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Adidas has managed to get all of Spain to wear the National Team shirt. It has also managed to get almost no one to buy it from Adidas

June 4, 2026 by usatoday24

I’m sorry I can’t link it but the other day I read a tweet that said something like: “In these moments of extreme polarization, there is only one thing that unites all of Spain: the fake National Team shirt.” In cascade, there were the answers. One after another, fans fed up with the abusive price of football shirts, an accessory that It is already transversal to the sport itself but for which many are not willing to pay more (much more) than 100 euros for a product that you can have at home for just over 20 euros. At the gates of a World Cup, with a Spanish team that excites and a shirt that has had a deep impact since its presentation, the team’s second kit, the white one, can already be seen everywhere. And, of course, it’s not always official. It complicates your month According to Bankinter datathe median salary in Spain for a man was about 26,000 euros in 2024, the latest data published. That of women was just over 22,000 euros. That leaves us with a gross salary, of course, in 14 payments of just over 1,800 euros for them and less than 1,600 euros for women. With that salary, whoever wants to buy the official shirt of the Spanish National Team, replicating all its details, will be dedicating around 15% of the money that enters their account at the end of the month. Official Authentic T-shirt: 150 euros Player name: 20 euros FIFA patch: 10 euros Euro champion patch: 7 euros The accounts come out quickly and easily: 187 euros It is what it costs to wear the same shirt with which Lamine Yamal will take the field in Atlanta (United States) on June 15 at 6:00 p.m. (peninsular time) to face Cape Verde. That, of course, if you manage to get your hands on any of the t-shirts that They have already flown from the Adidas website. For much less, just 23 euros, you can have a replica at home in less than two weeks. It’s not that I asked one of the many in my close circle who have already gotten one. There is simply a website that ranks ahead of Adidas itself on Google. The German company says that “Spain’s away shirt pays tribute to this country’s incredible literary legacy, with intricate prints inspired by manuscripts, a nod to the cultural depth of the Spanish language that connects culture and football.” Let’s say that that other website does not offer such a literary description but what is certain is that there must be plenty of clients. The (pen)last example The second Adidas kit has highlighted the rise of fake t-shirts replicas and the enormous popularity they have garnered in recent years. Sid Lowea British sports journalist welcomed by the Asturian community, echoed this article in Digital Freedom in which the enormous popularity of Spain’s second shirt is mentioned. The one that no one seems to have paid at the price that Adidas lists on its website. Click on the image to go to the original tweet The responses criticizing the high price of the official set and the defense of getting one, let’s say, less official are repeated one after another. Click on the image to go to the original tweet The answers seem to concentrate each and every one of the issues surrounding the underworld that football shirts have become in recent years. Those of us who have dressed Saturdays, Sundays and summer holidays in football shirts and shirts know that replicas do not have the same feel as an original. No? Sure? Without a doubt, it looks a lot like him. It’s something I’ve known from conversations with friends and because… well, he who is free from sin… An example: Real Madrid shirt 99/00. Pushed by the nostalgia effect dosmilerothe aftershocks multiplied their presence in the streets. To the point that Adidas took advantage of the pull to reissue them and make good money. At least, to get mine and that of enough fans who spend our 110 euros to buy a shirt with more than a quarter of a century of history. In my case it was because I wanted to have the shirt with which Raúl dribbled past Santiago Cañizares to score Real Madrid’s third goal in the Champions League Final in Paris. He wanted “the one on Eighth”, the black one. Because the white one had already been given to me a few months before and this one was not entirely true. And, despite this, I had to go to the closet to rescue the shirt that I was wearing when I was eight years old and had an R. Carlos (3) on the back to certify that it did not have the same shiny patina that the official one had. Nor was the stitching of the shield the same, of course. No, it wasn’t the same, but it was almost identical.. And that is enough for many, many of us to wear the shirt of our childhood on the street again. It doesn’t matter if the shirt is from Raúl’s best years, Djalminha wearing Feiraco on the chest of Deportivo de la Coruña or Maradona carrying Buitoni to levels of popularity they never imagined. They all share a single code: they are fashionable. So much so that Adidas has not hesitated to reissue iconic designs from the nineties and 2000s. Without going any further and taking advantage of the return of the World Cup to the United States, For 110 euros you can dress like Clemente’s Spain in 1994. At least, the Germans have had the detail of not reissuing the second kit, forever anchored in a Luis Enrique bloodied. The football shirt phenomenon has become a transversal fashion that transcends genres, decades and teams. They are there when you go to buy bread, when you have a party with friends and when you go to the summer music festival. That has also created a … Read more

‘Star Citizen’ has managed to reach $1 billion in financing. We have no idea when it will be released

May 30, 2026 by usatoday24

There are video games that fall behind, video games that change course, and video games that seem to live in a category of their own. ‘Star Citizen‘ clearly belongs to the latter. What we have seen for more than a decade is not only the development of an ambitious space simulator, but a phenomenon that is difficult to fit into the usual molds of the industry: thousands and thousands of players financing a promise that continues to grow without there being yet a closed date for its full commercial launch. A figure that is difficult to ignore. The official website of Roberts Space Industries places funding ‘Star Citizen’ at $1,011,412,026, with 6,560,271 Star Citizens registered at the time of capture contributed. We are not talking about an estimate or a figure reconstructed from outside, but rather the public accountant of the project itself. This data allows us to better understand the magnitude of the phenomenon: a community that has not only closely followed each progress, but has also financially supported one of the most ambitious and prolonged bets in modern video games. Fourteen years of waiting. The origin of the project helps to understand why this case has become so unique. ‘Star Citizen’ began to take shape in 2012when Chris Roberts, known for ‘Wing Commander’, co-founded Cloud Imperium Games with Sandi Roberts and decided to finance development directly with the community. The game was originally aimed at 2014a reference that today serves to measure the distance between that first ambition and the current state of the project. Open development as fuel. The study has not maintained interest only with an initial promise, but by showing the process almost live. We have seen a development accompanied by weekly broadcasts, blogs, roadmaps and early access to the alpha, a way of working that has made the community a visible part of the project. Sandi Roberts also points to that link when she talks about AMAs on Reddit, forums and ‘Bar Citizens’ events, gatherings organized by fans themselves. It’s not finished, but it’s not empty either.. It is convenient to separate two ideas that are often mixed. ‘Star Citizen’ does not yet have a full commercial version, but those who support the project You can now play an alpha with available content on PC. In its current state, the project allows for bounty hunting, mining, large-scale industrial transportation, medical rescue, and ship recovery. Ships, promises and thousands of dollars. The financing model also has a particularly striking side. Many of the highest-value contributions are tied to ships associated with the game, with options that can start at $15 and others that run into the thousands. The most recent example is the Anvil Odina ship worth more than $5,000. Also, there is an important nuance: it is a “concept pledge”, so it is not yet available in the game. The final stretch remains undated. In parallel to ‘Star Citizen’, Cloud Imperium is also working on ‘Squadron 42‘, a single-player campaign set in the same universe and with a cast that includes several figures. ANDn statements to VarietyChris Roberts assured that the team is in the final phases, although without a fixed schedule. Therein lies the big unknown: the project has reached an enormous scale, but we still don’t know when version 1.0 will arrive. Images | Roberts Space Industries In Xataka | If you had any hope of buying a Steam Deck OLED at a good price, the RAM crisis has something to tell you

Alcasec managed to access hundreds of thousands of banking details in Spain: now it has accepted prison

May 28, 2026 by usatoday24

There are cybersecurity cases that seem distant until they force us to look inward. We are not talking about a large foreign technology company or a gap lost in some remote corner of the Internet, but rather about banking data of citizens in Spain, access linked to public infrastructure and a chain that, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, ended with hundreds of thousands of records entered into a portal for sale. What we have seen with Alcasec It matters not only because of the name itself, but because of what it reveals: personal information has become a very valuable commodity. The agreement. This part of the case has been settled in the National Court with an agreement between the accused and the Prosecutor’s Office. According to EFEJosé Luis Huertas, alias Alcasec, has accepted a sentence of two years and seven months in prison for the crimes of illegal access to computer systems and discovery and disclosure of secrets. The Prosecutor’s Office initially requested three years, but applied the mitigating circumstance of confession. Along with him, Daniel BE and Juan Carlos OG, thus identified in the judicial information, have also accepted a sentence: two years and two months for the first as a cooperator and one year and three months for the second for discovery of secrets. The access. The indictment describes an entry built in layers, not a simple stroke of luck. On October 19, 2021, Alcasec contracted two massive data storage systems with Cherry Servers, a company based in Lithuania, using an email account created when he was a minor to hide his identity. Later, Daniel BE, whom the Prosecutor’s Office links to Russian forums specialized in the unauthorized sale of passwords, provided him with a stolen digital certificate issued to the General Directorate of Traffic. With that certificate, always according to the accusation, he managed to navigate the SARA network, connect to the CGPJ Judicial Neutral Point website and obtain the credentials of an official from a Bilbao court. The impersonation. The next step, always according to the Prosecutor’s Office, was to convert that first access into a way to obtain more credentials. Alcasec and Daniel BE created a page that pretended to be the access website to the Judicial Neutral Point, and the former sent a text chain to different courts that redirected to that false page. Two officials mistakenly entered their passwords, which allowed the scope of the attack to expand. The mechanics are important because they show that the intrusion did not depend only on a technical vulnerability, but also on deception of real users. The scale. With these credentials, according to the indictment, Alcasec made 438,099 requests to the Tax Agency’s “extended bank accounts” web service and shortly after carried out a second attack. The data is not minor: we are not talking about an isolated query, but rather a massive volume of queries to sensitive information through a system connected to the Administration. For the sale of data, some of relevant people, the portal was available. The reduction. The accepted sentence does not come out of nowhere, but from an agreement in accordance with the Prosecutor’s Office. As we noted above, the initial request was for three years in prison, but it was reduced to two years and seven months when the mitigating circumstance of confession for the recognized crimes was applied. The prosecutor also valued the collaboration of the accused during the investigation, particularly in providing their codes and passwords. In addition, they accepted the confiscation of the effects and the physical and virtual money seized in the searches carried out in Madrid, Cartagena and Dos Hermanas. Another investigation. There is an important nuance to not mix planes. Alcasec has been in provisional prison for a year for a different reason, related to a network of cyberattacks that seized sensitive and private data of millions of citizens and that he allegedly led. In that investigation he was arrested along with former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez, currently on trial for Operation Kitchen. The reading. What this case leaves behind is not only an accepted conviction, but a fairly clear photograph of where part of cybercrime has moved. We are no longer just talking about entering a system, but about chaining access, taking advantage of real credentials, consulting sensitive services and preparing information for sale. Images | Capture YouTube In Xataka | We have spoken with one of the leading cybersecurity companies in Spain. And his diagnosis is not encouraging

A Ukrainian stork has managed to outwit a Russian drone in flight. The video is the best clue about who will win the war

May 27, 2026 by usatoday24

Exactly a decade ago, the Dutch police presented a plan that seemed straight out of a medieval movie: training eagles to shoot down drones in full flight. That project lasted less than a year, because the birds They were too unpredictable and the propellers too dangerous even for them, but 10 years later it seems that they were not so wrong. The stork that left a Russian drone behind. In the middle of a war where Ukraine and Russia compete to automate battlefield, a seemingly trivial video has become an unexpectedly powerful metaphor. what we see: A Russian interceptor drone chases a Ukrainian white stork in mid-flight until the bird suddenly makes a sharp turn, leaving the device chasing shadows. The scene lasts just a few secondsbut it summarizes something much deeper: modern warfare is obsessed with creating machines that imitate capabilities that nature perfected millions of years ago, although we are still far from achieving it. The image is especially symbolic because the white stork is one of the national animals of Ukraine and because the video inadvertently exposes the enormous limitations that many drones continue to have when faced with an enemy as seemingly simple as a bird. The great military obsession. For years, military engineers they try to replicate the capabilities of birds flight. Modern drones can travel hundreds of kilometers, transmit video in real time or attack targets with enormous precision, but they remain much less agile than animals capable of instantly changing the shape of their wings, taking advantage of thermal currents or performing extreme maneuvers without losing stability. The video stork It does exactly that: detect danger, alter its trajectory and escape from a device specifically designed to intercept moving targets. The difference reveals a key problem with today’s autonomous war. Drones still rely heavily on relatively predictable trajectoriesimperfect sensors and reaction capacities much lower than those of biological organisms evolved to survive in the air. Drone warfare as an ecosystem. The conflict in Ukraine has accelerated the evolution of drones to unprecedented levels. Let us remember that at the beginning of the war they were relatively simple reconnaissance tools… and now there are coordinated swarmsinterceptors aerial FPVplatforms long range suicide bombers and autonomous systems capable of searching for targets by themselves. In parallel, the sky begins to fill with absurd situations and almost surreal where birds and machines share the same airspace. In the early years there were trained eagles to shoot down police drones. Today, just the opposite is happening: drones that chase birds because their radar signatures are too similar to those of enemy devices. Some species, such as storks or pelicans, are comparable in size to certain military drones and create enough confusion to cause real errors in combat. Nature is several steps ahead. The episode also leaves an uncomfortable conclusion for the military industry: the capabilities that militaries desperately seek already exist in nature. Birds master something that drones still cannot combine well: agility, energy autonomy, collective coordination and instant adaptation to the environment. An albatross, for example, can travel entire oceans taking advantage of wind currents Without spending much energy, Harris hawks or eagles coordinate extremely complex cooperative attacks. no centralized communicationand storks use thermals to gain altitude practically free. Meanwhile, defense engineers still experience with deformable wings, biomimetic systems and algorithms that allow drones to react with the same fluidity. The result is paradoxical: the more autonomous military technologies advance, the more evident it is that they continue to try to achieve abilities that a bird naturally possesses. A video that says much more. The Ukraine War will probably be remembered as the drone laboratory most important in modern history. Both sides are learning in real time how to automate attacks, saturate defenses and dominate airspace at low cost. But he stork video points towards something even more important: the winner will not necessarily be the one who has the most drones, but rather the one who manages to build capable systems to adapt to the environment with the flexibility of a living organism. Therein lies the great technological race that is beginning to take shape. Armies no longer just want fast or cheap machines, they also want platforms that learn, react, collaborate and survive like animals. And while Russia and Ukraine transform the sky into a permanent surreal experiment, a simple stork has just remembered that nature, for now, continues playing in another league. Image | Jean-Raphaël Guillaumin In Xataka | Ukraine has been terrorizing Russian soldiers with its heavy drones for years. Now they are literally giving it back. In Xataka | The war has entered the phase of mathematics: cheap Russian missiles are destroying the scarce Ukrainian interceptors

Science has managed to turn off the extra chromosome of Down syndrome. It has also opened the great ethical debate on gene editing

April 18, 2026 by usatoday24

In the complex genetic map that surrounds the known down syndromethe problem is not that there is a lack of information in our cells, but that there is an excess. The presence of a third copy of chromosome 21 It unbalances the entire cellular system that ends up generating an entire clinic that today did not have any type of cure. But thanks to clinical advances and revolutionary gene therapies, we have found a way to turn off this gene that is extra in the cells of people with Down. A natural switch. To understand this advance, we must look at how nature itself resolves its own genetic imbalances. And, for those who do not know, in human beings sex is determined by two types of chromosomes: X and Y. If you are a woman, you will have XX chromosomes, and if you are a man, you will have XY. The problem, boiling it down to its most basic, is that always one of the ‘X’ genes must be silenced so that the genetic load is compensated in humans. And this is something that is done thanks to the gene XIST which encodes an RNA molecule that covers the chromosome and alters its chromatin, silencing de facto their genes. Something that has been developed by nature itself in order to maintain the species, and then the question is obligatory: why not use this natural switch to silence the chromosomes that generate diseases as important as Down syndrome? It’s not something new. The idea of using this “switch” to be able to alter the gene expression of the chromosomes that we have in excess is not new, since in 2013 the researcher Jeanne Lawrence demonstrated for the first time that this RNA could induce the silencing of the extra chromosome 21 in human cells that were in culture in a laboratory. Later, in 2020, it was applied to neural stem cells, but the historical problem has always been the same: the very low efficiency when integrating this gene into the affected cells.. A new milestone. This has changed radically, as a team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston has published a new article in PNAS with a solution to eradicate this bottleneck thanks to the tool CRISPR/Cas9. This system can be visualized as simple scissors that specifically cut into our DNA to eliminate something that was left over or altered. The problem is that it was not very efficient at integrating new genetic material, and to overcome this, scientists have developed a modified version of CRISPR/Cas9 that boosts the success rate of the integration of the XIST gene which will silence the third chromosome 21. Good results. Here we recognize how XIST has been integrated into 20-40% of cell lines that have trisomy 21. Furthermore, the method reliably affects only the extra copy of chromosome 21 without silencing other genes that can cause other diseases. There are problems. Despite the enthusiasm, the technique is far from being applied in humans, since one of the biggest challenges of CRISPR is the mutations off-target, That is, it acts on other genetic points that are its marked objectives. And this occurs when these ‘scissors’ cut a sequence of DNA that closely resembles its target, but which in reality is not. In this way, an error off-target It could trigger severe cellular problems or even cancer. Recent studies show that experimentation on embryos with these techniques often results in mosaicism with edited and unedited cells, as well as incomplete edits. This means that right now we have to work on having greater specificity in the genetic objectives of the therapy so that the consequences of using it are not much greater than the fact of curing a disease. Ethical shock. The controversy is served with genetic therapies in general, since right now one of the lines that are open is to eliminate this extra chromosome directly in a human embryo before implementing it in a woman so that she is not born with this disease. This is where bioethicists they point because experimenting with human embryos damages their physical integrity and poses irreversible risks for future generations. Furthermore, they underline the urgency of distinguishing between the use of CRISPR for purely therapeutic purposes, such as treating symptoms, and its use for “genetic improvement” or the selection of embryos that are much more advanced or genetically perfect. This is also added to the fact that genetic editing in embryos for reproductive purposes is currently prohibited in most countries. Images | Sangharsh Lohakare In Xataka | The surprising thing is not that we have sequenced the DNA of a Neanderthal from 11,000 years ago: it is what it has revealed

Science has managed to turn off the extra chromosome of Down syndrome. It has also opened the great ethical debate on gene editing

April 18, 2026 by usatoday24

Pancreatic cancer is a silent killer. A new experimental therapy has managed to “intercept” it before it attacks

March 18, 2026 by usatoday24

Pancreatic cancer is classically known as one of the most lethal and feared that exist because of how difficult it can be to treat in some cases and the high mortality rates. But this high mortality rate is not due to its aggressiveness from minute 0, but to its stealthy nature, making it when he shows his face With the first symptoms, the disease is already in a very advanced phase that makes treatment very difficult. It’s where to act. In this way, the objective of the researchers is precisely to try to advance the diagnosis as much as possible, since treatment in the initial phases of the disease can give great results. And this is exactly what a new study that focuses on the ‘cancer interception’ strategy suggests. This is something that researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have focused on, who have achieved a vitally important advance in mouse models. And the fact is that, instead of focusing on attacking the already formed pancreatic tumor of considerable size, they have directed their artillery against the microscopic precursor lesions, known as PanIN. Its foundation. This is something that can be reduced to literally putting out the fire when it is still just a small spark. And as the specialized media report, by removing these microscopic lesions precancerous diseases, researchers manage to stop the advance towards the dreaded pancreatic adenocarcinoma in mice, proposing a total paradigm shift in how we could face this disease. Genetics is key. Something that has been known for a long time is that there are people who have a genetic predisposition to suffer from this disease. Specifically, in more than 90% of cases, the mutation responsible for triggering the disease is found in a gene called KRAS. A gene that for decades was considered “unapproachable” by classical pharmacology and that acted as a great shield against the disease. However, medicine is advancing in leaps and bounds, and this study uses selective inhibitors for this gene with the aim of silencing it precisely in PanIN lesions. In this way, by neutralizing the growth signals that the KRAS gene gives to tumor cells, they cannot take the step to begin to spread throughout the body, which causes the most serious symptoms. Mice today, hope for tomorrow. Logically, we must put our feet on the ground, since we are dealing with a preclinical study. That is, the therapy has proven to be a resounding success in animal models, but there is still a long way to go until this therapy can be used in a human in a hospital, since it must be seen that the effect is similar in our organisms. However, this research fits perfectly with the new medical philosophy against pancreatic cancer. As highlighted by the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) in his recent communicationsthe future undoubtedly involves knowing the personalized risk and ensuring that those people who are more likely to suffer from pancreatic cancer due to their genetics receive exhaustive screening to detect the disease in time and increase the probability of survival. Images | Bioscience Image Library In Xataka | A Spanish milestone against pancreatic cancer: we are one step closer to eradicating it but there is still a long way to go

Meta just launched managed accounts for tweens

March 12, 2026 by usatoday24

WhatsApp is part of the daily lives of millions of people and, in many homes, also part of family communication. The company itself has been presenting it for some time as a common tool to talk to parents, notify that someone has arrived home or coordinate day-to-day activities. However, The platform establishes that its use is intended for people over 13 years of age.. Now Meta has decided introduce a new modality designed precisely for that terrain. The novelty. What was announced by Meta consists of introducing a new type of account within WhatsApp designed for preteens. Instead of creating a conventional profile, the minor uses an account managed by a parent or guardian that is linked to that of the adult from the moment of configuration. This allows the person responsible to monitor certain aspects of app usage, such as who can send messages, which group invitations can be accepted, or what privacy settings apply to the account. A more limited experience from the beginning. The managed account does not replicate all the usual WhatsApp functions, but rather reduces the service to the essentials. In this format, the preteen can use the application to send messages or make calls, but some of the tools that the platform has incorporated in recent years are excluded. Among them are channels, the possibility of sharing location or integration with Meta AI. The adult is in control. As we say, these managed accounts not only limit functions, they also change who makes certain decisions within the application. Once the minor’s account is linked to that of the father, mother or guardian, that person begins to manage various aspects of the use of WhatsApp. You can decide which contacts are authorized to communicate with the account, which group invitations can be accepted, and review message requests from unknown numbers. Additionally, privacy settings are protected by a parental PIN, meaning only the responsible adult can access and modify them. privacy. Although managed accounts introduce new controls for adults, WhatsApp ensures that the platform’s privacy system remains intact. Messages and calls remain protected by end-to-end encryption, so only people participating in the conversation can access their content. Step by step activation. To launch one of these managed accounts, the process begins on the child’s phone and also requires the parent or guardian’s device. WhatsApp also indicates that both devices must have the most recent version of the application and that the person managing the account must be over 18 years of age. The adult must download WhatsApp to the preteen’s phone and choose the option to create a managed account during the setup process. Download WhatsApp on the minor’s mobile Choose the option to create an account managed by a parent or guardian Register and verify the minor’s phone number Enter date of birth and confirm age Scan the QR code with the adult’s mobile phone to link the accounts Verify that the adult is of legal age Create a six-digit parental PIN to protect settings Finish setup on the child’s device The Spanish context adds another layer. In Spain, the debate about minors’ access to certain digital platforms has been ongoing for some time. At the beginning of 2026, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced the intention to ban access to social networks for minors under 16 years of age as part of a future regulation aimed at reinforcing digital protection at those ages. In this framework, platforms such as TikTok, Instagram or YouTube appear in the debate, while WhatsApp would be left out as it is considered a messaging service and not a social network. The new function seems designed to respond to a familiar use of messaging that the company itself assumes exists. Instead of ignoring it, Meta proposes a model in which this access occurs with more limits and with the direct supervision of a responsible adult. The result is a more limited version of WhatsApp, focused on basic communication and with additional controls over contacts, groups and privacy settings. In this way, the company tries to fit the use of the application by preteens within a more controlled environment. AvailabilityWhatsApp has only confirmed that these accounts will begin to roll out gradually in the coming months. That calendar leaves open an important question in regions like the European Union. In the European Region, On April 11, 2024, the company lowered the minimum age of use from 16 to 13 years to harmonize it with the rest of the world. However, the sources consulted do not yet detail how this new modality administered for minors below that threshold will be articulated in Europe or what scope it will actually have in those markets. Images | WhatsApp In Xataka | You’ve been ‘user84721’ for years. A study just showed that AI can know who you are in minutes

An Aragonese company used the brand ‘La Mafia’ for its restaurants. Italy has managed to have it annulled in Spain

March 5, 2026 by usatoday24

The restaurant chain ‘The Mafia sits at the table’ it’s news. And not because of the new features of its Italian-inspired menu or because of the opening of new stores. What has made it hit the headlines (much to its chagrin) is its brand, a business card that the Republic of Italy considers offensive and takes years starring in a complicated judicial soap opera. Now Roma has achieved a key victory that puts the brand in serious danger in Spain. The key: Can the word ‘mafia’ be used happily? What has happened? The news has advanced it the diary Expansion. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) has resolved that the name of ‘The Mafia sits at the table’a popular restaurant chain founded more than 20 years ago in Zaragozais “contrary to public order and good customs”, which is why it has endorsed the request for annulment made by the Government of Italy. The OEPM resolution is recent (February 26) and leaves little room for interpretation. In the opinion of its techniciansthe brand alludes to a real organization with activities “contrary to the ethical and moral principles” of the EU. Hence, I agree with Italy that it is questionable whether it can be registered and exploited on a commercial level. “It would offend the victims and their families,” he warns. Is it something new? Yes. And no. Italy has been maneuvering for years to force the Aragonese restaurant chain to abandon a name that it considers offensive. And nothing has gone wrong in his efforts. In 2015, he filed a complaint that led to the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) refusing to register the trademark at the community level. Years later (2018) it was marked equally important when the General Court of the EU (TGUE) endorsed the decision of the EUIPO and prevented the company from shielding its commercial name. What does that mean? That was more than a simple judicial victory. The decision The TGEU prevented the company from registering its trademark at the community level, which in practice left it unprotected. However, the TGUE’s decision had its limitations. For example, it did not prevent the Zaragoza chain from continuing to use its name in the dozens of restaurants it has throughout Spain. What changes now? The OEPM opinion goes one step (and several) further. The brand is no longer only annulled at the community level, but it is also doing so in Spain, a fundamental decision since ‘La Mafia sits at the table’ (remember) is a chain born 26 years ago right here, in Zaragoza. The Spanish organization has aligned itself with European justice and has come to the conclusion that the name is “contrary to public order” and “good customs”, which is why it has endorsed the request for annulment presented by Italy. Not only that. The transalpine country has already gone to the commercial courts of Barcelona to prevent the Aragonese company from continuing to use its name. What will happen now? “The resolution could be issued in less than a year and, if favorable, would force them to cease using the trademark,” explains to Expansion Josep Carbonell, partner of Fieldfisherthe office that has advised Italy in the procedure. Of course, the company also has margin (one month) to appeal the OEPM’s decision. In any case, its resolution of February 26 represents a setback for the future of the brand in its large market. What is the problem? The underlying question is very simple: can the word ‘mafia’ be used happily or not? Should its commercial use be banned? The company claims that it was inspired by a recipe book and appeals to the right to freedom of expression, remembering in passing that it is not unusual to find books, movies and series focused on the same topic. years ago in fact already clarified that its objective is not to offend anyone, but to generate an atmosphere similar to that of the ‘Godfather’ saga. For the authorities, however, the reading is somewhat different. In its resolution, the TGUE recalled that (at least in this case) using the term “banalizes organized crime” and even warned of the risk of “romanticizing” it. In a similar vein, the OEPM recalls that Spain is no stranger to this criminal organization and its activities, “contrary to the ethical principles” and “fundamental moral values of the EU.” In the background there is a more complex issue, such as remember Carbonell: Is using the word ‘mafia’ in an artistic work the same as elevating it to the category of a business’ trademark? Is it an isolated case? Not at all. The Italian authorities have not only focused on the Zaragoza company. In 2024, fed up with his town being associated with organized crime, the mayor of Agrigento (Sicily) issued a municipal order to prohibit the sale of tourist souvenirs related to the mafia. The underlying reason was similar: to prevent people from doing business with (and romanticizing) an organization that, beyond the veneer that Hollywood has given it, has been causing headaches for the Italian authorities for years. Images | The Mafia 1 and 2 Via | Expansion In Xataka | Sushi was a sleeping giant of the fast food industry: in the US it has already begun to eat hamburgers

South Korea has had the most catastrophic birth rate in the world for years. And now it has finally managed to grow

March 1, 2026 by usatoday24

For a few years now, talking about demographics in South Korea has made it necessary to first take out a clinex package. Despite all his attempts (and there have been not a few) the country seemed condemned to suffer an uncontrollable ‘bleed’ of birth rates and see the seams of its economy tighten. It may sound exaggerated, but it is good to remember that he said goodbye to 2024 by declaring “super aged” and that there are academics who warn that the nation is emptying (literally). With that backdrop, Seoul has started 2026 with a positive fact: wins babies. And it also does so for the second consecutive year. The big question that arises now is… Are we facing a change in trend or just a mirage? The figure: 254,457. It is provisional data (the definitio will not arrive until the summer), but even so it has arrived like manna in a country accustomed to every piece of news about demographics involving a national drama. Last year South Korea registered 254,457 birthsa good balance no matter where you look at it. To begin with because it means 6.8% more that in 2024 and leaves the largest percentage increase since 2007; but those are only two of the possible readings. More babies per woman. Another interesting reading is the one that tells us about the “fertility rate”, the average number of babies that (at a statistical level) a woman is expected to have throughout her reproductive life. A few years ago that indicator plummeted to 0.72very far from the “replacement rate” (2.1 children per woman) that allows societies to remain stable. The data is still below that red line, but at least it has grown: in 2025 it passed from 0.75 to 0.8. Not only that. Reuters remember that the South Korean Government had optimistic estimates that suggested that this rate would grow to 0.75 in 2025 and 0.8 in 2026, which appears to be recovering positions faster than expected. In Seoul the trend is even more pronounced. There the indicator rose 8.9%, going from 0.53 to 0.63. The data is still very poor and they are far away to solve the problem that Korea has, but they suggest a change of cycle. Breaking the bad streak. That the birth rate is increasing in South Korea is news, but it is even more so if (as is the case) that growth is maintained for two years. In 2024 the country has already registered a positive fact (breaking up with eight exercises of consecutive falls) that now invites us to think about whether it has really found the right way to encourage its young people to have more offspring. Of course, the country has invested time, efforts and especially economic resources in that objective, in which it is played from the social sustainability and the march of his industry to issues as relevant as national defense. More weddings, more babies. 2025 has not only been a good year in maternity hospitals. It has also been for the wedding planners. Marriages increased by 8.1% in 2025, reinforcing the 14.8% rebound already recorded in 2024. This is good news because, in a conservative society like South Korea (the percentage of births outside of marriage It’s surprisingly low.), weddings are often considered an early indicator of a rebound in birth rates. Trend or mirage? That’s the million dollar question. That South Korea has been trying to activate its birth rate for years is undeniable, as is the fact that it has invested large resources in this effort and that they have been involved in the effort since the public institutions to the business world. However, there are other factors at play that suggest that the recent growth in the South Korean birth rate could be more circumstantial than structural. That is to say, in reality we would be facing a kind of demographic ‘mirage’. The hangover of the pandemic. When explaining the phenomenon, there are those who point to the influence of the pandemic. Not so much in the birth rate itself as in marriages. It is true that more South Koreans are getting tired and that this indicator will probably influence the birth rate in the coming years, but it is also true that many couples had to postpone their plans during the pandemic. “The number of marriages has increased for 21 consecutive months, from April 2024 to December last year, as couples who had delayed their marriages due to COVID-19 have tied the knot,” recognize Park Hyun-jung, director of the government office that analyzes population trends. He himself admits that today it is very difficult to establish a clear “correlation” between government policies and improved birth rates. A demographic with ‘echo’. There are those who point out, however, another factor that would be directly influencing South Korean demographics: history. The explanation I broke it down Rapahel Rashid recently in Guardian and provides an alternative theory. More babies have been born in the South Korea of 2024 or 2025 simply because the same thing already happened in the Korea of 30 years ago. To be more precise, more or less during the first half of the 1990s (1991-1995) there was a peak of around 3.6 million of babies who today enter their thirties and begin to become parents themselves. Reviewing history. We explain ourselves. Paradoxical as it may be, in the 1950s and 1960s Korea had a very different problem than today: a very high fertility rate which led authorities to launch family planning programs. The objective: guarantee the country’s recovery after the war. The message that was launched was very simple: have fewer children (two, one) and guarantee them a better life. It worked so well that by the early 1980s the fertility rate had fallen below the replacement margin and Seoul decided change course. By doing so, it favored the rebound that would now be heating up the birth rate. According to that theory, what we see today is actually a … Read more

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