not do. In addition, it excludes stock compensation for its employees and these results do not guarantee that this profitability will be maintained throughout the year. We will see more quarters in red. The profit achieved would be extraordinary for many companies, but it is pocket change for Anhtropic. The company recently committed to spending $15 billion in SpaceX computing capacity using Colossus clusters. At the moment everything indicates that these benefits will be temporary and the company will return to red numbers. And yet, its evolution is currently more positive than that of OpenAI, against which it has not stopped winning battles for some time. In Xataka | Nvidia’s financial results are simply dizzying. And it still hasn’t sold a single chip in China

a new Citroën 2 CV arrives

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The rumors started months ago but it was not until this morning that Stellantis confirmed the return of the Citroën 2 CV. The automotive conglomerate has barely given details of the launch and has only scheduled us for October 2026 when they will reveal more information at the Paris Motor Show. The information also comes one day after the company presents its future plans for the coming years. One that has put Citroën at the center of its strategy for Europe. The confirmation. Our colleagues pointed out Motorpassion Last January, Citroën was preparing the return of the Citroën 2 CV. It was information that seemed almost confirmed after Coach They will speak with the French design team. Now it is Stellantis itself that has ended up revealing the project. In its statement, Citroën tells us that it will not be until October when we will have new news but it does give some interesting clues about what we can expect from this new Citroën 2 CV. A new category. In the press release, Stellantis points out that this new vehicle is “designed to meet the challenges of electric mobility and new urban regulations, it will contribute to the emergence of a new category of affordable small electric vehicles, which offer greater freedom of movement without giving up personality or attractiveness.” Everything seems to indicate that Stellantis wants to fully enter what is known as E-Car, a new category that is yet to be fully defined. The intention of the European regulators is that, in the style of the kei car Japanese, we have more affordable electric cars available. The idea is to have an intermediate category between the heavy quadricycle and the tourism, limited to 4.1 meters long. It has been spokenfor example, to make some regulations more flexible such as current security requirements or to give an outlet to the new license at 17 years old to drive “light” cars before making the jump to the current B1 license that allows driving cars with a maximum authorized mass of up to 3,500 kg. It has also been put on the table that manufacturing will have to be European or, at least, a relevant part of its components, such as batteries. Gasoline? This reference to the supposed new European category raises the question of whether the next Citroën 2 CV will have gasoline versions or will be purely electric. In recent years, Stellantis has opted for multi-energy platforms but we must remember that From 2027 emissions limits will be tightened and selling small cars with combustion engines will be much more expensive. Putting an electric car on the road with reduced dimensions and price will allow Citroën to reduce global emissions within the company. However, registering cars with a combustion engine would lead you to have to redouble your electric sales efforts, which may not compensate. Nor is it a coincidence that the statement mentions that the new 2 CV is “designed to make mobility accessible to everyone (…) in a world that seeks, once again, more accessible and relevant mobility solutions.” That “relevant” seems to underline the idea of ​​the path that Europe has taken towards zero emissions in its cities. Exploiting nostalgia. The Citroën 2 CV is another example of how the automobile industry seems to have remained anchored in nostalgia, although Stellantis tries to distance itself by ensuring that the new model will be “inspired by the spirit of the original, and not by nostalgia.” The truth is that The electric car has brought a certain flavor of the past to try to convince us to jump to a technology that, purely irrational, is not as attractive as the combustion engine. The Renault 4 and Renault 5 They are a good example but it has also been put on the table bring back the Opel Manta in electric format and Volkswagen has readapted its legendary Transporter to the ID. Buzz. And it makes sense. It must be taken into account that an electric car, especially in the city, has many advantages over a combustion car. Matching technologies, electric has lower energy consumption than combustion in a city. Its cost is very lower and the risk of breakdown is also lower. And although savings are always a good incentive to buy a car, it is also a less attractive purchase argument when it comes to exciting the customer. Because when it comes to buying a car, the irrational still weighs heavily. It is no coincidence that car advertisements continue to appeal to emotions. Aesthetics weigh heavily in this and a good reinterpretation like Renault’s can be key to attracting the public that has money right now. That is to say, those who can miss the most the Renault 4, the Renault 5 or the Citroën 2 CV. Stellantis’ plans. Stellantis’ move also fits perfectly with what was announced yesterday by Antonio Filosa, its CEO after the departure of Carlos Tavares. The automobile conglomerate pointed out that iThey will invest 60 billion euros until 2030 and pointed to a multipolarized future where the strategy for the United States will distance itself from the European one. This will be carried out through a reorganization of its 14 brands. Dodge and Jeep will set the pace in the United States and in Europe Fiat and Peugeot will do so. These two companies are clearly segmented by price and everything indicates that they will be the first to launch models on the market and then reach other companies with modified body formats. With these first steps it seems that Citroën will be focused on being the most affordable company, the gateway to the conglomerate to differentiate itself a little from Fiat, which has also targeted the low-end range in recent years. The new vehicle also seems to allow them to compete at a much lower price than the Renault 5 to steal sales, an electric urban car that, on the contrary, has focused on the details in a car designed with … Read more

horse racing doped with mafia Kalashnikov rifles

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A few years ago, the Italian police in Sicily arrested several members of the mafia who used illegal horse racing to send coded messages and resolve internal disputes over bets and territories. The researchers discovered that some animals were better known in certain neighborhoods than many local politicians. Sicily and another postcard. When you think of Sicily, beaches, baroque towns, volcanoes or tourists visiting Palermo and Catania usually appear. But on some secondary roads on the island it is still there being another Sicily much darker and difficult to eradicate: one with illegal horse racing organized by mafia networks where dozens of motorcycles escort the animals while armed men shoot pistols and Kalashnikov rifles in the air in broad daylight. He last recorded video recently near Palagonia has once again shown the extent to which these clandestine races are not simply an illegal business or a case of animal abuse. They function primarily as public displays of power. The message transmitted by those who participate is deliberately evident: we are in charge here. Racing as a spectacle of control. The recorded scene on the outskirts of Catania it seems almost an absurd mix between rural tradition, organized crime and narco aesthetics. Two horses pulling carts at high speed on open roads, dozens of scooters surrounding them and men firing automatic weapons while recording videos for social networks. It happens that behind the show there is a mafia logic very clear. According to researchers and animal organizations Italian, these races they have been decades being used by Cosa Nostra, the Camorra and the ‘Ndrangheta as a way to symbolically occupy territory, block public streets and demonstrate that they can act in plain sight without real fear of the authorities. They are not clandestine events hidden in the countryside. Many times they occur directly in front of everyone precisely because impunity is part of the message. A lot of money and few consequences. The business moves huge amounts of black money through illegal bets that can reach thousands of euros per race. Police investigations take years discovering clandestine stablesdoped horses and networks linked to organized crime, but the phenomenon continues to grow because the judicial consequences remain relatively limited. To give us an idea, only in 2024 were 70 people investigated and dozens of animals were intervened, but the activists themselves denounce that Italian legislation continues making it difficult to infiltrate these networks or detain participants during the races. Many organizers receive only minor sanctions and quickly return to activity. That’s why the images are constantly repeated in Sicily, Calabria or Campania despite periodic police raids. The horses are the least important thing. Although animal abuse is brutal (local media reported that horses are doped, beaten and forced to run in extreme conditions), the real objective of these races is not the animals. They are the people who observe them. The mafia uses these events as a ritual display of authority in marginal neighborhoods and areas where the State appears weak or absent. The videos broadcast on social networks fulfill exactly that function: glorify the challenge open to the police, reinforce criminal prestige and build a kind of mafia popular culture around racing. Many horses are even named after historical mafia bosses, notorious criminals, or violent figures who have become symbols within certain local environments. Between tradition and modern crime. Perhaps the most disturbing thing is how these races combine elements extremely ancient with others completely contemporary. The horse-drawn carts refer to a rural Sicily that seems straight out of a century ago, but around them appear motorcycles without license plates, viral videos, automatic weapons and neomelodic music spread through social networks. The mafia has turned a local tradition into a modern tool intimidation and propaganda. And that explains why the problem continues to persist despite decades of operations police. For many criminal groups, these races are not simply illegal entertainment. They are a way of publicly remembering who still has the ability to close roads, mobilize armed people and act as if certain parts of Sicily were still under their own control. Image | x In Xataka | The restaurant chain ‘La Mafia’ promised them happiness with its brand. Until he came across the Republic of Italy In Xataka | In 2024, Venice invented an entrance fee for tourists: it has turned out so well that it has doubled and expanded it

Castilla-La Mancha accuses the Southeast of “watering wildly”, while irrigators find it impossible to survive what is coming

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On May 20, just before the Supreme Court will definitively close the door to the aspirations of irrigators to maintain the Tajo-Segura transfer as until now, the spokesperson for the Junta de Castilla – La Mancha He stood in front of the media and said it: water cannot be limited to the irrigators of the region while in the Levant “it is watered freely”, he came to say. That’s the gossip, but that’s not the news. The news is that, 47 years after the inauguration of the transfer and after a decade of judicial conflictthe battle for the water of the Tagus returns to the negotiating table. Not because of ecological flows; That (barring a surprise) has already been decided: he has returned to the table because the most difficult thing remains. Say who pays the bill. Whose water is it? Because that is the heart of the matter and where Castilla – La Mancha is wrong. As I have explained the Supremethe arguments of the Central Union of Irrigators of the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct do not apply, precisely, because it is not about taking water from ‘someone’ to give it to another ‘someone’. The ecological flows (which taxes come by the jurisprudence of the same court and by the EU directive) cannot have “a use character, and must be considered as a restriction that is generally imposed on exploitation systems.” The problem is that these flows represent, according to the technical reports, a water loss of around 40% for the irrigators of the east. Irrigators who, let us remember, have the right to that water according to the current transfer rules, who have made investments and have built businesses (‘livelihoods’) counting on that water that the State had granted them. Rules that do not apply. Due to the court battle, the new flows have not come into force and, at this time, the old rules continue to be used to send water to the Segura basin. In fact, for the April-June quarter There are 180hm3 authorized (a much larger amount than would correspond to the new standard). And the irrigators are nervous. With sense, too: the Administrations’ alternative (desalination) is lost in combat. And, in any case, that is water is between three and ten times more expensive. This is important because (as explained by the Community of Irrigators of Campo de Cartagena) “The irrigable surface has not expanded by one square meter since 2017“. It is no longer a question that without water they cannot grow; it is a question that without water they cannot “maintain what we already cultivate.” And that would lead us to a more than considerable industrial reconversion throughout the region. But there doesn’t seem to be any other solution. Because, as we see, the cuts are due to legal imperative. The administrations have little else to do: they have already been delaying the application of ecological flows for years and the situation has not improved one bit. It doesn’t mean that all this is over. It is likely that the Union will appeal to the European Court, but the reorientation of the agrarian model in the southeast cannot be extended if we want it to remain alive. That is to say: the hour of truth arrives. For decades, politicians have been passing the buck without taking the necessary measures (no matter how painful they may be). That is the economic, ecological and social bill that we are paying now. The only reasonable question is whether we have learned our lesson. Image | David Algas Oroquieta In Xataka | The Tagus reservoirs have reached their maximum level. The response of the authorities has been to empty them immediately

LaLiga wanted to fine VPNs that did not block IPs during matches. A court has been set up

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LaLiga has been waging an all-out war against football piracy for months and, with the support of a court ruling obtained in 2025, LaLiga had the power to ask operators to block certain IP addresses. The result? Websites that stumbled on match days due to some locks which were a clear example of kill flies with cannon shots. In a process in which it seemed that no one could stop these actions, LaLiga They got it in February of this year what seemed like another victory: a court in Córdoba ordered NordVPN and ProtonVPN Block certain IPs. Not even the judges themselves They knew if that could be done. and VPN tools evidently responded. Now another court in Córdoba has put some sense into all this, dismissing LaLiga’s request to impose fines on VPN platforms for failing to comply with the indiscriminate blocking order. The twist in the story of LaLiga and VPN blocks Through a release On its website, one of the companies affected by the initial ruling (NordVPN) has commented on the result of the ruling of the Commercial Court of Córdoba in what they have described as the dismissal of the request to impose coercive fines on NordVPN. The statement they have shared is the following: On May 19, 2026, the Commercial Court of Córdoba rejected LaLiga’s request to impose coercive fines on NordVPN for alleged non-compliance with the precautionary blocking order issued in February 2026. NordVPN had already warned at the time that the order was not technically viable without harming thousands of legitimate websites in Spain and abroad. Now, the court has accepted the independent technical evidence presented by NordVPN and ruled that it cannot be concluded that the company violated the order deliberately and without justification. The order issued in February required NordVPN to block a list of IP addresses that allegedly hosted unauthorized La Liga broadcasts. NordVPN’s technical experts have shown that target IP addresses change constantly, often within hours, meaning that the lists supplied do not correspond to the actual addresses at the time the blocking can be implemented. It was also demonstrated that the massive blocking at the IP level would have left thousands of completely legitimate websites without access for users in Spain and outside of it. After considering the conflicting expert reports, the court found a genuine technical dispute and ruled that the fines were not justified. It goes on to detail that this is a procedural resolution in the preliminary phase, so it does not resolve the underlying issue: the entire procedure that is still ongoing. nordVPN points out that it will continue to collaborate with the Spanish courts and points out that cloudflareone of the most affected in all this, also follows its own path of collaboration with the courts. What CloudVPN points out is that they are committed to the legitimate protection of intellectual property and the application of measures, but those measures must be proportionate, technically sound and respectful of both users and services that depend on the shared Internet infrastructure, stating that this massive IP blocking imposed on VPN providers, precisely, lacks all of these aspects. And most importantly, NordVPN points out something that is obvious: these measures “do not stop violators, who adapt in a matter of minutes while imposing real costs on legitimate users, companies and services that have no relation to the dispute.” In Xataka | LaLiga’s massive IP blocks are making life impossible for users, companies and developers. So you can claim

the restaurant had to close in 2020

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There are bills that are paid before leaving a restaurant and there are other bills that end up being paid in the Supreme Court. This case is about one of the second. Amancio Ortega, at the time greatest fortune in Spain and owner of the building where it operates RoganoGlasgow’s oldest restaurant. This establishment has not reached an agreement with its landlord for six years about who should pay for the repair of the premises after flooding that left it unusable. According what was published According to the Scottish press, the dispute over who should pay the reparations has gone through three judicial instances and has reached the highest court in the United Kingdom. The main argument of the lawsuit is an account of 789,000 pounds sterling (about 913,000 euros at the exchange rate) in losses due to not having been able to open it during the last six years. The curious thing about the case is that, after all this time of litigation, both parties have reached an agreement just the night before the case was to be heard before the Supreme Court. A restaurant that is worth much more than its menu. To understand why an apparent discrepancy between a landlord and his tenant has reached the Supreme Court, it is necessary to know what Rogano is. In 1935, while the Queen Mary ocean liner took shape on the Clyde, the restaurant was decorated in the same art deco style as the great Cunard ship, and thus a classic of Glasgow hospitality was born. Just as they say local mediathe restaurant has been operating continuously for the last 84 years, serving a clientele ranging from neighborhood residents to celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor, Rod Stewart, Jude Law, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Harvey Keitel among many others. In 2020 its lights went out. In March 2020, Rogano lowered the blinds like everyone else due to the restrictions derived from the pandemic, thinking that the closure would be a matter of a few weeks. Between December 2020 and January 2021, the building suffered several serious floods that led to an electrical fire that caused serious damage to the premises, leaving it uninhabitable and forcing its owner to leave the blinds down for longer than expected. That’s where the real problem began: the works were never carried out, and the emblematic restaurant has been boarded up since then. The legal mess begins by knowing who the tenant is. According what was published for the BBCthe building where the popular restaurant is located belongs to Pontegadea UK, the British subsidiary of the Amancio Ortega’s real estate holding company. Precisely, thanks to the Pontegadea real estate investments in buildings like the one in dispute, the Spanish millionaire has just become the biggest real estate tycoon on the planet. Having a restaurant closed and boarded up in Glasgow is not exactly a drama for your bottom line, but it is a legal problem that has gotten out of hand. The parent company that operates the Rogano, Forthwell Limited, argued in its lawsuit that flooding was a risk covered by the landlord’s insurance, and that Pontegadea had an obligation to repair the property. The claim included compensation of £789,000 for lost profits due to the prolonged closure resulting from the Pontegadea’s refusal to make reforms. Pontegadea responded that Forthwell could not claim those losses because the restaurant was not operated by them but by a subsidiary, Lynnet Leisure Rogano Limited, under an occupation license for which they paid £1 a year, and that subsidiary was a third party that did not appear in the original contract. A case that was going to create a precedent. After six years of legal disputes, the case escalated through three different judicial instances. In June 2024, the High Court of Scotland ruled in favor of the Rogano, but at the end of that same year The Court of Appeal overturned part of that decision, and the dispute ended landing in the Supreme. The high court of the United Kingdom had transferred his sessions in Glasgow to review this case, something unusual since he usually resides in London, which gave the case a new dimension: the ruling of this court could set a precedent for how responsibilities are distributed between landlords and tenants in similar situations. But there was no failure. The “in extremis” pact that left the judges with the word in their mouths. At the beginning of the hearing scheduled for May 20, Forthwell’s lawyer informed the five judges that the parties had reached an agreement at 11:30 p.m. the previous night. The lawyer acknowledged that closing the agreement on the eve of the hearing was “extremely unsatisfactory,” to which the president of the court responded dryly: “Yes, that is an understatement, frustrating the lost opportunity to define the responsibilities in future disputes. The terms of the agreement remain unmade public, as does the future of the Rogano. Pontegadea’s obstinacy. Pontegadea’s business model is not the usual one among real estate companies. Pontegadea invests in the best buildings on the main streets of cities around the world. Its main objective is not to buy cheap buildings to renovate them and obtain a capital gain from their sale, they are real estate. already with solvent tenants. In this way, Amancio Ortega begins to amortize his purchase from the first minute. That is why it is surprising that Pontegadea has become embroiled in this legal dispute in which, whether to allow the Rogano to reopen or to rent it to any other tenant, the premises were going to need that the damage be repaired. Which destroys the argument of a dispute over reparations and strengthens the interest in obtaining a large compensation from one of the largest fortunes in the world. In Xataka | Amancio Ortega: the billionaire who lives like a neighbor (except for private jets and superyachts) Image | GTRES

Just Eat knows that we Spaniards are hooked on Delivery. This is how they have closed an agreement so that you can order on WhatsApp

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Spain it is delivery countryand Just Eat knows it. We are one of the European markets where food delivery has grown the most in the last decade. So much so, Just Eat has decided to make Spain one of the only two countries—along with the Netherlands—where it will debut in Europe something that no delivery platform had done before: allowing you to order food directly from WhatsApp. The alliance. Just Eat has become the first platform in Europe to enable an integrated ordering experience through WhatsApp in which the entire search and selection process occurs within the chat itself. The Just Eat app only comes into play for the last step: secure payment. WhatsApp is not going to replace the service app, but rather it is going to become one of the main entry channels. “With the launch of the first ordering system via WhatsApp in Europe, at Just Eat we are not just including a new channel: we are redefining the concept of convenience. This innovation is a key element in our evolution, going from being a menu-based transactional application to becoming a true intelligent assistant powered by AI, capable of understanding user intent in real time.” Mert Öztekin, CTO of Just Eat How it will work. Using a QR code or link, we will enter WhatsApp, we will start a conversation with the AI agent from Just Eat, and we can complete practically the entire experience from the messaging app. Unlike the existing WhatsApp chat options, aimed at customer assistance channels, the company ensures that its AI will be able to understand natural language, to talk with us about what we want to eat, what restaurants there are, what they have on the menu and their prices. The promise is clear: this is not a support chatbot or anything similar to what we have used so far. The buts. The proposal is striking, but it is inevitable to ask some questions. The first is a simple “why”. Explaining to an AI agent what you want for dinner when Just Eat has a highly optimized app in which you can order food in five or six touches of the screen, a priori, does not seem more comfortable. The second is that Goal is Goaland every WhatsApp conversation goes through its servers. That Just Eat has the necessary data for our order is logical, but all this information Now passing through Meta may not be so attractive. When. Just Eat has not given a final date for this service, although it assures that it will begin its trial in 2026. They will start in Spain and the Netherlands and, if it is a success, expand to more countries in the European Union. In Xataka | The delivery war is no longer about bringing pizzas home, it is about delivering in 10 minutes: ‘Q-commerce’

In Nepal they have begun to fill their streets with tons of plastic waste. Their goal: to be more sustainable

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In Nepal they have begun to fill their streets with garbage. Kilos and more kilos of discarded plastic, old open noodle packages, cookie containers and other synthetic waste that (due to their characteristics) it’s not always easy recycle. The prospect of walking or driving on trash-strewn asphalt may not seem too appealing, but it makes perfect sense and is something that has been done before (or at least tried out) in other parts of the world. Asia, Europe, Africa either America. Of course, usually in a timid way. The key is that plastic waste is not dispersed directly on the pavement. No. They are part of it, of its structure. Even there are those who maintain that improves it. Pavement with garbage? Exact. If every year we produce more than 400 million tons of plastic, much of it destined for single-use packaging and which is then difficult to recycle, and we also build (and repave) kilometers and kilometers of roads every year… Why not connect both things? What if we used the most difficult to recycle synthetic waste to make pavement? What if this material was also better than conventional asphalt? The idea It’s not entirely new and there are those who question whether it is really as sustainable and good as it seems, but the truth is that over the last few years it has attracted the interest of entrepreneurs and institutions from different countries. Usually (not always) in a timid, almost experimental way, with pilot projects and in more or less short periods, but it has managed to stay in the limelight. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Where has it been tested? A quick search on Google shows that over the last five years, “plastic paving” has convinced a few entrepreneurs and institutions from around the world. We see examples in Philippines, Thailand, South Africa, Netherlands, USA, Singapore either Indiaone of the countries that has opted most decisively for this solution. In 2024 Business Standard informed that in the Asian country they had built almost 40,000 kilometers of rural tracks that included plastic waste, 13,000 of them completed in recent years. In Singapore the idea too seems to have curdled and has received the endorsement of the Public Works area. And Nepal arrived. Nepal is one of the latest to join the list. In 2025 the AFP agency published an extensive report in which he explained how the idea has reached the Asian republic, where it has already been used on at least one highway in Pokharaa city of 600,000 inhabitants that serves as the capital of Gandaki province. There the plastic flooring formula has the support of Green Road Waste Managementan organization that is trying to expand it in Nepal. Step by step. In 2025, the founder of the entity, Bimal Bastola, he assured AFP who had completed around a dozen projects totaling just over a mile. It’s not much, but the organization maintains that each kilometer of pavement uses about two metric tons of shredded plastic to build. Bastola advocates going further and carrying out projects at the government level. “We try to collaborate with the highway office.” A priori it seems that the Government does not take a dim view of the measure. Arjun Nepal, an engineer at the capital’s highway department recognize that the country “is interested in testing the technology in pilot projects,” but warns that to move forward it is necessary to first guarantee a series of quality standards. Hence the authorities wanted to carry out a test in Kathmandu. “We saw possibilities”. Bastola defends the virtues of paving with synthetic waste and remembers that it even allows lower value waste to be reused. “We saw possibilities in using these plastics as raw materials, partially replacing tar in road construction,” argues to AFP. The new system does not dispense with this material, but first covers the pavement components with crushed plastic. In addition to providing an outlet for part of the tons of plastic that are generated every day in Nepalese urban areas, Bastola assures that the system saves certain materials, reduces costs and has extra advantages for the pavement itself. “It prevents water infiltration and increases the useful life of the track,” claims. There are studies that endorse These surfaces can last longer than normal ones. Perfect, right? Depends. Although the system has sparked interest in several countries, including Nepal and its neighbors Bhutan and Bangladesh, not everyone is sure it is such a good option. Or at least it has proven to be so. From the World Bank have admitted that there are “promising” pilot studies, but they lack more research: What and how many emissions are produced during the production of the pavement? How does it actually behave in practice? Does it release microplastics? What is their impact once the plastic tracks are removed? “Garbage in for garbage out”, they warned in 2020 at GAIA on solutions such as asphalt and cement with crushed plastic remains. Images | Laurentiu Morariu (Unsplash) In Xataka | We have been thinking for decades that plastic recycling was worth something. Maybe we were wrong

Oviedo has already broken its heat record for May and AEMET warns that this has only just begun

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Let’s stay with a figure: 34.3. It is, almost certainly, the most important data of the week. On Thursday, May 21, 2026, the thermometers of the city of Oviedo They recorded a temperature of 34.3 degrees. 1.8 ºC more than the highest temperature ever recorded in May in the capital of the Principality. AEMET is convinced that between today and the weekend will be reached again (or even exceeded) this temperature. And yet, this is only a tiny part of the story. Because the real story is that, in a region structurally protected by its oceanic climate, records are being broken in ways we would not have been able to imagine. And that’s without the country being in a ‘heat wave’. What is happening? Although There is some controversy with the namewhat is happening is called ‘heat dome‘. That is, a subtropical anticyclonic ridge, anomalously powerful for this time of year, which is trapping very warm air above our heads. Europe is bearing the brunt, it is true. Countries such as France, Germany, the Netherlands and the British Isles they are seeing temperatures between 10 and 15 degrees above normal. If everything goes as predicted by the models, the May records of half of Europe are going to explode on the 25th of this month. And, of course, we are noticing that. As the haze falls on the Canary Islands (right at the eastern vertex of the dome), a good part of the country will suffer considerable heat. We talk about more than 34 degrees in Asturias and the Basque Country and 38 in the Guadiana valleys. The Guadalquivir valley is already above 35. And, as I say, all this without heat waves. Despite the magnitude of the episode, AEMET does not rate it like a heat wave in peninsular Spain. It is not. We already know that the operational definition requires exceeding the 95th percentile of daily maximum temperatures for the July-August quarter for at least three days and, of course, we are not going to go to that extreme. What does all this heat tell us? Let’s be honest. For Andújar or Badajoz to reach 38 degrees on May 21 is rare, but not exceptional. But for Oviedo to reach 34.3 is a very different thing. It shows, above all, that the Cantabrian coast is beginning to stop being a “climate refuge.” Why is all this important? In addition to an underlying climate issue, this warm episode is important because it is dangerous. The first extreme heat of the year is the deadliest because the population has not gone through the period of physiological acclimatization produced by progressive exposure to summer heat. That is, because it is May and the Iberian summer has truly begun. Image | Tropical TidBits In Xataka | The Gulf Stream is dying. Someone’s idea to solve it dates back to the 1950s: closing the Bering Strait

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