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Neighbors in Chile tried to stop an Amazon data center. Justice has left a clear message with its decision

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Artificial intelligence has been part of our lives for a long time, often almost without us stopping to think about what is behind it. We use it as if everything were happening in an invisible layer: models, algorithms and, perhaps, servers in some remote location. But we can also look at it from another perspective. The infrastructure that supports that world is very real: it has a location, consumes resources, requires permits, involves enormous investments, and can also alter the environment of those who live nearby. That is one of the great debates that is beginning to accompany the rise of AI: the cloud also has neighbors. They lost the case. A specific case leads us to Huechurabanorth of Santiago de Chile, where Amazon plans to build a data center. The initiative had received a favorable Environmental Qualification Resolution in July 2024, but not everyone was convinced that the project had been evaluated accordingly. That concern reached the judicial route through a claim presented by Patricio Hernández Valenzuelaa resident of the area, and the Second Environmental Court resolved on April 9, 2026 to reject ita decision that leaves the data center in a position to move forward. A very specific concern. Hernández questioned whether the environmental evaluation of the project had not adequately taken into account a possible high voltage line that, according to his approach, would be necessary to power the data center. The criticism was not minor: if both infrastructures were linked, they had to be analyzed together. For residents, not doing so meant leaving relevant impacts on the environment out of the analysis. The key to the failure. The court’s reasoning involves clearly separating both pieces. The ruling concludes that the data center and the eventual high-voltage line cannot be considered to form a single initiative, among other things because the Amazon project does not include that infrastructure as part of its design. Furthermore, the planned electricity supply does not depend on its own installation, but on the network managed by third parties, which reinforces the idea that these are different projects. Without joint evaluation. Once the existence of a project unit has been ruled out, the court concludes that an integrated environmental assessment is not appropriate. The sentence explicitly states it: “it has been proven that between both initiatives there is no relationship of functional interdependence that conditions their execution.” This nuance is key, because it implies that the data center can operate using the available electrical infrastructure, without the need to subject its viability to a future high voltage line which, in any case, would have to be evaluated separately if it were to be considered. Beyond the legal debate. The Amazon project has very specific dimensions on paper. The data storage center in Huechuraba is designed to operate for 30 years, with an estimated investment of 205 million dollars. It would be built on an area of ​​10.9 hectares, with a construction of 21,350.07 square meters, in the street of Américo Vespucio 1055. From the company, collects Reutershave pointed out that the design of the infrastructure focuses on minimizing energy and water consumption, and maintains that the plan met environmental requirements. Chile as a hub. The Huechuraba project is not an isolated initiative within Amazon’s strategy. Amazon Web Services has proposed an investment of more than 4,000 million dollars in Chile over 15 years to build, operate and maintain its infrastructure in the country. The idea is to turn Santiago into its third major center in Latin America, after São Paulo and the central region of Mexico. Factors such as connectivity through fiber optic cables are added to this context. The concern of those who live nearby. Beyond the investment and digital infrastructure they promise, data centers are often accompanied by very specific concerns: high electricity consumption, use of water for cooling, heat or noise generation, and their fit into environments that, in many cases, have environmental or community value. Google did not have the same path. The case of Amazon is not the only one that has gone through this type of debate in Chile. Google had obtained initial approval in 2020 to build a $200 million data center in Cerrillos, southwest of Santiago. However, the project’s journey was different. In February 2024, the Second Environmental Court decided to partially reverse that permissionand months later the company announced that it would not continue with the initiative as it had originally been proposed, opting to start a new process from scratch for a project in the same location, but with a redesign based on air cooling. Electricity enters the scene. If we broaden the focus, the debate is not limited to a specific project, but to the system’s capacity to absorb this type of infrastructure. A Systep reportpublished on September 23, 2025 with data from the National Electrical Coordinator, indicated that, taking 2025 as a starting point, the electrical demand of data centers in Chile could increase by 270% in five years. The same projection places this consumption at around 1,207 MW in 2030. These figures help to understand why the energy issue has become one of the central axes when talking about the expansion of the cloud and AI. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | In 2024, Big Tech spent absurd amounts of money on AI. In 2025, they managed to spend 77% more

How much coffee can you drink a day? Science has a very clear limit to avoid its harmful effects

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For many of us, the starter motor in the morning It has a dark color and a roasted aroma that characterize coffee so much. A drink that is one of the most consumed in the world, but with a popularity that has been accompanied by alarmist headlines about how bad it is to ingest it and the effects it can have directly on the organs. But the truth is that there are lights and shadows. There is good news. For those who love coffee, it will undoubtedly be a relief to know that the literature indicates that consumption is not as catastrophic as they want to sell. But, as in everything, excesses of something can always lead to problems, even if it may seem like something super healthy, such as water. And coffee, obviously, is not exempt. The limit. When it comes to establishing a red line for safe consumption, the clinical reference is not in the WHO, but in the FDA and the EFSAwhich are the food safety regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe, respectively. Here both point to the same figure in coffee consumption: 400 milligrams of caffeine per day. A very relevant figure, since for the vast majority of healthy adults, consuming up to 400 mg daily is not associated with harmful health effectshighlighting that this amount can be part of a perfectly healthy diet and lifestyle. How many coffees is this equivalent to? This is where things get complicated since talking about “cups” is an analytical error, because not all coffees are the same. That is why for the FDA a 355 ml cup, which is a standard size, can contain between 113 and 247 mg of caffeine. But all this depends on the type of preparation, the extraction time or the coffee used, because Robusta coffee has more caffeine than Arabica, for example. But generally speaking, that 400 mg is equivalent to about 3 or 4 cups of standard filter coffee per day. Organic damage. It is easy to see different alarming messages warning that coffee can damage our entire interior if a specific dose is exceeded. But the reality is that the WHO does not send this message to society, since it is too alarming and does not correspond at all to reality. What is true is that excessive daily coffee consumption has important effects on our body, but it will not ‘rot’ our internal organs. Among these stand out insomnia, nervousness, irritability, palpitations, muscle tremors, intestinal irritation, headache… This means that, although we talk about coffee not being contradictory for the population, logically, if there is an underlying problem, it may be better not to drink it, and even less so if it is taken in great excess throughout the day. It has benefits. On other occasions we have talked about coffee and its benefits, because it has more than just keeping us awake in the morning. Here different studies have already pointed out to us the cardiovascular benefits it can have or even improves sports performance. But the metabolism of each person is quite involved here, since there is no single metabolism. In this case, there are people who process caffeine very quickly and its effect disappears quickly, but there are other cases where they metabolize it slowly, so its effects remain in the body and they may, for example, have more problems with insomnia, nervousness or palpitations because they are more “sensitive” to caffeine. This is the explanation, for example, that a person can boast of having a coffee at night and being able to sleep perfectly. There are exceptions. Although we talk about a limit of 400 mg of caffeine, there are people who logically cannot reach this limit, such as pregnant women, where a maximum of 200 mg per day is recommended, since excess caffeine can cross the placenta and affect fetal development. But it also influences, for example, the cholesterol level, since here the Mayo Clinic points out that the consumption of unfiltered coffee, such as Turkish coffee, can raise cholesterol levels due to compounds such as cafestol. Images | Dragana_Gordic in Magnific In Xataka | If the question is “how much caffeine is in each cup of coffee or tea,” this graph offers insightful answers.

China generated half of the digital viewing of the last World Cup. There is one month left until 2026 and it is still not clear if they will issue it

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Less than five weeks before the whistle that will kick off the opening match of this year’s World Cup, FIFA has signed broadcast contracts with more than 175 countries. China and India, with almost three billion inhabitants, are not among them. It is the unpleasant fruit of a price war over broadcast rights that pits the largest football organization in the world against the two most populated markets on the planet. What is at stake. The mbiggest World Cup in historywhich is said soon: 48 teams, 104 matches to be played in USACanada and Mexico between June 11 and July 19. FIFA is selling it as the most watched and broadcast event of all time. If they manage to resolve the conflicts with the two countries with the largest number of inhabitants on the planet, of course. According to data from FIFA itselfChina generated 49.8% of all viewing hours on digital and social platforms during the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Half of global digital consumption. More: India added 32 million digital viewers in the final alone. They are two very important markets that should not be ignored. Why is this happening? Part of the explanation is in the schedules. The tournament is held in North America, which means that the highest-rated matches will start at 3:00 a.m. in Beijing and Shanghai, and at 12:30 a.m. in New Delhi. These are schedules that destroy the advertising market: there is not enough audience beyond the fans, and advertisers are reluctant to pay the very high rates for the events. And without substantial advertising revenue, networks cannot support the tens of millions of dollars that broadcasts cost. India: bidding war. JioStar, India’s largest media conglomerate (the result of the merger between Viacom18 and Disney Star), even offered $20 million for the rights. And FIFA rejected the offer: it wanted 100 million dollars for a package that would also include the rights to the 2030 World Cup. According to local mediaFIFA would have lowered its price to around 35 million, although the negotiation is still not closed. China: crazy prices. ApparentlyFIFA would have demanded between 250 and 300 million dollars for the rights in the Chinese market, a figure that CCTV (the only broadcaster authorized by law to negotiate these rights) would not be willing to even remotely match. Its budget is around 60-80 million dollars, according to the same sources. FIFA may be willing to go down to between 120 and 150 million, but it is still double what CCTV wants to pay. On social networks, fans protest the difference in numbers between China and India. They are their traditions and they must be respected. CCTV has broadcast the World Cup without missing a single edition since Argentina 1978. Previously, agreements were closed with enough notice to launch promotional campaigns and attract sponsors, but this time there is no agreement, and the tournament starts in five weeks. For example, In the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, CCTV had the rights closed months in advance. And to this is added an extra problem: journalists from the country have had difficulties obtaining visas to cover the World Cup, which would reduce the quality of the broadcasts and, consequently, weaken the attractiveness for Chinese sponsors (which, as is easy to imagine, are among the main sponsors of the tournament). High tension. What we have right now are two millionaire forces pulling the rope in different directions: both want the highest profitability, knowing that time is an absolutely essential variable, because each week without a signed deal is equivalent to advertising and sponsorships that disappear. Not to mention the exasperation of millions of fans, who are now turning Asia into a sea of ​​nail-biting fans. And not in the penalty shootout, precisely. In Xataka | You will only be able to get to the World Cup stadiums in the USA and Mexico by car. And they are going to charge you 300 dollars to park it

In Norway they have asked themselves which are the best electric cars at -30ºC. And the answer is clear: Chinese cars

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A test that has already become indispensable for the industry. The Norwegian Automobile Club has been carrying out a simple test since 2020: they take the most representative electric cars on the market, fully recharge them and put them to the test. All at the same time and along the same route. Objective: discover if someone is lying. A simple test in theory. But it provides a lot of information for the buyer of an electric car. And although the WLTP cycles have been improved and now they show consumption in urban cycles and outside of it, the truth is that the buyer of the electric car needs one piece of information: the consumption on the road at the maximum legal speed allowed. And in the city, the consumption of electric cars is usually very low. Furthermore, the impact of total autonomy is less relevant because either the car is charged at night or access to the chargers is easier than in the middle of a road. That’s why he test carried out by the Norwegian Automobile Clubthe NAF for its acronym in the local language, is so important because they get the cars moving and take them on the road on a route that begins in Oslo and extends for more than 400 kilometers. The final intention is to glimpse what real autonomy these cars have and its difference with the figure recorded by the WLTP cycle. “They lie”. We will put it in quotes. And when companies design their cars, they obviously think about the consumption that a car will have in real situations but, of course, They take into account how the approval tests are carried out to get the best possible result. He Dieselgatewhere Volkswagen and other brands in the group used specific software when homologating their cars to achieve better consumption figures on paper that were then not met in practice, is the best-known case. But without cheating, it may pay off for a manufacturer to prioritize the lowest possible consumption in the city even if it later suffers from a slightly higher consumption on the highway. Or that the car behaves worse in extreme cold conditions, as is usually found in these tests. This very low urban consumption can lower the final average figure and distort the car’s real mileage, which is why these real road tests are interesting. How are they tested? In the test, the Norwegians examine the car’s behavior on a route that starts from Oslo towards the north of the country and which almost always runs on national roads. On the route, which you can see in this linkstarts at sea level and ends at about 750 meters above sea level. Along the way there are two large studs. In the first one you exceed 500 meters in height, then you descend slightly and climb again until you exceed 1,000 meters in height. Subsequently, you descend until you stay at the aforementioned 750 meters high. The test is also done in winter and summer conditions to get even more information from the cars. The driver stops when it detects a loss of power in the car but it doesn’t drain the battery all the way. This seeks to know to what extent the car is capable of moving at full capacity. In a year like this with very low temperatures, the first driver who abandoned noticed a loss of power when the car still had 11% autonomy left. And among the data published, the association also includes the weather along the route, specifying the minimum and maximum temperature or whether the sky remained clear or it snowed. This time record temperatures were reached, the warmest occurred in Oslo where the thermometer read -8ºC and the coldest was recorded while passing through Høyeste with -32ºC. The best. With this way of working, this Norwegian association has published its data. They take into account the deviation from the declared WLTP figure but also the percentage (doing 500 kilometers and deviating by 100 km from the expected range is not the same as doing 300 kilometers and deviating those same 100 km). Taking this into account, their data says that the best cars were the Hyundai Inster and the MG IM6, which performed 29% less than the expected range. The cars that deviated the least from the expected figure were the following: Hyundai Inster: distance traveled 256 km, WLTP distance 360 ​​km, difference 104 km KGM Musso EV: distance traveled 263 km, WLTP distance 379 km, difference 116 km Voyah Courage: distance traveled 300 km, WLTP distance 440 km, difference 140 km Changan Deepal S05: traveled distance 293 km, WLTP distance 445 km, difference 152 km MG IM6: traveled distance 352 km, WLTP distance 505 km, difference 153 km The worst. The data tells us one thing but it is also important to contextualize it. For example, they point out that the Lucid Air was the electric car that deviated the most from its expected autonomy (49%) but it was also the one that traveled the most kilometers (520 kilometers) so it was exposed the longest to temperatures below -30ºC. In fact, This same car was one of those that obtained the best figures in the last summer test. Last year, the organizers point out, the Polestar 3 broke the record in a winter test, stopping at 537 kilometers. However, they point out that in that same mountain pass where freezing temperatures have been reached this year, the thermometer that time marked a much more pleasant temperature of 8ºC. With all this, the cars that deviated the most from the expected figure were the following: BMW iX: distance traveled 388 km, WLTP distance 641 km, difference 253 km Tesla Model Y: distance traveled 359 km, WLTP distance 629 km, difference 270 km Volvo EX90: distance traveled 339 km, WLTP distance 611 km, difference 272 km Mercedes CLA: distance traveled 421 km, WLTP distance 709 km, difference 288 km Lucid Air: distance traveled … Read more

The CEO of Ryanair is clear about why there are more and more drunks on its flights

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Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has called for airports stop serving alcohol before early morning flights. According to their argument, bad behavior on board does not stop growing and they think that through this initiative they would not have to divert their flights due to the behavior of some passengers. A growing problem. “If I go back ten years, we had maybe one deviation a week. Now we are close to one a day,” counted O’Leary himself told The Times. According to data from the British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), airlines record around 400 more disruptive incidents per year than before the pandemic. Why airports have wide beams. Unlike conventional bars and restaurants, establishments within the UK boarding zones are exempt from time restrictions that regulate the sale of alcohol in the rest of the country. That means they can open and serve drinks at any time, including five or six in the morning. “I don’t understand why anyone serves beer at that time. Who needs to drink at five in the morning?” continued O’Leary. What Ryanair asks for. The Irish airline has been demanding a limit of two drinks per passenger at airports for years, something that, according to O’Leary, the company itself already applies on board its planes. Now it goes one step further and requires that airports respect the same alcohol sales schedules that apply to other establishments. Their idea is that this limit be linked to the boarding pass, to make control more effective. “Those who do not act responsibly, those who profit, are the airports that have those bars open at five or six in the morning and that, during delays, are happy to serve all the alcohol they want because they know that they export the problem to the airlines,” counted the manager in the middle. Furthermore, O’Leary also points out drug use as the main aggravating factor. The most affected routes. According to account The Times, the flights with the highest incidence of problematic behavior are those that connect the United Kingdom with leisure destinations such as Ibiza, Alicante or Tenerife. Routes from Ireland and Poland also experience frequent problems. What the law says. Being drunk on a plane is a crime in the United Kingdom, punishable by fines of up to £5,000 and two years in prison. If things go further and force the airline to divert the flight, the economic consequences can reach 80,000 pounds (which is make a Melendi in every rule). Ryanair has already taken legal action against passengers who caused diversions. According to the media, in January of last year he filed a lawsuit in Ireland against a traveler claiming 15,000 euros for a diverted flight on the Dublin-Lanzarote route. The risks are real. “Until someone causes an accident that causes a plane crash with hundreds of deaths, no government will take this problem seriously. And the airlines are desperate,” counted O’Leary to The Times. Other companies such as Jet2 are also pushing to create a national database that would allow troublesome passengers to be banned from all British airlines. AirportsUK, the organization that brings together the country’s airports, defends that they already work together with the rest of the sector through awareness campaigns. Cover image | Niels Baars and BENCE BOROS In Xataka | European airlines are taking advantage of the Iran crisis to accelerate something old: making your trip even more complicated.

Tolkien was very clear about who played the real hero in ‘The Lord of the Rings’, and it was not any of the protagonists

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There is a question that the majority of the Tolkien fandom has not addressed with complete rigor, possibly because the answer seems obvious: who is the true hero of ‘The Lord of the Rings‘? It seems obvious. Frodo or Aragorn, right? One bears the Ring, another leads the armies. But Tolkien himself asked that question in life and in writing, and the answer is neither. By letter. In a letter dated April 16, 1956, and addressed to a reader named H. Cotton Minchin, Tolkien described Samwise Gamgee as more than just Frodo’s faithful companion. He described him as the reflection of the common English soldier (the privates and the batmenpersonal assistants to the officers, whom he met during the First World War, and whom he said he considered “far superior to myself”). The letter, whose existence was documented in detail by researcher John Garthis not the only one in which Tolkien talks about Sam. To the barricades. According to further investigations who have related the impact of the First World War to Middle-earth, the relationship between Frodo and Sam reproduces with remarkable fidelity the dynamic between an officer and his personal assistant in the British army of the time. You make the decisions; the other carries the equipment, cooks, stands guard and, if necessary, rescues. The name “Gamgee”, in fact, comes from a real Edwardian doctor, Sampson Gamgee, inventor of a surgical material used during the war. Tolkien always admitted that the men who impressed him most in war were not the officers, but the common soldiers. This is how he describes it: My “Samwise” is, in fact (as you point out), largely a reflection of the English soldier, grafted on the village boys of yesteryear, in the memory of the private soldiers and my assistants that I met in the war of 1914, and whom I considered far superior to myself. More missives. In the so-called Letter 131, addressed to the editor Milton Waldman and first published in ‘The Letters of JRR Tolkien’ in 1981, Tolkien goes further. There he calls Sam the “main hero” of the work. And he adds that the “rustic and simple” love between Sam and Rosie is not a decorative detail, but a structural element of the story: the tension between ordinary life and the great epic. An expanded edition of the letters published in 2023 reflects on the ideas about the moral architecture of its history, and clearly distinguished between those who carry the weight of the adventure and those who sustain it. Around with the Ring. The One Ring operates on ambitionoffers power to whoever wants it. Boromir falls. Saruman falls. Galadriel, one of the most powerful beings in Middle-earth, declines to touch him because she knows what it would do to him. Frodo fails to destroy it. Sam, on the other hand, wears the Ring for a brief period in the Towers of Cirith Ungol and returns it without hesitation, because what Sam really wants is not power, it is to return home. The hero. And his traditionally heroic moment comes with Shelob, the giant spider, the clearest turning point in Sam’s arc. When Frodo falls apparently dead, Sam takes Sting and Galadriel’s Flail and confronts a creature from which the Elves recoiled. He wins because there is no other option for him. And later, when Frodo can no longer walk, Sam literally carries him. At the end of the story, Sam returns to the Shire, marries Rosie, has children, and becomes mayor for seven consecutive terms. He gets the life he always wanted: heroism without ambition receives the fullest reward. This is how Tolkien himself defines it: I think the simple ‘rustic’ love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the main hero’s) character, and to the theme of the relationship between ordinary life (breathing, eating, working, procreating) and quests, sacrifice, causes and ‘longing for the Elves’, and pure beauty. In Xataka | A demographer has spent weeks solving a very important question: how many people lived in Tolkien’s Middle Earth

The European Union is very clear about the future of its network infrastructure: there will not be a single Chinese device

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Europe is intensifying its battle against Chinese equipment, both in its electrical network and in its telecommunications infrastructure. The European Commission has again recommended earlier this week the exclusion of Huawei and ZTE equipment by local telecommunications operators, paving the way for a review of the Cybersecurity Regulation in which it is proposed mandatory elimination of high-risk suppliers. A new touch. The European Commission has started the week with a reminder: member states must exclude Huawei and ZTE equipment from their telecommunications network. In January of this year, Europe published a draft establishing the mandatory withdrawal of “high-risk suppliers”, posing a formal veto on Chinese telecommunications companies. It is a particularly sensitive issue in Spain, where communities like Catalonia have ignored European recommendations and they have renewed again recently with companies that use Huawei equipment. The Generalitat case. Last March, the Generalitat of Catalonia renewed its contract with XCAT. A budget of 127 million euros to maintain Huawei as the main equipment supplier, despite the EU notice and challenges from Telefónica and Cellnex that paralyzed the process for a few weeks. {“videoId”:”x9gqo70″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR MOBILE if you are not using AI like this”, “tag”:”Webedia-prod”, “duration”:”617″} In addition to the Catalan case, practically a third of Spanish 5G networks are from Huawei, with an estimated replacement cost between 400 and 1,000 million euros. Beyond. It is not the only measure that Europe wants to implement against Chinese suppliers. The Commission also wants to protect itself in relation to renewable energies, vetoing access to community funds to those projects using converters made in China. “Our risk assessments have confirmed threats, including manipulation of electricity production parameters, interruption of electricity generation and even unauthorized access to operational data. In practice, this could mean a blackout, a remote blackout of Member States’ networks leading to nationwide power outages.” As with the network infrastructure, according to the Commission, this measure responds to a shield for security reasons, applicable from next November 1. Again, a blow to the giant Huawei, one of the main suppliers of solar inverters in Spain. In Xataka 6G is not being developed to improve mobile speed: it is geopolitics and China is going with the accelerator to the table The Chinese response. China is no stranger to the measures being prepared by Europe, and has made it clear that it considers these proposed acts to be discriminatory and harmful to trade. Without detailing his plans, he has made it clear that he will take countermeasures. The Swedish case. Decisions have consequences, and Sweden is a country that knows very well what happens if you ban Huawei on your telecommunications equipment. In 2020, the country banned the use of telecommunications equipment from Chinese manufacturers under the argument of national security. Although a priori this was a lifeline for Ericsson, the consequences were just the opposite. China retaliated, and China Mobile expelled Eriscsson from its network infrastructure, going from 11% market share to 2%. In case Europe hits China again. In Xataka | There is a crucial technology for the deployment of AI and China is also securing the lead: 6G (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news The European Union is very clear about the future of its network infrastructure: there will not be a single Chinese device was originally published in Xataka by Ricardo Aguilar .

If the question is how to stop the bleeding of emptied Spain, in Cantabria they are clear: subsidizing festivals with bulls

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If you have learned anything ‘Spain emptied’ At this point there are no magic recipes against depopulation. In recent years, the administrations of that rural Spain that is gradually emptying have tried everything, often without success: from offering free employment and housing to assume the management of basic services, such as gas stations and stores. Now in Cantabria they have decided to add a new strategy against rural exodus to that list: subsidize bullfighting celebrations. At the moment the measure does not seem to have served to attract new neighbors. What it is generating is controversy. A cape for bullfighting. To understand the controversy we must go back to April 28, when the Official Gazette of Cantabria (BOC) published a call of subsidies from the Ministry of the Presidency. It basically announces a sum of 41,000 euros to “promote bullfighting in rural areas.” For this purpose, the Government offers to cover up to 90% of the expenses of the festivals that revolve around the bull, with amounts that range between 2,000 and 14,500 euros, depending on whether they are bullfights, bullfights, bullfights or other “popular celebrations.” It matters what… and it matters where. So far nothing exceptional. Spain has been immersed for years in a debate (sometimes bronco) on bullfighting and whether or not it should be supported with public funds, but the Cantabrian initiative does not stand out precisely for its budget. In 2025, without going any further, the Community of Madrid approved a game of 1.7 million of euros to support the Bull Festival. What is striking about the Cantabrian case is that its objective is not only to support the ‘national holiday’. In fact, that is not even the main argument made in the call of the BOC. Its purpose is another: to fight against depopulation. The subsidies are specifically directed at the 41 municipalities of the community at “risk of depopulation” and their objective appears clearly described in the official bulletin: “Encourage the aforementioned local entities to have resources that energize their social and economic life, such as bullfighting shows.” In short, use the bullfights, bullfights, bullfights, bullfights and other shows with bulls to revitalize the economy and establish population. “Put them on the map”. In case there were any doubts, the counselor of the Presidency, Isabel Urrutia, recalled a few days ago that last year the Cantabrian Government financed bullfighting celebrations in four small municipalities of Cantabria, which in his opinion allowed “to put them in the focus of the bullfighting world.” “We help with small aid to fight against depopulation and put these municipalities on the map, many of them with a great tradition of bullfighting. The aid is fulfilling its objective,” argues the counselor after remembering the case of Pesaguero: the town has 400 inhabitants, but in 2025 1,800 fans attended its bullfighting show. What exactly do they subsidize? Low the argument that bullfighting can become a “stimulator of social and economic life”, the Cantabrian Government offers to assume up to 90% of the expenses of organizing the festivities, as long as they do not exceed certain limits: 14,500 euros in the case of bullfights or bullfighting, 10,000 if we are talking about bullfights with picadors or bullfighting of bulls, 6,000 for bullfights without picadors, calves or festivals and 2,000 for similar shows. “To award aid, the Government will take into account the classification of the municipality as being at serious risk of depopulation or special and differentiating treatment for this reason, and also the type of show or celebration,” duck the regional executive. Although it recognizes that there are 41 municipalities that meet the depopulation requirements to qualify for aid, in 2025 only bullfighting shows were subsidized in four town halls of the region: Pesaguero, Tudanca, Rasines and Bárcena de Pie de Concha. In 2024 there was one more, Molledo. This would be the third consecutive year in which subsidies have been announced that, they insist From the regional government, they are fulfilling the objective with which they were set. Opinion division. Not everyone thinks the same. The Franz Weber Foundation has questioned that the initiative really serves to strengthen the economy of those localities or combat rural exodus, and provides data as proof: the number of residents who have won the subsidized town councils can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Literally. “Four inhabitants in three years”, resume the organization, which estimates the funds mobilized between all the calls at 132,000 euros. The tables from the INE confirm that Bárcena de Pie de Concha only gained one neighbor between 2023 and 2025 and Rasines another five. Pesaguero and Tudanca lost population. “They neither fix population nor suppose a real dynamic activity,” ditch the foundation. “The autonomous Executive has dedicated around 132,000 euros since 2024 under this excuse, but the population reality in the municipalities awarded in different calls shows an evident inability to have a positive impact.” In your opinionthe real purpose of the Cantabrian Government is another: “Support bullfighting using subterfuges such as depopulation.” Images | Alex-David Baldi (Flickr) and Arild Andersen (Flickr) In Xataka | The great debate about the future of bullfighting is not in Spain, but in an unexpected country: South Korea

Apple is clear that the memory crisis is about to hit harder. No more cushioning the blow

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With the launch of iPhone 17e and of macbook neoit seemed that Apple was one of the few untouchable companies due to the component crisis that we are experiencing. Although prices increased in the United States, they remained the same in Spain and the MacBook neo was launched at a price to eat the market. The problem is that time has shown that not even Apple is untouchable. And Tim Cook affirms that the worst is yet to come. The Mac Mini. This was, along with the MacBook neo, one of the best options when buying a computer. Not from Apple: in general. An interesting price for a team with enormous potential in a very small size. It had one drawback: it started with 256 GB of storage for a price of 719 euros, but it was interesting because using Thunderbolt you could expand with external SSDs. Now, that basic option does not exist. Apple has deleted the ‘cheap’ Mac Mini and now we can only buy the device with 512 GB base at a price of 969 euros. This is a mandatory price increase that suggests that the 256 GB option was the best-seller and Apple ran out of stock. Cushioning the blow. This price increase occurred hours after Tim Cook, in a call to investors to present quarterly results, will aim that the company has had the best starter of the year in its history, with 17% year-on-year. How well the iPhone is working in China, the services and equipment like those mentioned Mac Mini and MacBook neo have contributed to this. However, he left another message: the global chip crisis is about to hit the ship much harder. In the earnings presentation, he noted that things will get considerably worse due to “significantly higher memory costs” in the coming quarters. The rest of the industry has already been experiencing that blow, but Cook detailed that, so far, Apple has been partially protected and isolated because it has been selling inventory accumulated in advance. The problem is that, as reserves have been depleted, they have had to resort to the only two options: eliminate the best-selling options (we just saw this with the Mac Mini, but We saw it recently with the Mac Studio) and raise prices. Curves are coming. The current CEO pointed out that Apple is considering a range of options to manage this impact, although he has not given more details. Really, there aren’t that many: price increases in basic equipment, configurations with less RAM and less storage, eliminating options that, for the user, are still an increase and something that is more complicated: taking the hit. What is clear, as we read on CNBC, is that Apple expects that this increase in costs will have “a growing impact on our business”, leaving a message to John Ternus who will become CEO of Apple next September 1: “we have the right leader to take on the role.” The truth is that Ternus is going to arrive at a sweet time for Applebut in one where the industry is on fire. The 256 GB version is over. Now starts at 512 GB for 969 euros Tsunami. This time we focus on Apple, although Cook has not really said anything that any other executive from the main technology companies would not have commented before. With SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron turning to the NAND chip market for data centers, the consumer market has been left to its own devices and the consequence is what we are now seeing with Apple. As we say, the company has dodged the first blow because they had accumulated stock, but now the hard part will come for users. From Samsung, in the also recent presentation of results, already they warned that there will be “significant shortages” in products that need these types of chips and that they expect the situation to continue until at least 2027. It is an ambitious estimate, since SK Hynix believes that things will return to normal in 2030 and Nvidia is even more pessimistic. If you need something…Buy now. It is the best warning because things do not look like they are going to improve. If you think you are going to need a device, you better buy it as soon as possible because the price will continue to rise or, simply, that device will stop selling. The mobile industry has been warning for weeks that prices are going to rise, the same thing happens with computers and even with hard drives with which you can make a NAS. And a personal example: when the crisis was beginning to be critical, at the end of January of this year, I bought a 2 TB T7 SSD from Samsung for 160 euros. Today, that same one is for about 229 euros, which is not even close to its fair price. And how says Samsung itself, things are going to get worse. Images | Xataka In Xataka | There is a company that has grown 3,000% in the stock market, even beating the performance of Nvidia: Sandisk

Amazon is clear about its strategy for the AI ​​war: if you can’t beat your enemy, invest in them

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Just two months ago Amazon announced a astronomical investment of $50 billion in OpenAI. Today he made a movement very similar to the announce which will invest $5 billion in Anthropic and could invest an additional $20 billion “tied to certain commercial milestones) in the future. There are counterparts and some circular financing, of course, but also a clear pattern: Amazon has no winning horse in the AI ​​race, so it is betting on its competitors. More circular financing. Amazon now has alliances in the form of active investment with the two leading AI companies in the world. In return, both OpenAI and Anthropic commit to huge spending on their services on AWS. There is a lot of circular financing here: me I lend you the money so that you spend it on me. Those houses of cards that OpenAI and Anthropic are building have clear risks, but the industry is totally immersed in that maelstrom. In Xataka OpenAI is making the tech industry unite its destiny with yours. For the sake of the global economy, it better work Analysts warn. There are concerned analysts here and others who defend this type of agreement. M. Mohan asked in X why regulators are not on top of these types of financially dangerous agreements: the domino effect if OpenAI or Anthropic fall could be terrible. For others like the well-known Jim Cramer this is not circular financing. According to him, circular agreements are designed to inflate profits, and here no one’s profits are being inflated. Their argument is that Amazon has real computing, Anthropic needs real computing, and the value of the investment is genuine. History repeats itself. The same debate occurred in January with OpenAI, and the conclusion was the same then: the image of circular financing is there but it does not necessarily imply fraud, it implies that Amazon has found a way to monetize the AI ​​​​craze without betting on any particular model. Or for the two who seem to be winning the race. But everyone is doing it. The numbers of the agreement with Anthropic. Amazon puts up $5 billion immediately, taking advantage of the company’s current valuation of $380 billion. It is also committed to investing up to an additional $20 billion linked to “certain commercial milestones” that have not been specified. In exchange, Anthropic commits to using Amazon technology, and specifically its Trainium and Graviton chips, for the next decade. No less than 5 GW of computing capacity is secured, which is more or less the capacity consumed by New York City. This is perfect for Anthropic. He Anthropic statement about the agreement contains an interesting paragraph. In it, the company admits that the demand for AI by companies, developers and users is generating “inevitable tension” in its infrastructure. Or what is the same: they can’t do everything, so they are resorting to measures that “penalize” the excessive use of their AI models. They restrict session limits during peak hours, change the pricing model in companies to a “pay as you go”, or change the level of effort of their models and they sign up for token inflation. The agreement with Amazon makes it possible to mitigate the problem of computing shortages. The race for gigawatts. The truth is that Anthropic has been moving for months to try to avoid more and more problems with the computing capacity they can access. In a few weeks we have seen how Amazon’s 5 GW have been secured and also “multiple gigawatts” computing teams contracted with Google and Broadcom. What Amazon is actually building. Viewed as a whole, Amazon’s strategy is simple and elegant. You don’t need to win the AI ​​modeling race, which is unpredictable and extraordinarily expensive. It only needs that whoever wins it depends on it and its infrastructure. By investing at the same time in two rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI and securing massive spending contracts from both, it achieves something striking. Turn uncertainty into an asset: it doesn’t matter who wins, because she will end up getting paid. This also reinforces the relevance of its Trainium and Graviton chips, something that validates its commitment to its own chips. {“videoId”:”xa4n2g8″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”An initiative to secure the world’s software ｜ Project Glasswing”, “tag”:””, “duration”:”349″} Win-Win. The agreement seems perfect for both parties. Amazon ensures, as we say, consumption in its infrastructure for the next ten years, and Anthropic achieves an investment that increases its market value again. The same happens with OpenAI, and in both cases these agreements and financial support only reinforce expectations about their imminent IPOs. Image | Fortune Brainstorm TECH In Xataka | OpenAI and Anthropic have proposed the impossible: lose $85 billion in one year and survive (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news Amazon is clear about its strategy for the AI ​​war: if you can’t beat your enemy, invest in them was originally published in Xataka by Javier Pastor .

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