kilometers

12.4 kilometers and 35 years of concession

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Brazil has begun to undertake one of the most ambitious public works in the entire American continent: on July 1, its president Lula Da Silva, gave the starting signal for the construction of what will be the longest bridge over the sea in all of Latin America. And leaving aside the records, it will make life easier for those who travel through the Bahia region because this infrastructure will save them two hours of travel. The bridge. Known as Salvador Bridge Road System – Itaparica Islandthis 12.4 kilometer long bridge with four lanes will link the capital of Bahia with the Baixo Sul region of Bahia through the Bay of Todos los Santos. The central section, 682 meters long, will have stays and will rise 85 meters high from the sea, which will allow the passage of large ships so as not to alter the logistics of port operations. The system is not limited to the bridge: it includes 4.4 kilometers of new road accesses in Salvador, a 22-kilometer expressway in Itaparica that will surround the urban center of the island and the duplication of 8 kilometers of the BA-001 highway between Tairu and the Funil Bridge, according to the official project of the Government of Bahia. Why is it important. Precisely, the authorities of the region quantify that this civil work will benefit some 10 million people who live in the nearly 250 surrounding municipalities, easing travel time by two hours. In addition, it will absorb a flow of 28,000 vehicles daily. Several political figures in the region have spoken out explaining its relevance in economic and logistical issues. Thus, Mateus da Cunha Dias, Extraordinary Secretary of the Western Road System, stands out that the work could generate an impact on the economy of the area of ​​40 billion Brazilian reals (about 6,840 million euros). Governor Jerônimo Rodrigues details that goods coming from the west of the Bay will have to travel 200 kilometers less. The president of Brazil sums it up in one sentence: “Employment, income, mobility, tourism and collaboration with the private sector, with a direct benefit for the population of Bahia.” In figures. This Brazilian mega-construction has impressive figures from the first moment: 12.4 kilometers long. Budget: 1,983.6 million euros, of which 513 million are from the federal government, 530.1 million from the Bahia government and 940.5 million from the Chinese concessionaire. Duration of the work: five years, with planned completion in June 2031. Concession of exploitation for 35 years with toll. The construction will generate 7,000 jobs. In detail. The project is a public-private collaboration in which the Government of the State of Bahia and the Concessionária Ponte Salvador–Itaparica participate on the one hand and, on the other, two of the largest Chinese engineering groups in the world: China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC). He concession contract It has a duration of 35 years: one year for studies and obtaining licenses, five years for construction and 29 years for the operation of the system, which will have toll collection to guarantee maintenance and permanent operation. The first phase has already concluded and since the beginning of the month they have been in that five-year period of construction of the bridge. The previous geotechnical studies included the drilling of 105 wells along the bridge layout, which began in shallow waters (just 10 meters in the municipality of Vera Cruz) to the central channel, where the bottom is 67 meters according to the Government of the State of Bahia. In addition, materials have been extracted from up to 200 meters deep, as the regional government explains. Yes, but. The information provided by the authorities and interested parties offers consistent data on the size of the project and its exploitation, but no public source details with concrete figures the technical risks of the construction and its maintenance against waves and corrosion in a complex marine environment. The president of the Chinese dealership himself yes he recognizedin the act of starting works, that the project faces “world-class maritime engineering technical challenges”, citing the medium and long period waves and the geological complexity of the seabed, but without providing the technical study that supports this risk assessment. On the other hand, there are no figures on the exact value of the toll that those who use the infrastructure will pay, a key fact to evaluate the profitability of the project. In Xataka | From the Atlantic to the Pacific in less than seven hours: Mexico wants to build its own “Panama Canal” In Xataka | 145 kilometers of “artificial river”: this is the pharaonic engineering work with which Brazil wants to overcome the eternal drought Cover | Government of the State of Bahia and Gemini

China is diverting its largest rivers thousands of kilometers away. The price to pay is a huge environmental mystery

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Water in China has a basic geographical problem, since the south of the country floods very frequently while the north is in a drought situation. To solve it, the Asian giant has spent decades running which is probably the most ambitious hydraulic engineering project in the history of humanity, since they are literally moving nature. Making history. If there is a country capable of altering the face of the Earth to guarantee its economic and demographic survival, it is China. The premise is as simple to understand as it is pharaonic to execute, since what they are doing is transferring water from the rich Yangtze River basin in the south to the arid plains in the north, where a large part of the country’s population, agriculture and industry is concentrated, but barely 20% of its water resources. The result of this It is the ‘South-North Water Transfer Project’ that has a colossal network of canals, pipelines and pumping stations that are defying geography. The figures of a titanic work. To estimate the size of this project, it is enough to go to official sources, since, according to the latest updates from China’s Ministry of Water Resources, the infrastructure is unparalleled in the world. Specifically, to date, the system has managed to transfer more than 70,000 million cubic meters of water through its central and eastern route. From a hydrological perspective, as detailed in CEDEX technical schemes on platforms such as Hispagua, this is equivalent to moving entire rivers artificially. The beneficiaries There have been 150 million people who have seen how this water injection It has even allowed an “ecological replenishment”, recovering the water table in northern areas that had been depleted for decades. But massive intervention on the ground always has a “B side.” The rivers. As China redraws its water map, an alarming fact emerged, as official censuses revealed that tens of thousands of rivers appeared to have disappeared in the country in just a few decades. Here the specialist media have raised great global concern about this phenomenon, since it is not known if this transfer was drying out the country at an unprecedented rate. The answer. It was given to us by an article published in 2019 that pointed out that the massive “disappearance” of the channels was not due to the fact that they had evaporated overnight due to dams or climate change, but rather to a problem of cartographic methodology. That is, historically, censuses included what scientists call ‘pseudo-rivers’ and used counting criteria that were not supported. Now that they have applied a much better and more consolidated hydraulic classification, the number of these “lost” rivers has been drastically reduced. The ecological cost. The fact that rivers are not disappearing en masse from the maps does not mean that the megaproject is free, since modifying the flow of some of the most important basins on the planet entails risks that scientific literature has been monitoring for years. Already in 2009, a classic review published in Wiley by researcher Zhang Quanfa warned of the profound Yoenvironmental implications of the transfer. Here he proposes that extracting such massive volumes from the south irreparably alters the Yangtze basin, causing an alteration of the southern aquatic ecosystem, or it has even been seen that as less fresh water reaches the mouth of the Yangtze, sea water penetrates inland, threatening the local supply and agriculture of the delta. The demographic cost. Added to these environmental warnings is the institutional analysis of experts such as Mark Wang and Chen Li who point out the governance challenges and the enormous political and social friction generated. Here different critical organizations point out that the authorities have forced the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people and have required multimillion-dollar investments in treatment plants to prevent contaminated water from the south from ruining the reserves in the north. Images | ダモリ In Xataka | A small river lost between Russia and North Korea is testing something much bigger: China’s patience with both.

We just discovered it five kilometers from the one everyone knows

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On June 21 and as is tradition, thousands of people they met Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice. Meanwhile, a short distance away, an ancient structure discovered in an excavation less than a decade ago He passed the change of season alone: ​​a sort of “primordial Stonehenge” 500 years older than the famous one and which probably served as the first prototype of the solar alignment of the well-known Cromlech. The discovery. The Bulford site, in Wiltshire, is just five kilometers from Stonehenge. The Wessex Archeology team carried out the excavation between 2015 and 2017 and, after analyzing the materials, they will publish the academic paper at the end of this year. There they found 48 pits that have been dated by radiocarbon: they date back to approximately 2950 BC. In the center of the site, the holes of two enormous wooden posts (which have not survived the passage of time) that were driven into the ground, 120 meters apart and precisely aligned towards where the sun rises on the summer solstice and where it sets on the winter solstice. Why is it important. As says Phil Hardingdirector of research at Wessex Archaeology, what makes this structure so relevant is how early it is: “Until now, our knowledge of this achievement of ancient astronomy was based on Stonehenge and other monuments of a similar period, but what we have discovered at Bulford is 500 years older than the famous stones we all know.” This discovery shows that this tradition came from before, that the Neolithic communities already knew and marked the solar cycles centuries before Stonehenge. In other words, Stonehenge did not invent the relationship with the sun: it inherited it and made it the monument that everyone knows. He Dr. Fabio Silva contextualizes itputting Stonehenge in its place: “This discovery helps us understand Stonehenge not as a singular creation, but as part of a much longer conversation between people, land and sky. The alignment shows that communities were already relating to the summer and winter solstices in the Stonehenge landscape, centuries before the sarsen stones were raised.” Context. The Bulford site was discovered because the British Ministry of Defense needed to build housing for soldiers returning from Germany and, by law, it is mandatory to apply preventive archeology before any work. Among the recovered materials Grooved Ware style potteryanimal bones, flint and charcoal, suggesting that large groups of people gathered there for short periods of time, probably to celebrate the solar cycle. Come on, like now. A curiosity: this type of ceramic is native to the Scottish Orkney Islands, and its presence shows that at that time there were already cultural contacts within a radius of hundreds of kilometers. In detail. One of the graves, which could have been part of an observation station, contained a very rare disc-shaped flint knife. Its location is not random: it was probably placed as a symbolic reference to the sun. Dr. Fabio Silva, of Stone x Sky and Skyscape Academy, confirmed the alignment of the two poles: through digital reconstructions of the sky and horizon of the time, he determined that it coincides with the solstices with an accuracy of one degree. The team also suggests that a similar structure existed in the earliest phase of Stonehenge, but that later work probably erased it. A true paradox: Stonehenge, by growing and improving, was able to destroy its own origin. Yes, but. In the absence of the academic paper and its review to have a more exhaustive analysis on the table, there is a central limitation: the alignment is based on only two posts. As warns for National Geographic Jim Leary of York University: “two post holes does not make a particularly compelling alignment.” In this sense, he explains that he would expect a longer row to support that interpretation. Vince Gaffney, landscape archaeologist at the University of Bradford and lead scientist on the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, matches in that it is difficult to say with certainty whether it was a deliberate alignment: “It is only two points, but it is not impossible.” In Xataka | The coasts of Sweden are full of feet carved into rock: this is how deals were signed 3,000 years ago In Xataka | We thought it was a bend in the Rhine. In reality it was a huge Roman water channel that survived the fall of the Empire for 300 years. Cover | Priyank V

Europe has a robot ready to clean the seabed. Spain has 8,000 kilometers of coast waiting

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Neither the proliferation of jellyfish neither lack of sand On the beaches, the great environmental problem of the oceans is marine litter. So within the European project SEACLEAR 2.0, a research team from the Technical University of Munich has developed an autonomous diving robot capable of detecting and recovering debris from the bottom. A kind of pool cleaning robot that plays in another league: the open sea. But is there really so much shit in the sea? An example: In Dubrovnik they counted more than a thousand pieces of garbage in an area of ​​only 100 square meters. In the Mediterranean, where there is tourism and ports, it is a real problem. The pool cleaning robot. The system is made up of the robot and a series of auxiliary elements necessary to fulfill the mission: an unmanned mother ship, an auxiliary boat, a drone, an explorer robot of about 50 centimeters and the robot in question. How does it work? The boat is what provides energy and data to the robots and is also responsible for mapping the bottom with camera and sonar, which allows objects to be identified even in murky waters. Afterwards, the small, agile scout robot quickly runs through it. With all this information, the pool cleaning robot descends with its eight miniturbines until it reaches that area where there is garbage. There, he picks up the objects and lifts them onto the auxiliary boat, which works as a container, using a winch. Why is it important. Because it reaches where divers cannot or does not allow them to reach: as explains dr. Stefan Sosnowskifrom the Information Technology Control Chair of the TUM, a cost-benefit analysis proves that this autonomous waste collection is profitable from 16 meters deep. That’s where human diving becomes more expensive, time-consuming and dangerous. That is to say, this robot does not replace diving, but rather complements it to offer a global cleaning solution. On the other hand, the system is not limited to extraction: it also constitutes a valuable tool for obtaining data since, thanks to the integrated sensors, it can generate maps of the bottom, identify types of waste and record its location, which can be useful in different fields, such as designing better environmental or port management policies. Context. He SEACLEAR project It is funded by the European Union through the Horizon 2020 program. The consortium is made up of eight European partners: the universities of Munich, Delft, Cluj-Napoca and Dubrovnik on the academic level, plus the Port Authority of Hamburg, the Dubrovnik-Neretva Regional Development Agency and the company Subsea Tech. That the port of Hamburg and a company are part of the group is important: it is not an academic laboratory project, but the idea is to put it into practice, to real use at sea. In detail. The intelligence of the system resides in four components: the identification of objects with camera and sonar, the manual labeling of more than 7,000 images of objects outside the seabed, the generation of 3D models through AI. From here, the system already knows where and how to grab those objects to extract them safely. The key to this extraction is a four-finger clamp capable of applying up to 4,000 N of force, enough to lift objects weighing up to 250 kilograms. However, how much with pressure sensors to regulate that force so as not to break fragile materials such as plastics or glass. If you broke a plastic object into smaller pieces, the cure would be worse than the disease. Yes, but. The first public demonstration of the system occurred in the port of Marseille, where the robot recovered, among other things, a wheel and a car seat. While it is true that it is a test in a real environment, it is a controlled demo under known conditions. The project has not yet made public data essential for its profitability and scalability, such as how many objects were recovered per hour, what is the error rate of the recognition system or the cost of operating the system in a real port for a year. On the other hand, extracting objects from the bottom has its drawback: if they are large and have been deposited there for years, they can suspend contaminated sediments and disturb fauna that has colonized them. That is, paradoxically, cleaning can also have environmental impact. In Xataka | It turns out that China’s new giant buoys are actually miniature data centers. Korea won’t like it In Xataka | Germany is installing giant concrete spheres under the sea. It has a good reason: to store renewable energy Cover | TUM

3.5 kilometers over the Guadalquivir and a height that no other bridge in Europe reaches

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Seville is going to have the longest road bridge in Spain and, most likely, the largest in all of Europe. The most interesting thing of all is that the project already has an official green light and until approved budget. What is missing, as usually happens in these macroprojects, is time. Decades without solution. The SE-40 ring road has been a pending issue in Seville for years. Of the 75 kilometers planned, only 38 are in service today. The section that was missing (and that was the most difficult) is precisely the one that must cross the Guadalquivir to the southwest of the city, between Dos Hermanas and Coria del Río. As long as this situation continues, traffic continues to be diverted to the SE-30, a road where traffic accumulates daily and for which the SE-40 was born, precisely, as a solution. It took a while to start. For almost two decades, the project has been paralyzed because no agreement was reached on whether to opt for a subfluvial tunnel through the Guadalquivir or build a bridge. The tunnel option ended up being discarded due to its enormous technical difficulty and exorbitant cost. Furthermore, according to point El Confidencial, the failure of that plan left consequences such as a tunnel boring machine valued at 37 million euros that was stored unused for more than a decade and ended up being sold for just 1.8 million. So the Ministry of Transportation ended up opting for the bridge solution, approving the project last November. The bridge traces the Dos Hermanas–Palomares–Coria del Río section, is 5,069 kilometers long and has an estimated budget of 688.11 million euros (VAT included). ORn pillarless cable-stayed bridge across the river. Perhaps the most outstanding element of the complex is a cable-stayed bridge whose central span, 366 meters of lightwill avoid the Guadalquivir without supporting any pile within the channel. This decision aims to protect the riverside vegetation and the Special Conservation Area of ​​the Bajo Guadalquivir, also guaranteeing that large boats can cross it. The total of viaducts add up to approximately 3.5 kilometers in length. A record gauge. The minimum vertical clearance over the river is 70.80 meters. It was a figure required by the Port Authority of Seville so that the bridge does not interfere with maritime traffic towards the river port. According to the newspaperthe current European champion in vertical clearance is the Puente de la Constitución of 1812, in the Bay of Cádiz, with 69 meters. This new bridge aims to surpass it, which would place it among the bridges with the largest clearance on the entire continent. ANDThe longest road viaduct in Spain. The Constitution Bridge of 1812, known as the La Pepa Bridge, measures 3,092 meters and has held the national length record since its inauguration in 2015. The set of viaducts on the SE-40 will total approximately 3.5 kilometers, according to collect The Vanguard. Two records in one. When can it be used? There is still no official date for the start of works or opening to traffic. According to the mediathe Government’s forecasts suggest that the works could last until 2030 or 2031. El Diario points out that the tender for the central structure of the bridge would not take place before January 2027. To give context, the Pepa bridge took about eight years to build, so it looks like there is still some distance left. When the southern arch of the SE-40 is closed, several key highways will be connected (A-4, A-92, A-376, A-8058 and A-49) that today do not have a direct link to each other in the south of Seville. It remains to be seen how the project progresses. Cover image | Recreation of the Ministry of Transportation (climbing with Upscayl) In Xataka | Building tunnels is very good, but in China there are regions that are doing other things: cutting mountains in half

A German driver set out to discover how much he could stretch the tank of his old diesel car. And he has done 2,400 kilometers

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Autonomy of 1,000 kilometers. It is the psychological barrier that seems to have been installed in the collective imagination when it comes to talking about electric or highly electrified cars. It doesn’t matter that it is a figure that is worthless because, obviously, it is totally inadvisable to sit in the car and put in 1,000 kilometers at a stretch between your chest and back. Right now, with a good part of the electric car market recharging 300 kilometers or more (real) in about 20 minutesthere are not many reasons to defend those ranges of more than 1,000 kilometers. And yet, such has been the insistence of those who do not trust the electric car that the manufacturers of plug-in hybrids themselves have focused their communication on selling us autonomies that exceed those 1,000 kilometers. And promise, among the electric ones, that we will see batteries that can withstand them. However, and although for everyday life it is something completely absurd, one always feels attracted to challenges like the one presented by the host and owner of the channel. Offroad adventure on YouTube. How many kilometers can your old diesel Volkswagen Passat travel? 2,300 kilometers with its little tricks He promised that he would repeat it if the video went viral. And he has done it. Elias is a German YouTuber specialized in car travel videos. His YouTube channel is full of incredible landscapes, challenges aboard his cars and videos in which he explains how he has transformed the vehicles. In one of them, he picked up an old Volkswagen Passat B5 diesel from 1998 and he decided to know how far he could go. He traveled more than 1,900 kilometers but did not manage to break the two-mile ceiling with a single tank. The promise seemed obvious: likes to the video and a new challenge ahead. No sooner said than done. More than 2,400 kilometers with just a tank? This is the title of the video in which Elias tells of his new experience with this familiar diesel with almost 30 years behind him. The car, at that time, approved an average consumption of 5.6 l/100 km (4.5 l/100 km in the extra-urban) and a 62-liter tank in Spain but in Germany, according to the data provided by the Youtuber, it reached 72 liters. That is, to cover 2,400 kilometers it was necessary to maintain a consumption of about 3 l/100 km. And with these tools, what seemed impossible was posed: how to get from Hildesheim (Germany) to the Arctic Circle with a single deposit of fuel? Let’s get to work. Elias swapped the original rims for closed hubcaps to improve aerodynamics on the wheels and reduce drag. It eliminated everything that could interfere with the exterior: goodbye to the roof bars and the antenna. He also points out that he changed some of the car’s filters to improve efficiency, as well as the lights, replaced by LEDs that consume less energy. Some air vents were covered to further improve efficiency. The YouTuber also points out that he installed a cruise control system, used low-friction oils and Michelin, which is one of the sponsors, gave him a set of low-friction tires that have been inflated to the maximum pressure allowed to reduce resistance. Searching for the sweet spot between driving at a constant speed high enough for the car to move at a low rev rate but without forcing it to downshift and increase consumption, the YouTuber manages to achieve his goal and shows how the car ends up stopping after 2,398.7 kilometers, registering an average speed of 74 km/h and a consumption of 3.0054 l/100 km. The car, in fact, at some point reaches a much lower figure, of about 2.5 l/100 km of consumption. However, in the last kilometers this figure “skyrockets” and leaves our protagonist on the verge of breaking the 2,400 kilometer barrier. Moment in which he removes the seal from the fuel tank to add a little more diesel and be able to get to a gas station. The test demonstrates how far diesels from a few decades ago were capable of reaching, but it also confirms that if the road is clear and used correctly, adaptive cruise control can save a lot of fuel by keeping the car at a sustained speed. Photo | offroadadventure In Xataka | Driving at 110 km/h instead of 120 km/h to save gas seems like a good idea. It’s just a patch

the website that calculates the billions of kilometers you have traveled through the universe without leaving the couch

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At the time of writing this I am 37 years, 28 days, 23 hours, 13 minutes and 18 seconds old. I have traveled around 34,845,000,000 kilometers around the Sun. I have traveled 257,425,000,000 kilometers through the Milky Way. The next time my watch tells me I haven’t taken enough steps, I plan to give it these numbers. Although the truth is that I have not had to take any steps to travel through them, since the credit belongs to the Earth, I have just let myself go. Whatever the case, it’s always good to know. If you also want to know these figures and many curious facts more for your own date of birth, keep an eye on online calculator created by web developer nemo7299. Very easy to use. With this calculator, called Cosmic Odometer, its creator seeks to make us a little more aware of our location in the Universe and everything we have moved through it since the day we were born. To use it, you just have to enter your date and time of birth and the latitude where you are. With that you have enough to read many curious facts. Distances traveled. To begin with, we can see the distance that the Earth has traveled rotating on itself, orbiting around the Sun or accompanying the Sun through the Milky Way. We can also see what has been moved the Milky Way itself through the Universe. You can even see the combined distance of all those movements. Since the day we were born, we have been fellow travelers of the Earth. Therefore, if we calculate the kilometers that the Earth has traveled around the Sun, we will also know how many kilometers we have traveled with it. Age by planets. You can also find out what your age is at different planets of the Solar System. For example, on Mercury I am a centenarian of 153.81 years old, on Mars little more than a teenager who has not yet turned 20 and on Venus I am already close to earning retirement, at 60.29 years old. On the other hand, in Neptune I am a baby of just over 2 months. Logically, if I could travel there I would be the same and I would look the same. However, a year on those planets does not last the same as it does here on Earth. A little physiology. The website also tells us how many times our heart has beaten or we have breathed since we were born. It even calculates how many cells have been renewed in our body in that period of time. Important distances. By viewing this website we can know how far we are from natural or artificial objects as important as probes. Solar Parker, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2the telescope James Webb or Haley’s Comet. If the aliens are looking for us. Another curious fact is that we can calculate how far away an alien would have to be to see our birth if they pointed a telescope at Earth. can be compared. You can also compare your details with a friend’s by entering their date of birth. This way, you will know how far the Sun traveled between your births or how many kilometers you have traveled together since you both existed, for example. It occurs to me that important dates that are not necessarily birthdays could be introduced. For example, the current date and the date you met your partner. What would it be like to tell him that since you met you have traveled a combined 31,679,105 km across the universe together? If it doesn’t look pretty, that’s not it. Your feet are younger than your head. According to the general relativity theory According to Einstein, time moves more slowly in stronger gravitational fields. That is, the closer you are to the massive object that creates that gravitational attraction, the slower time will pass. Our feet are closer to the earth’s surface than our head. Therefore, it can be said that our feet are younger. Time passes more slowly for them. In my case, for example, my feet are 216 nanoseconds younger. A lot more. All this is just a small sample of the many data that can be checked in this calculator. Logically, some are estimates, since more data would be needed to have a more accurate calculation. In any case, with such large distances, these estimates already go pretty well. It’s perfect to hang out and have a laugh. Image | Magnific/Nemo7299 In Xataka | The Earth as it was during its last ice age, illustrated in a wonderful map

Navarra already has its longest stretch radar operational. It covers 30 kilometers, and yet it is not the longest in Spain

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Navarra has placed a medium speed radar on the AP-68 that controls more than 30 kilometers in a row between Cortes and Tudela. The device He is already monitoring this section and sanctioning. It is one of the longest in the country, but not the one that most. And the trend indicates that there will be more. The radar in question. The device is installed on the AP-68, in a descending direction, between kilometer points 115,027 and 84,483, that is, the route from Cortes to Tudela. In total, 30,544 kilometers under continuous surveillance. In addition, Navarra has launched a second section radar on the N-121-A, in an increasing direction, between kilometers 26.76 and 40.79, covering almost 14 kilometers in the area of ​​the Belate and Almandoz tunnels. Both devices are already operational and sanctioning. Why have they settled there? The Government of Navarra and the DGT justify the decision with the accident data. According to the information published about the installation, in the section of the AP-68 76 accidents were recorded between January 2022 and June 2025, of which 19 left victims, with one deceased, one seriously injured and 25 lightly injured. On N-121-A the balance in the same period was 56 accidents. How this type of radar works. It does not measure the speed at a specific point but rather calculate the average throughout the entire journey. One camera reads the license plate at the beginning of the section and another at the end. The system determines how long the vehicle has taken to travel it and, if that time is less than the minimum that fits with the established speed limit, the report is processed automatically. What it can cost you. The sanctions range from 100 euros without loss of points in the slightest excesses to 600 euros and six license points in the most serious cases. Prompt payment, paid within 20 calendar days following notification, allows the financial fine to be reduced by half, although the points are still lost. It is not the longest in Spain. The national record It is still maintained by a radar installed on the CL-615in Palencia, which controls 33 kilometers in an increasing direction, as we counted a while ago. The Navarrese rider on the AP-68 is less than three kilometers from that mark, which places him in second position among the longest. And he is not alone in that category: according to data from the DGT, There are 16 section radars in Spain that exceed 10 kilometers. Expansion. In 2024 there were 92 section radars on the roads managed by the DGT. In 2025 the figure rose to 110 and today there are 149, according to they count from Motor.es. In addition, the DGT has planned a new wave of installations for the second half of 2026, aimed mainly at secondary roads and conventional roads, which is precisely where the majority of fatal accidents are concentrated. Navarra takes charge. The entry into service of this radar makes more sense than it seems. Navarre He assumed official ownership on January 29 of this year. of the almost 40 kilometers of the AP-68 that run through its territory. And as of July 1, the regional community will also have the power to directly process, resolve and collect traffic fines, according to Navarra.com. That is to say, the provincial government installs a large radar on a road that it has just assumed as its own and does so just before it can also manage the income it generates. Cover image | DGT In Xataka | Death to the oldest “shadow toll” in Spain: Murcia is going to say goodbye at the end of the RM-15 system

In three days, Russia celebrates its Victory Day. And Ukraine has a surprise prepared 1,500 kilometers away

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In May 1987, a young 19-year-old German pilot named Mathias Rust He managed to cross a good part of Soviet airspace with a small civilian plane and land next to Red Square. without being stopped. The episode caused enormous humiliation for the USSR because it showed that even the heart of Moscow could be reached in ways that no one expected. Countdown to Putin’s big parade. Russia prepares for May 9, the most symbolic day of its entire political and military calendar, while Ukraine intensifies a campaign of attacks that seems designed precisely to ruin that sense of control and security. The Kremlin has even announced a unilateral truce for the days of the parade, but kyiv has responded by making it clear that it does not intend to coordinate anything with Moscow and remembering that Russia cannot quietly celebrate Victory Day “without the good will of Ukraine.” The situation is especially uncomfortable for Putin because, for the first time in many years, Moscow faces this date with the feeling that even its capital can become a target. Moscow no longer seems like a completely safe place. The recent attack against a skyscraper luxury hotel located a few kilometers from the Kremlin has been much more than a simple symbolic coup. Ukraine has been trying to bother to Moscow ahead of the May 9 parade, but this time the message comes in a different context: Russia has reduced the size of the event, eliminated some of the heavy military deployment and greatly reinforced the defenses around the capital for fear of new drones. Meanwhile, Zelensky has hinted directly that Moscow fears seeing drones flying over Red Square during the parade, something unthinkable just a few years ago and extremely delicate for a celebration designed precisely to project power and control. The big news is the distance. The most important change in this phase of the war is happening far beyond Moscow. Ukraine is managing to attack industrial cities and military bases located more than 1,500 kilometers from the front, reaching regions of the Urals that for decades were considered a safe rear even in Soviet times. Cities like Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk or Perm begin to experience airport closuresinternet restrictions and attacks against refineriesmilitary installations or industrial infrastructures. The psychological impact is enormous because many of these areas experienced the war as something distant until just a few months ago. New missiles and drones are changing the rules. The appearance of the transonic missile F-5 Flamingo reflects the extent to which Ukraine is transforming its deep strike capability. kyiv claims to have used this system to destroy a factory Russian military about 1,500 kilometers away, a facility linked to components for missiles, aviation and naval systems. Beyond the specific damage, what is important is the trend: Ukraine no longer depends solely on improvised drones or isolated attacks, but is beginning to build a sustained capacity to hit strategic infrastructure deep inside Russia. The jam-resistant navigation systems, extreme range and possible integration of Western technology clearly show that kyiv is trying to make Russian territorial depth much less useful than it was at the start of the war. The Soviet rearguard in doubt. Plus: there is a huge historical burden in the places that Ukraine is attacking. During the Second World War, much of the Soviet industry was moved to the Urals precisely because they were considered territories impossible to reach from Europe. Cities like Chelyabinsk became known as “Tankograd” because of the concentration of military factories far from the front. Now, eighty years later, Ukrainian drones and missiles are demonstrating that that strategic depth no longer guarantees security. What once required bombers and huge air campaigns can now be achieved with long-range drones and relatively cheap missiles capable of traversing thousands of kilometers. Avoid vulnerability on its most important day. Because he May 9 parade It is not just any ceremony for Russia. It is the great annual showcase of Russian military power, the event where the Kremlin connects the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany with Putin’s current political legitimacy. That is precisely why it is so sensitive that Ukraine is increasing pressure just before the event. Russia is shooting down hundreds of drones around Moscow and strengthening security of the capital while trying to avoid any image of chaos during a day observed by foreign leaders and broadcast throughout the country. The problem for the Kremlin is that Ukraine has already managed to install a most uncomfortable idea: even more than 1,500 kilometers from the front, there is no longer a complete sense of refuge, and that includes beyond the Urals. Image | Fire Point In Xataka | Today in “the war in Ukraine beyond all comprehension”: drone pilots are training with ‘Grand Theft Auto’ In Xataka | Ukraine has barely captured any North Korean soldiers. The reason is brutally simple: they prefer to immolate themselves

Huesca and Lleida were separated by 110 kilometers. It has taken Spain 25 years to connect them by highway

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Spain has a maxim that is repeated when we talk about roads: things go slowly. Pretty slowly, in fact. You just have to see that the A-11, one of the great Castilian-Leonese highways has been in operation since 1995. Or the almost 30 years since the A-60 has been planned without having been completed. Andalusia is not spared either, with roads that They are beginning to approach two decades before finishing. And a halfway case is that of the A-22 between Huesca and Lleida. Barely 110 kilometers separate these two cities in northeastern Spain and, however, it has taken more than a quarter of a century for a highway to be completed between them. The culmination for the luck of the Aragonese and Catalans took place last October. That month, the section between Huesca-Siétamo was finally inaugurated. Just 12.6 kilometers for which seven years of work have been needed but which should have been resolved in 2021. Perhaps that is why the celebration was bitter. 25 years for an hour’s drive They counted on Aragon Digital that the completion of the highway between Huesca and Lleida only had Minister Óscar Puente as a political representative. None of the Aragonese officials made an appearance (autonomous community, provincial council or city council). And it is that the last bypass next to the city (it connected with the A-22 but also gave an exit to the N-240 known as Ronda Norte de Huesca) has been full of controversy. With it, the last of the 11 sections into which the construction of the A-22 has been divided has been completed. Those 12.6 kilometers mentioned above began operating in 2018 and the forecast is that they will be ready in 2021. The investment was 61.5 million euros but citizens have had to wait another four years before being able to enjoy the entire road. The Ministry of Transport explained With the inauguration, eight of the kilometers of the new link have been newly built, leaving the old national N-240 as a service road. In addition to the connection with this road that acts as a ring road, it has also joined the A-23. A road, the latter, that will finally be linked to the A-21 since the tender has been awarded to resolve the link between both roads and resolve the bottleneck that was generated in Jaca. But returning to the case of the A-22, the issue is that the highway was designed in the Transportation Infrastructure Plan 2000-2007. However, in 2004 no relevant step had yet been taken in the construction of the new highway and the work became part of the state promises again in 2005 with the Strategic Infrastructure and Transportation Plan. By then, the intention is for the highway to be fully operational in 2012. The A-22 was one of those infrastructures that was affected by the 2008 crisis. However, despite the adjustments in 2010, the times and investments were not extended excessively. And before that year, the highway had less than 30 kilometers in operation but little by little the sections were advancing and the vast majority of the work was ready between 2010 and 2012. It was, therefore, the section between Huesca and Siétamo that has lengthened the completion of the road. In Herald They covered the news of the awarding of this last section in 2018 but already pointed out at that time that a situation that had been completely stopped for five years before was being unblocked. The promise, as we said, is that it would be ready in 2021. Thus, the A-22 highway has accumulated years and years of delay despite being practically finished. The little more than 10 kilometers that were necessary to close the work have taken 12 years to carry out, the same as it took to have the remaining hundred kilometers ready. Now, at least, Aragonese and Catalans can breathe a sigh of relief and finally have a fully modern road to connect Huesca with Lleida. Photos | Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility In Xataka | Spanish roads have a problem in 2026: repairing a kilometer of asphalt is more expensive than ever

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