endless Archives - usatoday24

China has been writing an endless novel about how to overtake Europe for 16 years, and it has become a political weapon

February 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Somewhere on the Chinese internet there is a science fiction novel which has been written since 2009 and will probably never end. It is titled ‘Illumine Lingao’ (临高启明, translatable as “The Morning Star of Lingao”) and accumulates millions of words distributed over thousands of chapters. It does not have a single author: it has been written collectively by hundreds of people, mostly engineers, technicians and military history fans who have been contributing chapters, technical corrections and secondary plots over almost two decades. It has generated more than 1,400 derivative works. And it has never been translated into any Western language. What is it about? The premise is simple: more than 500 21st century Chinese citizens, armed with modern technical knowledge, travel back in time through a wormhole to the year 1628, to the death throes of the Ming Dynasty. They settle in Lingao County, on the island of Hainan, and from there they unleash an industrial revolution that alters the course of history. The goal: make China reach modernity before Europe. How it arises. The text began to take shape in 2006 as a discussion on SC BBS, the oldest military-themed forum in China, from a question that struck a chord: “What would you do if you could travel to the Ming dynasty with modern knowledge?” The debate crystallized three years later in a collective writing project led by a user known as Boaster, whose real name is Xiao Feng. The first installment was published in 2009 on Qidian Chinese Network, the country’s largest web literature platform. In 2017, China Radio, Film & TV Press published the first volume in print format. What makes it special. What sets ‘Illumine Lingao’ apart from other time travel fantasies is its obsession with technical detail. The chapters include long discussions on how to make nitric acid from scratch, what materials are needed to build chemical synthesis towers, or how many tons of industrial equipment would be needed to begin mechanization without prior machines or tools. Chinese readers have dubbed it “the encyclopedia of time travel.” Some critics They consider it “a unique phenomenon of contemporary Chinese literature.” But… what sensitive chord does this work touch? Needham’s puzzle. In 1942, the British biochemist Joseph Needham He traveled to China as a diplomatic envoy. During those three years he discovered that the Chinese had developed techniques and mechanisms that preceded their European equivalents by centuries. The printing press, the compass, gunpowder, paper money, suspension bridges, toilet paper… all had emerged in China long before Europe even conceived of it. Needham returned to Cambridge and documented this in ‘Science and Civilization in China’, 25 volumes that asked why modern science and the industrial revolution developed in Europe and not China, if China was so far ahead. This question, known as “Needham’s puzzle”, touches the most sensitive nerve of Chinese historical consciousness. Historians have proposed dozens of answers. Some point to geographical factors: while Europe competed fragmented into rival states that stimulated military and commercial innovation, China remained unified under a bureaucratic system that did not need change to survive. Others point to philosophical reasons: Confucianism valued social harmony over disruption. And some say that the key difference was European access to the resources of the American continent. For Chinese intellectuals, the “Great Divergence”, the moment when Europe overtook China, is not an abstract problem for historians. It is the question that explains the “century of national humiliation” (1839-1949), the opium wars, the burning of the Summer Palace and the Japanese occupation. That is why in ‘Illumine Lingao’ we travel to the Ming dynasty: 1628, sixteen years before the dynasty collapsed due to the Manchu invasion. For these Chinese intellectuals, the Ming dynasty represents the fateful fork: it is the moment when China chose the wrong path and Europe took the lead. Rewrite history. ‘Illumine Lingao’ belongs to a literary genre that enjoys enormous popularity in the chinese web literature: chuanyue (穿越), time travel stories in which contemporary protagonists use their modern knowledge to alter the course of history. In China, this genre has an implicit nationalist charge. It is not about looking at the past or resolving temporal paradoxes, but about correcting it, giving China a second chance. ‘Illumine Lingao’ takes this premise to the extreme: the documentation of each step with obsessive technical rigor turns the novel into something more than entertainment. It is a manual and a manifesto. A manifesto of a specific party. More than entertainment. As has been analyzed in academic circles, ‘Lingao’ reorganizes the historical narrative of Chinese socialist construction around the framework of industrialization and technological progress, with a clear nationalist sense. Its roots are in the so-called Industrial Party, which is not a real party, but rather a label to designate a current of thinkers, online commentators and influencers who share a vision of the world based on industrialization as a supreme value. For them, the material transformation produced by industrialization is an objective measure of national success. At the beginning of this century, its area of theoretical development was the Internet, going against the grain at a time when the Chinese economy was betting on low-cost manufacturing and foreign direct investment. At that time, the idea that China could manufacture advanced semiconductors It sounded like science fiction. The Industrial Party made the leap to public influence in 2012, when the news website Guancha It began to include party members among its editors, defending the Chinese government from ultranationalist positions. Cultural battle. ‘Lingao’ has also largely become a political tool. When in 2011 a high-speed train rammed another convoy from behindcausing 40 deaths and 192 injuries, the Government wanted to manage the information so that the idea of prosperity at any cost was not clouded. But on social media, negative opinions about the accident even surpassed state censors and They questioned the idea of ”progress” that the government maintained. Was the speed of development exacting an unacceptable price in human terms? ‘Illumine Lingao’ became a reference text in … Read more

Three years of delay later, Valladolid is about to complete what seemed endless: the A-11

January 13, 2026 by usatoday24

Cross Castilla y León on a highway. From Soria to Zamora, passing through Valladolid, to link the first of them with the A-66 or give access to Portugal without having to go through secondary roads. It is known as the Duero Highway and its end is already visible at its central junction, in Valladolid. It arrives, yes, three years late. The works They have already been extended for more than six years, well beyond December 2022 for which the section between Tudela de Duero and Olivares was expected to be inaugurated. Two populations that should have been united three years after work began in 2019, explain in Valladolid newspaper. When this section is inaugurated and connects with the Quintanilla de Arriba section, it will be open the largest highway link which has been opened to traffic once in our country. 34 kilometers that should arrive in spring. Because first there is a hurdle to overcome. A viaduct to finish Until now, the stretch of highway inaugurated only once in our country is the 27.8 km that separate Solares and Torrelavega in Cantabria by the A-8 and which were opened to traffic in 2015. The record should become obsolete when Quintanilla de Arriba and Tudela de Duero are finally linked by the A-11. This section, as we said, was planned in two segments. Between Tudela de Duero and Olivares de Duero there are 20.2 kilometers in length and between this town and Quintanilla de Arriba there are another 14.5 kilometers. The intention is that this first section will be open to traffic in 2022 after investing 79.1 million euros. The second was to be ready at the end of 2023 after spending 97.9 million euros. It is estimated, however, that this section has gone above 220 million euros. A figure that pales compared to the total work, if we take into account that the last 120 kilometers of the Duero Highway under construction have been awarded some 980 million euros in the sum of all the projects. It remains to be built, for example, the expansion of the Aranda del Duero variant. As far as Valladolid is concerned, residents have yet to see how the 34 kilometer link is completed with the construction of the Duero viaduct. When completed it will be the culmination of works that are expected to be ready by the spring of this year. However, in May of last year Those responsible preferred to remain cautious and make it clear that until the end of 2026 the deadlines projected with the last extension would be met. Whether you arrive in spring or winter, the opening of this section next to Valladolid will be key to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The connection between Soria and Zamora by highway is a historic demand that should have been completed a long time ago. Especially if we take into account that The first section of the A-11 was opened to cars in 1995. More than 30 years later, there are still fringes to close. Photos | Ministry of Transport In Xataka | Spain has dozens of unique abandoned roads. Now he wants to save them by turning them into “historic roads”

the endless story of Algarrobico

December 31, 2025 by usatoday24

There will come a day when they knock down the ugliest building, in the broadest sense of the word, ever perpetrated on the coast of Spain. In the Algarrobico beachin Carboneras, in the heart of the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park, has been standing for more than twenty years a mass of concrete that never opened its doors and ended up becoming the most recognizable symbol of the Spanish urban disaster. The impossible monument. The hotel with twenty floors and more than four hundred rooms was born in the years of the real estate boomwhen the construction fever seemed to recognize no legal or environmental limits, and ended up literally wedged on the sand of one of the most valuable virgin beaches in the Mediterranean. Today, rusted, cracked and abandoned, it is still there as a physical and moral anomaly: a building declared illegal by the courts, rejected by society and yet extraordinarily resistant to disappearing. An irreconcilable aberration. The contrast alone explains the scandal. Cabo de Gata-Níjar is one of the most unique natural spaces on the Iberian Peninsula: Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, Ramsar spaceNatura 2000 Network and recurring candidate for national park due to the exceptional nature of its volcanic landscapes, its terrestrial and marine biodiversity and its Posidonia meadows, among the best preserved in the Mediterranean. In this setting of coves, dunes, cliffs and protected fauna, the Algarrobico bursts in like a foreign bodyvisible from kilometers away, causing disbelief in visitors and shame of others among those who know the story. What should have been a natural paradise ended up hosting one of the biggest environmental attacks on the Spanish coast. Licenses, false plans and nonsense. The origin of the problem dates back to the late nineties and early two thousand, when the promoter Azata del Sol got a license of works by the Carboneras City Council with the initial endorsement of the Junta de Andalucía. That authorization was based on an irregular modification of the Natural Resources Management Plan of Cabo de Gata, in which a plan was replaced without following the legal procedure or being published in the BOJA, de facto reclassifying it as developable. a protected soil. Years later, the Prosecutor’s Office would point out that, if there had been technical errors, the only legal route would have been a formal modification approved by the Andalusian Government Council. That administrative shortcut opened the door to a construction that should never have started. A judicial labyrinth. Since in 2006 a court ordered stop the works When the hotel was almost finished, the Algarrobico became a case endless judicial. More than a dozen rulings of the Supreme Court, resolutions of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia and repeated pronouncements have concluded that the hotel was built on protected land and must be demolished. However, each failure opened a new blocking path. The Supreme Court went so far as to point out that before demolishing it was necessary to formally cancel the municipal license, an obligation that the Carboneras City Council has failed to comply with for years despite judicial requirements. The result has been a dead end in which no one seemed to have the definitive key. Responsibilities. in this mess they have lived together for years the municipal inaction, the changing positions of the Junta de Andalucía and the repeated announcements of the central Government. Signed protocols, public commitments and political promises followed one another without the mass disappearing. Meanwhile, organizations like GreenpeaceEcologistas en Acción and WWF kept alive social and legal pressureeven taking the case to European bodies and denouncing that El Algarrobico was not an isolated anomaly, but rather the emblem of a model that left similar scars on many other Spanish coasts. The route of expropriation. The most relevant change came when the Government decided to activate the path of expropriation of the lands that invade the maritime-terrestrial public domain. In February 2025 it was declared public utility of those plots and the procedure to occupy them and proceed with the demolition began. The promoter Azata del Sol tried to stop the process with an appeal, but in August 2025 the Ministry for the Ecological Transition he rejected itclosing the administrative route and accelerating deadlines. The Administration maintains that there is no defenselessness, that the expropriation cause is clearly motivated and that the general interest of restoring a protected space justifies the action. With this decision, the Executive is getting closer to fulfilling its commitment to demolish at least the part of the hotel located in the first hundred meters of the coast. The never ending story. Although the rejection of the appeal brings the demolition closer, the procedure continues being complex. The determination of the fair price, the possibility of judicial appeals and the coexistence of two different avenues (state expropriation and the annulment of the municipal license, defended by the Board) keep the risk of new delays open. The Government can occupy the land for social interest, allocate an amount and continue, but the promoter still could come to the courts. At the same time, the Carboneras City Council, under pressure from the TSJA, has finally begun the review of the license, a process that, according to environmentalistscould run aground if there is no real political will. A symbol that transcends the building itself. Beyond deadlines and technicalities, El Algarrobico has become something more than an illegal hotel. It is the permanent reminder of a time when ethe implicit motto was “build it, something remains”, and how the lack of effective controls allowed to violate the law even in natural spaces of maximum value. Its demolition is not only an aesthetic or environmental issue, but a gesture of reparation institutional and credibility of the rule of law. As long as the building remains standing, it will continue to project the idea that illegality can endure indefinitely. Twenty years later, the outcome seems closer than ever, although the history of Algarrobico invites caution. If it finally falls, it will … Read more

The self -school denounces that the list of waiting for the driving exam is endless. The DGT denies it

September 4, 2025 by usatoday24

“I thought about changing my self -school, really, but as I had already approved the theoretical exam … when I asked in other places the waiting list was the same.” These words are from Elena, a student of an Aluche car to the south of Madrid. What he explains is the same as thousands of students live throughout Spain. Elena is 19 years old and wanted to get the driving license “because a car gives you a lot of freedom. If there is public transport, I prefer public transport but it is true that the car gives you that freedom not to depend on the schedules of the bus or the subway.” He was not in a hurry, luckily. He tells us that he approved the theoretical exam last March but had to stop the desire to get into the car to start the practices. “There was a waiting list that has come to August.” And, as we said, he clarifies that it doesn’t matter where you look. “I had to wait and now,” he emphasizes. Those who need yes or yes to work are not so lucky. “As an opponent, who in some cases ask traffic an extraordinary exam to be able to enter into the deadline,” they explain from Corella Autoescoles who will give us more details of what they are living in Valencia. Because the situation is repeated in the big cities of Spain. This is just a case in Madrid but there are similar testimonies in Valencia, Barcelona or Bilbao. Self -schools stuck due to lack of teachers. But also struck self -schools because, they say, the DGT does not have enough employees to give way to the waiting list to present to the practical exam. “The so -called waiting list,” they tell us from the DGT. Permanently struck self -schools It is a problem that has been repeating for years. Already in 2017DGT examiners were strike demanding job improvements. They said they were saturated and claimed more personal. Then, 100,000 applicants stayed on the road and Some self -schools raised the closure after some stops that were held more than half a year. Now the DGT ensures that “the ratio of jobs is covered in 97% and is the group that has a higher replacement rate since every year approximately 50 examiners access.” “Since 2017, 732 examiners have been incorporated. It is, with much difference, the collective with more incorporations within the DGT, ”they insist. Is it enough? Javier L. Tejedor, of Lara auto -schoolIt is resounding: “No.” He points out that the examiners “are obliged to take the holidays before February and that leaves months of very few examiners in staff. The months of December, January and February are very complicated. And also July.” The same says David Corella, from Corella Autoescoles. “We have to take the student to exam when we see him prepared but quadling that we have to wait a month and a half to introduce ourselves. There you have to run out the practices.” If everything were about rails, there would be not much problem. But everything is complicated when the student suspends (according to the DGT 46% of students do not exceed the first exam). “We have to put them on the waiting list of repeaters and there the deadlines go to two or three months because we have to continue taking people but there are few places. We have never had a waiting list like now,” they insist. Both point to the same problem. “Almost all traffic leaders are saturated throughout Spain,” they explain from Lara Auto School. “In our case, as we have 65 centers in Madrid, the waiting list to do the practices once you approve the theoretician is from a month and a half but today I have answered an email from a student of another car that claims to have to wait five months.” “An examiner does 12 car or motorcycle tests a day. It has 360 minutes to examine throughout the day but the number of tests are the same, regardless of the exam last five or twenty -eight minutes,” explains Javier L. Tejedor. The perception that students and self -schools have is that the traffic jam is continuous but the DGT defends that this is not such and that, in fact, it is not uncommon for empty squares to remain. “The so -called waiting list is not a fact that corresponds to people who would be in real disposition to request the exam,” they explain. David Corella says that in Alicante “they have the same examiners as us but they have a million less inhabitants. Come on, in Valencia we have few for the population we have.” And he points to a fact “We are in almost 19,000 students waiting. In three years we have increased more than 3,000 students.” Traffic, meanwhile, defends itself by saying that these students are counted on the CAPA SYSTEM But they ensure that not all students who appear there are willing to take the exam. They classify these in three major categories: Those who have suspended the first test Those who are completing practical training but are not prepared to get the driving license Those who delay the exam to take it out in their city of origin or during its holiday period. In Lara auto, they agree that this happens but they point out another reason: “Many students move to take the exam to do them in smaller headquarters taking advantage of the fact that they return to study but there are also those that come to Madrid to larger self -schools because they know we have more capacity to teach and there are more scheduled exams.” They do not share this vision in the DGT. From traffic they emphasize that, in addition to the usual template, they have 15 examiners who rotate between traffic leaders to adapt to demand. A demand that has forced 6.58% more exams with open traffic in the first … Read more

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