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Ibiza has entered into a constant hunt against workers who cannot afford a house

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Spain lives its small aerial battles and in all of them drones are protagonists. We are not talking about attacks against key infrastructures. We talk about the administration using the sky to detect violations. To see if you skip a Stop or to see if you have built a swimming pool. Also to certify that you are not living where you belong. For tourism or, simply, because you can’t afford anything else. That’s happening in Ibiza. 200 people. This is, more or less, the number of people who have been evicted from the settlements of Sa Joveria and Can Misses in Ibiza, explain our colleagues from Motorpassion. The reason is as simple as that they live in a caravan. As they point out in this medium, we are not talking about tourists, we are talking about workers who cannot afford to live in a house because the price of rooms and homes is so exorbitant that people employed on the island live in a paradox: they need work to live but that same work does not give them enough to live. The drones. To monitor settlements like these, administrations are using drones that from the air monitor whether a caravan is parked among the trees in a leafy area, outside a campsite. The campaign even started months ago.. In April, the evictions of the two hundred people mentioned above were already registered. The town hall of Sant Josep has become the first in Europe on having an AI-enhanced autonomous drone for your police. The drones, they assure, will help in cases of car accidents or search tasks for people but they also control tasks of “environmental surveillance, detection of illegal dumping, urban planning discipline and protection of natural spaces,” they explain in Ibiza Newspaper. Something similar happens in Sant Antoni de Portmany. a clamp. These latest tasks are those used by the authorities to dismantle what they consider illegal settlements. To prevent caravan tourism from collapsing the island, In 2024 they devised a new regulation which limits the number of vehicles that can enter the island. In the case of caravans, they cannot enter if they do not have a parking space already reserved. To expressly evacuate these vehicles, the Law of Rustic Land of the Balearic Islands It has become the best weapon. And since this regulation was activated, rustic land is practically any space that is not located in an urban area. Camping here can lead to a fine of up to 30,000 euros Therefore, those affected quickly leave these spaces when they are informed of the possible sanction they face. The real problem is that these people we are talking about are not tourists, they are workers who do not have a roof (at least without wheels) where they can live. Excess tourism has caused administrations to promote increasingly rigid regulations and now these workers find themselves in the middle of a painful clamp, tourists on one side, regulators on the other and drones above their heads. Is it that much of a problem? Already in May we pointed out that in order to rent an 80 square meter apartment in Ibiza you needed to charge 2,320 euros per month. That’s assuming you didn’t spend a single euro on eating, turning on the lights at home or taking a shower. And the price of housing is so crazy that There are neighbors who, by themselves, decide to go live in a caravan during high season months. The idea is as simple as leaving the house to wealthy tourists to get a bonus. With unbearable tourist pressure and without sufficient housing, a good number of professionals are looking for accommodation in a kind of house on wheels. “We started looking for a house, but it was crazy to see what they were asking for (…) Then we started looking at what a second-hand caravan cost and it was the only option we saw to stay,” they collected in Ibiza Newspaper. The words are from Mariana Gómez, a woman who traveled to Ibiza from Colombia to work temporarily in a hotel and who ended up coming to the conclusion that, if she wanted to settle on the island with her partner, she had no choice but to give up “normal” apartments… and opt for a caravan. And there are some reasons. Although heartbreaking, city councils and regulators have their own reasons for clearing these encampments. In Sa Joveria they claim that 5,000 kg of garbage had been removed during one of the evictions. Those responsible assured Chain Being that this had not been carried out so much to detect illegal housing but rather because of “complaints about poor conditions.” This same month of July, Noudiari.es explained in an article that in Cala Bou a new illegal settlement had been detected from which “apparently hard-working people left with their backpacks on their way to their jobs.” The problem, they pointed out, is that “a large accumulation of garbage cannot be seen from the outside, but there is debris around the perimeter and in some points you can clearly see the smell of urine and excrement.” Therefore, the risk of environmental deterioration and the risk of fire increase exponentially in these cases. Photo | Stijn te Strake and Karol Chomka In Xataka | Ibiza is getting very tough with illegal tourist rentals. With fines so high that they force houses to be sold

“In that aspect, it is better to have a house in Albaicín than in Zaidín”

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While Tenerife pay attention to the small earthquakes that shake its volcanic territory, another Spanish province that is also becoming an expert in seismic swarms has had its own succession of tremors. And this Saturday, July 26, an earthquake of magnitude 3.6 occurred in Granada that was preceded and followed by a few other much smaller earthquakes. Logically, just as happened in 2021, fear arises among Granadans due to the possibility of a larger earthquake. But could there really be large earthquakes in Granada? To answer this question, I have spoken with Ana Crespo Blancprofessor of geology at the University of Granada and expert in earthquakes. As he tells us, with science in hand, the answer depends on the flaws we look at. With those currently active in this seismic swarm, the most abundant in the province, a high intensity earthquake cannot occur. With some other, responsible for large earthquakes in the past, it could occur, but it is much less likely. In addition, nuances must be taken into account that make the risk currently even lower. Let’s talk about failures To talk about earthquakes, we must be clear about what faults are. And no, I’m not talking about the Valencia festivities. The faults are fractures in the earth’s crust throughout which there has been a displacement measurable of rock blocks. Due to tectonic forces, on the sides of these fractures Elastic tension accumulates until a limit is reached, in which the fault slides and energy is released in the form of seismic waves. This is important, because the larger the fault, the more energy will be accumulated and released. Shooting an object with a small slingshot is not the same as throwing an object with a large catapult. How do faults influence the earthquakes in Granada? The failures that caused the seismic swarm of 2021, as well as those that have been causing the most earthquakes in Granada these days, are too small to cause a large earthquake. “All the active faults we have are relatively short, on the order of less than a kilometer, so not much energy can be accumulated,” explains Crespo Blanc, clarifying that he refers to this being the answer based on the science we know today. As a result, not enough energy can be built up to generate a large earthquake. Now, in the history of Granada, two large earthquakes are known, which were very intense and destructive. One took place in 1884, in King’s Sandsand the other occurred in Albolote in 1956. We cannot know the exact magnitude of the first one, since there were no measurement systems like the current ones, but it is estimated that it had a magnitude of more or less 6.2 to 6.5. The second reached magnitude 5. We are talking, now, about quite large earthquakes. What happened then? A larger fault and poorly constructed buildings Normally, in seismic swarms, such as those that gave rise to the 2021 Grenada earthquakes, or even those that have been detected recently, the energy accumulated in the faults is released little by little. That results in tremors that are not too large. However, it could happen that it is all released at once. In that case, the magnitude increases. This is what happened in Albolote. However, today a magnitude 5 earthquake should not be extremely destructive. It is true that it is much more intense than those that normally take place, but we must add that in 1956, the buildings in Granada were not prepared for earthquakes. “In that year, the constructions were generally of poor quality,” recalls the geology professor. “Then the earthquake triggered landslides, there were people who lived in caves and there were also deaths in relation to those landslides, not so much with the house falling on top of the person.” In fact, Crespo Blanc points out that “that earthquake was the trigger for the anti-seismic standard which has been applied in Granada since the 70s.” With this rule, applies to the entire Spanish territory with risk of earthquakesa series of limitations and obligations are taken into account when constructing buildings, according to the different levels of risk. For example, if the seismic acceleration is 0.08 g or 0.12 g, the maximum height of a wall structure will be 4 stories, each of them no higher than 20 times the thickness of the wall. Thanks to that, earthquakes today cause much less damage in Spain than in the past. Although in the past there were some of very considerable magnitude, such as Arenas del Rey, it did take place on a much longer fault. It is something much more exceptional, which is not abundant in Granada. The ones that are normally active and cause seismic swarms are the small ones, which cannot cause earthquakes of great magnitude. Could one like the one from the 19th century be produced? Maybe one day, if all the energy from that larger fault is released at once, but it’s much less likely. The third factor: the composition of the terrain We have already seen that the most abundant faults in Granada are too small to generate large earthquakes. There is no need to fear a large earthquake related to the most recent swarms. We have also remembered that the buildings in Granada are built to withstand these types of events. However, there is a third factor that we must also take into account: the composition of the terrain. In this sense, Crespo Blanc explains that “if the soil is soft, for example sandy, an amplification of the waves occurs, which does not occur if the soil is rocky.” For this reason, he points out that, in that aspect, “it is better to have a house in the Albaicin than in Zaidín.” In any case, if you have a house in Zaidín you should not fear this swarm of earthquakes either. The flaws are too small so that the earthquake becomes extreme, no matter how soft the ground is. Image | … Read more

An occupied house uncovers a treasure stolen from a hermitage in La Rioja. The best is still missing

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They have found it: the painting of the Virgin of the Cortijo and the staff of the Virgin, an old missal. Table linens and ecclesiastical clothing and even a Lego Millennium Falcon. We are talking about one of those meaningless fortuitous discoveries. On October 31, 2025, a robbery occurred in La Ermita de Our Lady of the Farmhousein Murillo de Río Leza. At dawn, in a rural temple without cameras or surveillance, they took a silver chalice and an 18th century painting, valued between 10,000 and 12,000 euros. And many other things. Eight months later, almost everything has reappeared 90 kilometers away, in an occupied home in Navarra’s Valdorba, mixed up among belongings. A Belgian glove thief. For more than eight months, the Civil Guard has been carrying out an open investigation with hardly any clues. But a common pattern: rural sacred art in isolated hermitages with hardly any security systems. An easy goal, perhaps too prosaic. And La Rioja is no stranger to this type of theft: the Diocese of Calahorra and La Calzada-Logroño has been claiming for years pieces attributed to the legendary Belgian thief Erik the Belgian, whose trail reaches the Netherlands and the United States. The difference with the Murillo case is the unusual speed of the recovery and the domestic origin of the discovery. Besides, the real ErikRené Alphonse van den Berghe, died in El Palo (Málaga) on June 19, 2020, after help recover the size of the Virgin of Nalda. After more than 600 thefts in 52 museums and places of worship, he changed sides to recover historical heritage. Taking care of other people’s business. The Prevention and Citizen Attention Brigade and the Judicial Police Group carried out the eviction of the people occupying the property, together with the officers from the Tafalla police station. And they saw that the Valdorba house even hid a huge wall clock. Part of the abandoned objects was given and they could not identify the owner. The Foral Police of Navarre contacted the Diocesan Heritage Delegation and, by cross-referencing the complaint with local news, they confirmed the coincidence. After the eviction of its occupants, the Foral Police of Navarra has stumbled upon the stash of the Riojan robbery by chance. He confirmed the coincidence with the Diocesan Heritage Delegation and now the big question arises: where is the rest? Among the pieces recovered and already returned to the parish of San Esteban are the painting of the Virgen del Cortijo, the missal, the staff, ecclesiastical clothing and musical instruments (a tuba!). But the silver chalice, another missal and the image of the Child Jesus carried by the Virgin remain unlocated. The most expensive thing is missing. A diverse loot. There are hypotheses, but no proven facts. It is suspected of a black market for sacred artfueled by antique dealers, second-hand buyers and organized gangs that attack rural hermitages at their own risk and expense. The Civil Guard has dismantled entire plots dedicated to this trafficking. Already in the summer of 2020 they recovered almost one hundred objects of enormous valuein addition to 165,000 euros in cash. Objects from the 17th and 18th centuries that did not reach resale. Moving a tuba or a wall clock is not easy. But the stash is so heterogeneous that another hypothesis speaks of mere accumulation, that compulsive behavior of accumulation and a pattern that psychiatry links to Diogenes syndrome, characterized by collecting heterogeneous objects without awareness of illness. This is what happened after the theft of the Codex Calixtinus. Unshielded heritage. Murillo’s case joins a long list of thefts in Rioja and neighboring temples: the Écija chalice sold in a gold buy from Logroño 22 years after its abduction; the door of the San Torcuato tabernacle recovered 45 years after its theft at a Madrid auction; or the reliefs of Briones that the Civil Guard continues to track in Holland and the United States. They all share the same diagnosis: the lack of systematic inventory of ecclesiastical heritage leaves these pieces off the radar until they appear by chance, complaint or illegal sale. The Diocese of Calahorrana insists that thefts against heritage do not prescribe and that each recovery, rather than a preventive strategy, depends on collaboration mechanisms between security forces, antique dealers and diocesan heritage delegations. As long as the chalice and the image of the Child Jesus remain missing, the case of Murillo de Río Leza will continue to be an open file. Robberies with tradition. The looting of sacred art in Spain seems to identify a problem: there is a lack of professionals to inventory it and provide an appropriate historical framework. Impossible to forget the two young people who sneaked into a church in Sevillethey tried on the priest’s liturgical clothing, lit candles and took mocking photos in front of the altar before going out in costume on the street, mocking the parishioners who saw them passing by. In Murcia, in León, some thieves climbed the bell tower of a church with barely 300 residents with ropes and harnesses to steal a bust of Marcus Aurelius from the 4th century. The Civil Guard recovered it weeks later in the trunk of a carat a gas station in Córdoba. In Granada, some Poor Clare nuns did not even notice the disappearance of a sculpture of Saint Marina de la Cortona until the National Police located it in a gallery in New York, ready for auctioned for 350,000 euros. In Barcelona, ​​a couple posed as needy people to sneak into a parish in Nou Barris and steal the money intended to pay for children’s school trips. They even took the priest’s cell phone. In Murcia and Alicante, a gang of teenagers looted up to 20 temples to finance online betting and club nights. And in Valladolid they took even the hosts consecrated in the middle of Christmas. In addition to those of God, it is clear that temples of worship need extra eyes. Images | XX In Xataka |

Living for free in your parents’ house does not imply a housing donation

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He house price It is one of the main obstacles to the emancipation of young people in Spain. According to data According to the Spanish Youth Council, only 15.2% of young people can afford to live outside the family home. Of them, 57.9% do so in rented apartments and a third of these young people share a flat with other young people to be able to bear the expenses. In this context, it is not strange to find people over 30 years old living with their parents. However, according to have confirmed the Ministry of Finance to VerifyRTVEit is false that living for free in your parents’ home, or in “any property of your parents”, can be considered “as a donation”. The Treasury makes it clear: there is no donation. Both from the Ministry of Finance like from the union of Technicians of the Ministry of Finance (GESTHA) point out that there is no tax or legal change that penalizes children for residing in the family home. Sources from the Ministry of Finance confirmed to damn.es that “there have been no legal changes or changes in the orientation of administrative actions since the IRPF existed, nor has it ever been considered a fiscal risk.” Carlos Cruzado, president of the GESTHA union, explained to RTVE that no taxes or duties apply additional taxes for the simple fact that an adult shares a home with his or her parents. Donation is a change of ownership, not use. The reason why no charge is made is because, simply, when a child lives with his or her parents, no transfer of assets occurs. The consensual use that is made of it changes, not the ownership. This change of use between family members without financial compensation does not fit into any of the assumptions of the Inheritance and Donation Taxso neither parents nor children they must pay that tax. The professor of Financial Law Rosa María Galán pointed to damn.es that, in the case of children without economic resources to survive on their own, the article 142 of the Civil Code obliges parents to cover the support, housing, clothing and medical care of their children. There is no need to argue for free coexistence since providing it is a legal obligation. It even applies to second homes. This same logic applies even when parents and children do not live in the same property, but, for example, the parents live in the primary home, and the children in a second residence owned by the parents. According to Cruzado, the Treasury “understands that there may be a free transfer and does not allocate a return at market value.” In this case, the parents pay taxes the same as if the home were empty due to the imputation of real estate income in personal income tax, the same obligations that already exist. for having a second residence without regular use. In this case, the owner of the home must pay a tax of 2% of the cadastral value of the property, and in some cases is reduced to 1.1%. That is, what is taxed is the condition of second home ownership, not the fact that children live in the home or not. The transfer of use is not a donation: the distinction that changes everything. As and as explained José María Salcedo, managing partner of the tax firm Salcedo Tax Litigation to Idealistiche article 6.5 of the Personal Income Tax Law establishes a presumption of onerousness. This means that the Treasury tends to assume that any transfer has a price. However, this presumption admits evidence to the contrary, and the most common instrument to prove it is the bailment contracta document that formalizes the loan of the property without financial consideration and that, according to Cruzado, the Treasury “does not usually carry out these checks”, although it serves as a guarantee to justify “free of charge the right to use someone else’s property for a certain period of time.” A version of this article was published in February 2026 In Xataka | If the question is how much money can be donated to a child without declaring it to the Treasury, the law makes it clear: none Image | Pexels (Jakub Zerdzicki) In Trends | Confirmed: the Government determines that those who live in their parents’ home must pay taxes under certain conditions

What science says about the “trick” of two crossed fans to cool the house: it works, but with limits

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With heat waves hitting the thermometers, the desperation to cool the house without increasing the electricity bill leads us to look for any shortcut. And although the new air conditioners have shown that they have a low daily costthe reality is that many people prefer to opt for the classic fan and there are ways to optimize its operation. An idea. Something that has become popular in recent days is the possibility of using two fanshaving each in opposite windows. Under this premise, the idea is that one of them brings in air from the street and the other manages to get it out to ensure that the house in the end is as cold as possible within their possibilities. It has support. What is proposed here is to take to the extreme a concept that has been used for a long time in the architectural world to ensure that homes, passively, can acclimatize. And, according to the design standards and manuals of entities such as the IDAE, uwell-designed cross ventilation can reduce the interior temperature by up to 5°C. The two-fan technique falls into the category of hybrid or assisted ventilation. As detailed by platforms specialized in architecture such as ArchDaily or the technical area of ​​Tinsa, it is not enough to open windows at random. For there to be flow, a pressure difference must exist. The idea. By placing one fan pointing inward on the coldest façade, which is normally the north one or the one facing a shady patio, and another pointing outward on the opposite façade, we are mechanically forcing that pressure differential. The goal here is for the cool air to push the stagnant hot air mass out the opposite window. Although yes, for this flow to accelerate and be more efficient, the opening through which the air leaves should be more open than the one through which it enters. It’s proven. A thesis from the Piloto University of Colombia wanted analyze the effectiveness of this ventilation methodand it was seen that this system showed a significant reduction in thermal load in a hot-humid climate. Although here it is important to highlight that the thermal insulation of the home or building is very important, logically, to maintain an adequate temperature. It has small print. Logically, these two fans cannot work miracles, and if the outside temperature exceeds 30 degrees and especially if the relative humidity is high, cross ventilation loses all its effectiveness. Far from cooling, here there would be thermal energy in the home and forcing the entry of air at 35 °C with a fan is the equivalent of turning on a giant hair dryer. The best hour. Here the official recommendations point out that cross, forced or natural ventilation is a strategy that should be left for the first thing in the morning or at night. when the temperature is considerably lower. For the “two fans trick” to work and achieve that promised 5°C drop in the structure of the house, you must apply it only when the outside temperature drops below the inside temperature. This is called “selective ventilation” since during those hours, the mechanical technique of the two fans will sweep away the heat accumulated on the walls and ceilings during the day. Images | Delaney Van In Xataka | We have been trying to optimize cooling for centuries. My grandfather from Toledo solved the heat with the simplest invention: a door split in two

Climate change has a lethal side effect that we are only just discovering: it locks us in the house and prevents us from moving

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The increasingly frequent heat waves are not harmless for the population as they cause thousands of deaths each year, with vulnerable people being the most affected by this unwanted effect. But beyond this, which is what impacts anyone the most, we are also seeing how the increase in temperature is causing let’s reduce our physical activitysince when the street becomes an oven, sedentary lifestyle skyrockets. It is studied. The first major published work In this regard, he appeared on the scene in March of this same year and analyzed data from 156 countries collected between 2000 and 2022 to identify the “thermal frontier” in which our behavior changes radically from having good physical activity to moving to a sedentary lifestyle. With all this data, the limit was placed at 27.8ºC average temperature, since, according to the study, for each additional month in which a country exceeds this average temperature, global physical inactivity increases 1.5 percentage points. And it is not a simple summer anecdote, but stopping walking, running, cycling to work or playing in the park has direct physiological consequences. In Xataka The El Niño numbers are so strong that they are beginning to make half the world nervous. We have to be able to differentiate risk from hysteria Looking to the future, The figures are chilling, since if we continue with the current trend in an inactive manner, physical inactivity caused exclusively by excess heat will cause between 470,000 and 700,000 premature deaths additional each year around the world. Added to this is the economic impact, since lower productivity and increased medical spending will mean annual losses of between 2,400 and 3,680 million dollars. Spain, Due to its geographical location and its tendency towards desertification, it has been identified as one of the European countries most affected by this phenomenon, along with critical regions such as Central America, the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Because? To understand the reasons that reach these extremes, we have to look at another study that analyzed 74 years of hourly data, combining temperature and humidity to coin the concept ‘limiting heat’. With this term we talk about those environmental conditions in which the human body cannot carry out physical activity outdoors without its core temperature reaching dangerous levels. The most alarming thing about the study is the speed at which we are losing “working” hours per year. The annual time we spend in conditions of “severe livability limitation” has doubled since the 1950s, and it is not something that affects only the elderly. It affects us all. In young adults, historically there were about 25 hours a year of heat so extreme that it prevented them from moving safely. But today that figure has shot up to 50 hours annually and continues to increase. In the case of those over 65 years of age, their tolerance threshold is lower and they have gone from suffering 600 hours of climate confinement per year to more than 900 hours per year. This means that they spend more than 10% of the year in restrictive environmental conditions. In Xataka The map that splits Europe into two when the heat arrives: where there is air conditioning and where there isn’t He pushes us to the couch. The WHO itself has been warning that climate change acts as a “threat multiplier.” Here we have the perfect example, since heat not only makes us directly sick, but also enhances other modern pandemics such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes by promoting a sedentary lifestyle. The solution is not just to tell people “go out and do sports earlier” or “join a gym with air conditioning.” Pass byrethink citiessince if the streets do not have shade, if the parks are cement slabs without climatic shelters, and if urban planning does not adapt to the new temperatures, going for a walk will cease to be a medical recommendation and will become a risky sport for four months a year. In Xataka | The networks are filling up with maps that promise the end of the heat. One thing is what we would like and another, very different, is what we know (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 Climate change has a lethal side effect that we are only just discovering: it locks us in the house and prevents us from moving was originally published in Xataka by José A. Lizana .

Henry David Thoreau, philosopher, “in my house I had three chairs, one for solitude, another for friendship, and the third for society.”

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A philosopher alone in a cabin in the middle of the forest. Everything else is silence. For decades and decades, Henry David Thoreau has been the canonical example of simple living and meditation. Phrases like the one that heads this article about the chairs that the American thinker had in his country house. But history has not been exactly like that: Thoreau’s cabin was less than three hundred meters from the train track; He, in fact, went down to the town almost every day and, once, he put almost thirty people in there. The explanation is simple, of course. Thoreau’s quote (his entire work, in fact) is not about loneliness, nor about self-sufficiency, nor about self-control. The phrase is actually about balance. What exactly does Thoreau say? The text is in Walden (1854)in the chapter dedicated to visitors. It is also slightly different from the one that usually circulates: he says that he had “one chair for when he is alone, two for when a friend visits him and three for society.” And it seems like a matter of nuance, it’s true. But it is not. When Thoreau wrote this he was already fed up with being called a ‘hermit’. He says it himself in the book (“I think and love society as much as anyone else”), but above all he shows it. Henry received more visitors during his forest retreat than at any other time in his life. His experiment in recollection (the two years, two months and two days that it lasted) was a period of self-knowledge, but nothing more. It was Thoreau playing to find out who he wanted to be when he grew up. And why is all this important? Often, we think that others can help us because they have gone through the same things as us; because they have climbed the same mountain as us. But it’s not true: no one is actually climbing that same mountain. Others are helpful because, as they climb their own mountains, they have a unique perspective on what lies ahead and what we have left behind. We live in an epidemic of loneliness. In November 2023, the WHO declared unwanted loneliness a global health threat and set up a commission on the matter, which published its report in 2025. That’s where Thoreau can help us. Because the lesson of the three chairs is not what they sell us. It’s not “sit in the first chair.” The lesson is to have the three chairs ready: seeking moments of chosen solitude feels good, but imposed and chronic loneliness makes us sick. So yes, it is worth remembering good old Henry David Thoreau: let’s count the chairs carefully. Image | Yilei (Jerry) Bao | Abinash Jothimani In Xataka | Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher: “The first forty years of our life provide the text; the next thirty, the commentary”

We believed that VAR was going to put an end to the classic favoritism of the World Cup host. Then the White House made a call

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“When the certainty of the rules is no longer guaranteed, the integrity of the game is called into question” These are the words with which UEFA, in charge of overseeing the competitions of the European confederation, has responded to FIFA’s decision to withdraw a red card from Folarin Balogun, star forward of the United States team that faces Belgium in the round of 16. The statement is just the latest response that FIFA has received regarding this controversial decision that comes, according to The New York Timesthat Donald Trump, president of the United States, called Gianni Infantino by phone to pressure him and demand that he remove the automatic match penalty that is applied when a player receives a red card. FIFA’s decision is the latest maneuver to favor the host team in a World Cup and adds to the long list of favors for the locals that have traditionally marked the World Cup. Everything indicated that with VAR, the video refereeing tool, this was going to end or, at least, it was going to be very complicated to give small pushes to the local teams. But FIFA is always ready to surprise you. The regulation mess Forlain Balogun, a United States forward who has three goals in the 2026 World Cup, plays an aerial ball. It is the 64th minute of the round of 32 match of the 2026 World Cup and the person who disputes the ball is Tarik Muharemovic. The game is about to experience a turning point. The score reads 1-0, the United States has gone ahead with a goal from Balogun himself who is having a great championship but is about to lose its star for the remainder of the match and the round of 16 against Belgium. Or so we believed. In the dispute, the American player hits the Bosnian defender from behind. An obvious foul that results in a red card. As he falls, Balogun accidentally lands with his studs on Muharemovic’s calf, drags his foot and bends the defender’s ankle. The VAR calls the referee to observe the play carefully. Although fortuitous, the force applied by the American player is considered excessive and he ends up expelled. The match ends 2-0 and, of course, the worst thing for the United States is the impossibility of having their star striker in the tie against Belgium, the European team (hence the statement from UEFA, which is also in an open war against FIFA) against which they will play for a place in the quarterfinals. The winner will play against the winner of tonight’s Spain-Portugal. A more common setback in short knockout tournaments, the same setback as if, for example, a player accumulates two yellow cards in different phases during the championship. However, FIFA surprised yesterday with a statement: Forlain Balogun’s sanction was suspended. The alleged reason is that the suspension of a match was at the mercy of the player’s behavior in the next year. If he reoffends in a violent situation again, the rule will be applied to him. To do this, FIFA has based itself on article 27 of its disciplinary regulations, which states that punishments can be suspended for a certain period of time subject to the player’s attitude. A decision that as they remember from the Belgian team (clearly affected by the player’s non-suspension), collides directly with article 66.4 of the same regulations in which it is specified that a player who receives a red card will not be able to play the next match. In Sports CarouselIturralde González, former referee and referee commentator on the program, explains that the article that FIFA clings to is designed for disturbances on soccer fields and attitudes that go beyond the merely sporting. He explains that, in fact, FIFA does not withdraw the red card and only suspends the impossibility of playing the next match, a fact that has not been seen since 1962 when Garrincha was sent off in a tough semi-final against Chile but was cleared to play in the final against Czechoslovakia. Click on the image to go to the original tweet The call that went over the VAR We could think that FIFA’s decision was serious and fell within one of the many tricks that they have been using for years to favor local teams. However, a post by Donald Trump in X and the explicit support of the White House in which he thanked FIFA directly, he made the hare jump. The New York Times has been the first medium to publish what could be suspected once the thanks of the president of the United States was made public: The White House called Gianni Infantino directlypresident of FIFA, to ask that Forlain Balogun play against Belgium. In The Wall Street Journal They narrate that Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, and Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the working group that the White House has active for the organization of the 2026 World Cup, went to work on the same night of the United States – Bosnia and Herzegovina. From that moment on, they count on WSJa machinery made up of specialist lawyers related to Donald Trump began to move to try to stop the sanction. On the table was the possibility of challenging the red card and trying to prevent slow motion from being used in this type of actions in which video refereeing is involved (which many understand to magnify the damage caused by a kick or a stomp). The team, they explain in the media, was informed from the first moment but the United States National Team denied any possibility of revoking the sanction. While all this was happening, always according to internal sources of The Wall Street JournalDonald Trump directly picked up the phone to speak with Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA who has always been very close to the American president. At that time, Infantino responded to the US president that he could not assure him anything but confirmed that the suspension had been … Read more

The White House app downloads itself on official phones and cannot be deleted

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Donald Trump’s Administration recently released a new official White House app for iPhone and Android. In principle, nothing too strange: many governments have public apps to disseminate statements, broadcasts, alerts or institutional information. But this one has not exactly arrived clean of noise. Questions first arose about its content. Later, due to the decision to take her to official federal employee cell phones. And now the controversy has escalated: several workers cited by WIRED They claim that the app appeared on their work phones and that, after deleting it, it was installed again. The testimonies point to several federal agencies. Employees of the Department of Agriculture, the Department of State and the Department of Labor claim that the application appeared on their devices, and they did so on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The most specific phrase comes from the USDA: “I deleted it as evidence and it came back immediately,” said one of its workers. Another employee, this time from the State Department, said that he deleted it from his phone, but that in less than 24 hours it had reappeared. A public app on official mobile phones There is a good part of the crash. The application, presented by the White House as A way to receive “real-time updates, live events and direct access to the Presidency” does not seem like an internal tool for public employees. WIRED points out that it is, apparently, the same version available to the public in Apple stores and Googlealthough from Spain, at least on iPhone, we have not been able to download it. Within the app there is a social section with publications from the White House, messages from Trump on Truth Social and videos from official accounts on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. It also includes a news section with statements, official documents and selected articles from different media. That content is what has led some employees to describe the situation in much harsher terms than a simple computer complaint. One of the workers cited summed it up like this: “They are injecting pure and simple propaganda directly into our veins.” The phrase points to the heart of the conflict: it is not only that an app has reached an official device, but that the content that appears in it is perceived, at least among those employees, as an extension of the Administration’s political message. The White House, for its part, defended the measure before the technology publication with an argument focused on utility and security. Its spokesperson, Olivia Wales, stated that the application “does not require anyone to create an account or enter data” and He maintained that any information within the app is “secure.”He also added that government devices often include pre-installed applications that add value to employees’ daily work. The case has echoes of other recent attempts to bring state applications to mobile phones, although the comparison requires caution. In India, the Government ended up withdrawing the mandatory pre-installation of Sanchar Saathia public anti-fraud and mobile security app, and officially explained that would no longer make it mandatory for manufacturers. In Russia, Reuters reported that MAXa messaging service supported by the State, had to come pre-installed on mobile phones and tablets sold in the country. The difference is important: those cases looked at the consumer market; The American one affects official work phones. The underlying question is not whether the White House can manage the official cell phones that it gives to its employees. The question is what does it mean to use that ability to place on those devices? a public political communication app. A federal employee may have his ideas, sympathies or preferences, but his role within the Administration should not involve coexisting with political messages in a tool designed for work. That is why the protest reported by WIRED has a broader reading than a complaint about an automatic download: some workers reject that an official cell phone ends up becoming another channel for the presidential message. Images | White House | Screenshot Play Store and App Store In Xataka | Inside the field, thousands of cameras record and monitor everything that happens in the World Cup. Off the field, too

A Chinese billionaire bought the most expensive house in London. What happened next is a real estate horror movie

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In 2021, the Evergrande collapse It erased more than $300 billion in liabilities and triggered a real estate crisis that shook all of China. Among his most extravagant assets was a record mansion in London that today remains trapped in lawsuits, divorces and frozen accounts: a financial ruin turned into an empty monument. The perfect purchase that went wrong. Year 2020, a Chinese billionaire buys for 210 million pounds number 2-8A Rutland Gate, then the most expensive home ever sold in the United Kingdom. On paper it was the definitive investment: a palace with 45 rooms, four elevators, an indoor pool, 24 marble bathrooms and privileged views of Hyde Park. But what seemed like a prestige move ended up leading to a chain of misfortunes so strange that it seems written like a thriller. Since then no one has lived inside, the real owner was caught in a financial collapse and the building became an empty shell with only one “tenant”. Palace with a cursed past. The history of the building was already coming loaded with symbolism. For decades it was the London palace of Rafik Haririwho transformed it by joining together several Victorian houses and decorating it with almost obscene luxury, from gold-plated trash cans to bathrooms encrusted with semi-precious stones. Hariri was assassinated in Beirut in 2005 and, after passing through the hands of the Saudi royal family, the interior was auctioned piece by piece in 2015. That left the mansion empty, as if it had been dismantled before its next owner arrived. The Evergrande turn. The official buyer of 2020 appeared to be the Hong Kong tycoon Cheung Chung-kiubut later was discovered that the real owner was Hui Ka Yanfounder from Evergrande and for years the richest man in China. And there the descent began. Just a year later, Evergrande began with non-payment of debtsbecame a symbol of the Chinese real estate collapse and ended up collapsing in 2024. Hui ended up declaring guilty of fraud and other financial crimes, while the mansion was trapped in a legal tangle: registered in the name of his ex-wife, with frozen assets and no possibility of sale. The most expensive house in the United Kingdom lost in limbo and a symbol of the real estate gap. Fernstedt at the entrance to the house The empty house and the Swede on the porch. And it is at this point in history where the image appears that changes everything to this day. While inside the mansion there are dozens of empty rooms and millions of pounds tied up, outside, on the same porch, lives Anders Fernstedta homeless Swede who has been living at the entrance for three years. Your “camp” It is made of umbrellas, flowers, broken bicycles and stuffed animals. The paradox could not be starker, because he sleeps inches from one of the most crazy expensive shelters in Europe, but separated by a door that never opens. Ironically, the only stable inhabitant of the house does not have access to it. The fall of Anders. As to the history of man Swedish, is almost as chaotic as the architecture on which it rests. Andres was a technology journalist, then he worked in horticulture, collaborated with people from the Silicon Valley environment and even worked for The Economist as a freelance fact-checker. However, a chain of failed jobs, evictions, attacks and personal losses dragged him onto the streets. He ended up landing in front of the palace purely by chance: He was looking for a covered shelter and found an empty porch. He has since converted that space into a kind of makeshift garden and permanent bedroom. The symbol of a broken city. It had an extensive Guardian report that the story of Rutland Gate sums up a huge contradiction in London. While more than 300,000 homes remain empty in England and hundreds of thousands are waiting for a house, one of the most luxurious properties in the country has been closed for years because it is, in reality, a frozen financial asset. From that perspective, it is no longer a home, it is a figure trapped in offshore companies, lawsuits and bankruptcies. And in front of that door, every night, a man sleeps what represents just the other end of the system: someone with nothing, living in the shadow of a palace that no one can use. Image | Gareth E. Kegg In Xataka | Now that the Pope is in Spain, he should visit this surgeon’s castle. Inside is the smallest church on the planet In Xataka | In 1972 Italy wanted to put an entire city in a one kilometer building. Half a century later he is still paying the consequences

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