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A cloud hundreds of kilometers away can ruin this summer’s eclipse and we are already beginning to know what the weather will be like in each place.

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As the time approaches see the solar eclipse on August 12 2026, many of us are asking the same question: Will the weather be good? This is a relevant question whenever we are going to observe one of these astronomical phenomena. Nobody wants rain to ruin their show. However, specifically, it is even more important to look at the sky, since the Moon will obscure the Sun very close to sunset, so clouds can be especially treacherous. Today, we cannot know for sure what will happen. Weather predictions are more accurate the closer the date gets. To be considered reliable, they must be done about 3 days in advance. However, the first trend maps for the week of the eclipse are already beginning to appear. They are relatively optimistic, although they do not paint an ideal scenario either. Drier days than normal. In general, the forecasts they point because the days will be drier than normal for these dates in Extremadura, northern Andalusia and eastern Castilla y La Mancha. At these points the solar eclipse will not be seen in its entirety, but a good part of the Sun will be covered and the spectacle will be worth enjoying. On the other hand, there is a small area with less luck, since more rain than normal is expected at this time. These are the rest of Castilla la Mancha and south-central Aragon. Here we do find some points of the strip of totality. Dry does not mean cloudless. Just because rain is not expected does not mean that the skies will be completely clear or without haze. We cannot predict the haze so far in advance and neither can the clouds. Yes, we know that in inland places like Burgos, Soria either Teruelthe weather in August usually favors clear skies, although there may be afternoon storms that ruin the sunset. In the north, for its part, we will have to pay attention to the Atlantic cloudiness. And what about the heat? The first trend maps indicate that the day of the eclipse will be warmer than normal in practically all of Spain. Surprise for no one, with the summer we have. For this reason, much emphasis is being placed on wearing a hat and cool clothing, as well as carrying bottles of water to avoid the effects of the heat. During the exact moment of the eclipse, temperatures drop for obvious reasons, but it is normal to go to the site well before, so the heat can be a problem if we do not take precautions. The problem of the sunset. At the time the eclipse will take place, the Sun will be very close to the horizon. At that point, it happens that the light has to go a longer way through the atmosphere to reach us. The atmosphere dims sunlight. Therefore, as it travels through more of the atmosphere, the light arrives very weak. If we add to that a few clouds in the west, the eclipse could be ruined. Furthermore, there is the problem that, with the Sun this low, Even clouds hundreds of miles away can be annoyingagain because light must travel a very long path to reach us. Anyway, we will have to be patient. When the date gets much closer, we will be able to know with more certainty if there will be annoying clouds. In fact, even knowing it, we can have some surprises at the last moment. There have even been cases of cloudy and stormy skies that They have opened for a few seconds during the eclipse by pure luck. Even with late-breaking clouds, the solar eclipse should not be considered lost. Image | Magnific/Wikimedia Commons In Xataka | A third of Spain will be completely dark for a minute or two. The astronomical event of the century is approaching

The lynx in Spain is growing at such a speed that it has appeared in an unexpected place: Euskadi

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An Alava rancher checked his photo-trapping camera last December. He was looking for genets, badgers or wild cats on the plot he has in Campezo. And he found biological gold. The unmistakable brushed ears and sideburns make it clear: the video in question It shows for a few seconds the presence of a lynx in the middle of the night. A tourist from the south. The Hontza Natura Elkartea association spread the image and the environmentalist offices raised their eyebrows: something like this had not happened in more than a hundred years. The boreal lynx inhabited the Aitzkorri-Aratz mountain ranges, the Gorbea massif or Valdegovía at the beginning of the twentieth century. But this is different, it is a Lynx pardinuspure and simple Iberian lynx. The same one that is being tried to reintroduce in the Valencian Community. And he wears a radio transmitter collar. Apparently, it comes directly from the south of the Iberian Peninsula, crossing half of Spain without a train ticket – it is not in vain that they can travel up to twenty-five kilometers a day. Hence, this presence in Álava marks a brutal biological milestone… and opens a crack in the debate on the recovery of wild fauna. Avoiding extinction. It was close and literally. There were less than one hundred copies left at the beginning of the 2000s and today they exceed 2,700. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO) he stuck out his chest before Europe with their official censuses, consisting of specimens in Zaragoza, Palencia or Cuenca. The WWF Spain celebrated also the success of the Iberlince program. The specimens released in Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura have managed to settle. And the natural expansion towards Aragon or the northern plateau demonstrates feline adaptability. However, this Disney story with a happy ending should also be read from rural sociology. Because this feline depends almost exclusively on the wild rabbit. 90% of your diet. Diseases, such as myxomatosis or viral hemorrhagic fever decimated its population. 212 died from accidents. And, when hunger strikes, the animal will seek new territories. That’s where the real problem begins. At some point, people will target the lynx. Beautiful and problematic. PACMA warned of the risk. Animal activists denounce deaths due to vehicles being run over and demand urgent and effective wildlife crossings. Ecologists in Action pointed out another enemy: illegal and poaching. Snares, poison and shooting kill dozens of cats a year. Artemisan Foundation, voice of the hunting sector, defended another position: that hunters have absolute control over predation in their reserves. When rabbits are scarce, lynx compete directly with shotguns. The school story has clothed the lynx with sympathy. He enjoys good press, with that amber look that is touching. Let’s take as an example the hatred suffered by the wolf or the brown bear. The demonstrations by ranchers against the wolf have paralyzed roads in Cantabria—although the story changes little by little–. The bear, in the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian mountain range, falls even worse. After all, the lynx weighs less than fifteen kilos, is elusive and rarely attacks larger livestock or calves, settling for partridges, rabbits and, if lucky, some absent-minded chicken. A close precedent. The wild boar is the best example in Spain. A couple of decades ago, seeing a wild boar brightened the day of a Sunday hiker. Today they affect crops on the plateau and cause fatal accidents on secondary roads, becoming an urban drama. The Generalitat of Catalonia declared constant hunting emergencies due to overpopulation. So the animal went from being a majestic pig to an official and destructive pest. Raids have been carried out for five years. Germany underwent an identical metamorphosis with the gray wolf. Politicians celebrated its return as an unprecedented ecological triumph and Berlin urbanites designed welcoming campaigns, until the shepherds of Lower Saxony suffered the direct consequences. German Green and Conservative Parties Now Openly Debating Lethal Hunting Quotas. Canada saw how the populations of pumas and black bears They multiplied near high-income residential areas, where cities like Vancouver or Banff celebrate their mystical connection with nature, until they began attacking pets, scaring children in public parks and sneaking into gardens. The shadow of the Iberian lynx. Seeing how it is expanding, with Álava as the tip of the spear, the question is whether beyond the Gorbea massif they will begin to sneak into private farms with greater frequency, whether they will hunt poultry and attack small rabbit farms. Hontza Natura Elkartea documented the discovery but Euskadi lacks an official reintroduction plan for this species. And we want wild and vibrant nature, yes, but away from our garage, without personal risks. Image | Flickr (Gerardo González Fernández) In Xataka | Wolf hunting throughout Spain depended on a red button that changes its status. And Europe has decided to press it In Xataka | We have managed to make the dire wolves return after 10,000 years of being extinct. The problem is that “come back” may not be the right word.

the brand that became big promising not to be like the others and ended up without its own place

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I started with OnePlus back in 2018, when I decided on a OnePlus 6 which offered a very interesting technical specifications and features at a price that would be unsustainable today. Today my mother has that same phone, and the device continues to work like a charm. At that time, the company was beginning to change its strategy, since selling the idea of flagship killer It was starting to be a problem. When OnePlus He started his career back in 2014.sold the promise of offering high-end mobile phones at a price that should not exist. That promise made it one of the most beloved brands of recent Android. That same promise, broken little by little over the last decade, is also a good part of the reason why this week the company announced his definitive departure from the United States and Europetwo of its most important and also most competitive markets. Withdrawal from the United States and Europe This same Monday, the German media WinFuture published that OnePlus and its parent, Oppo, were preparing an announcement of “fundamental strategy changes” for this week. This big announcement, now officially confirmed by OnePlussuppose the withdrawal of the brand from the United States and Europe. Just like collect 9to5Google, the brand has had “years of setbacks and abandonment” that foreshadowed this outcome. The plan is that There will be no more launches of OnePlus phones, tablets or wearables in Europe or the United States; The remaining stock will be liquidated in the coming weeks and months; and devices already sold will maintain updates and technical support until the end of their life cycle. India and China are left out of the announcement, although Notebookcheck point that there the brand “will be practically irrelevant” as an independent firm, converted into an economic range within the Oppo catalog. From the impossible promise to the giant that absorbed it To understand how we got here, it is worth going back to 2014. OnePlus was born as a small, almost cult-like company, with a very simple idea: to offer high-end specifications at a price well below that of Samsung or Apple. The first model, the OnePlus Onewas sold by invitation only and arrived loaded with CyanogenModa version of Android highly valued among the most enthusiastic users. This is how the “flagship killer” label was born. that would accompany the brand for years. OnePlus One The turning point came in 2021, when OnePlus stopped operating as an independent company and became integrated into Oppowhich is part of the Chinese conglomerate BBK Electronics (the same group to which Realme, Vivo or iQOO belong). Months earlier, in October 2020, Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus, had already left the company to found Nothing. Neither Pei nor OnePlus ever officially explained the reason for this departure, although Pei himself did speak later, in different interviews, that he felt that their room for radical innovation was reduced as OnePlus became an increasingly larger and more structured organization. Since then, OnePlus has been losing its own margin of decision within the group. Its prices rose, its software design became more and more similar to Oppo’s, and the differences that once made it unique began to fade. 2026 was already warning This year has been, in retrospect, the chronicle of an end foretold. In January, some first reports without clear sources They talked about a dismantling of the brand. OnePlus publicly denied it and many users breathed a sigh of relief. In March we knew about after a leak that the global withdrawal could come as soon as April. In April, OnePlus itself acknowledged that it was “evaluating its roadmap” in Europe, while cutting staff in the region, with losses concentrated in the communications, marketing and sales departments. From there, the pieces began to fit together faster. A rumor circulated a merger with Realme and that OxygenOS, OnePlus’ own operating system, would disappear to be integrated into ColorOS, Oppo’s software. Now, the disappearance of OxygenOS is already confirmedtowith all future devices moving to use the matrix system. In addition, OnePlus websites in several European countries, including Spain, France and Germany, began to redirect buyers to the Oppo store in some sections. From Lowyat.NET they add one more layer to the story. And according to the medium, the global RAM price crisis and storage would have hit a brand like OnePlus especially hard, which competes in the high-end without manufacturing its own chips or having the purchasing volume of Samsung or Apple to negotiate better conditions. Added to all this is the drop in sales as another determining factor behind the decision. A brand that stopped meaning something The launch of OnePlus 15 We especially liked it in this house, and today we continue to think that it is one of the best devices we can purchase. However, Oppo’s footprint has been growing to its maximum expression in this terminalboth in software and user experience. And Oppo has been conquering that ‘essence’ that has hooked the most diehard users to the brand for a long time. From TechStory they comment BBK Electronics has been rationalizing the number of brands it maintains for some time in markets where margins are narrow and each firm requires its own distribution, marketing and guarantee network. Maintaining several brands (Oppo, OnePlus, Realme) selling, in practice, variations of the same hardware stops making sense when only one can cover the same market. In fact, Slashdot and other media they point that brands like Redmi and iQOO, or Poco on Xiaomi’s part, could face similar decisions in the future, although it is still not clear which of them would be next. And what about the clients? For the millions of users who already have a OnePlus, the good news is that They will not be left without support from one day to the next. And in this sense, current devices will continue to receive software updates and technical support until their expected life cycle is exhausted, which in the case of the … Read more

Mass tourism has found a new vein in the most unexpected place, the favelas

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When you think of Rio de Janeiro, one of the first images that comes to mind is Christ the Redeemer, the 30-meter-high statue that stands at the top of Corcovado Hill. For some time now, however, there has been another Rio icon. much more visited by foreign tourists: Vidigal and Rocinhatwo areas of the city known for their favelas. Between them there are tens of thousands of visitors. Nothing surprising if we take into account that the favelas are increasingly present in the itinerary with which tourists arrive in Brazil. There they look for authenticity… and good selfies. Touring the favelas? Exact. The history of the Rio favelas is ancient. It usually dates back to late 19th centurywith the closing of the settlement of Providenceand since then the word has been linked to a series of ideas: substandard housing, poverty, crime. Nothing that a priori one wants to experience during an idyllic vacation in a beach destination and postcard landscapes. Over time however that has changed. As international tourism grows in Brazil More people look to Rio’s favelas in search of something difficult to find in the most ‘touristized’ places: authenticity. This has made it no longer strange to meet tours, guides and groups of foreigners in some settlements. Even new ones emerge viral trendslike climbing to the top of a rooftop in Rocinha to record a video with help from a drone. Are there figures to prove it? Yes. He Carioca Tourism Yearbook 2024a report that collects trends in the sector in the Brazilian metropolis, shows that that year there were areas known for their favelas that made it into the TOP 20 of the most visited icons in Rio de Janeiro. Not only that. They even surpassed other symbols, such as Christ the Redeemer wave Selarón Staircasetwo of the places that have spent decades starring in Rio’s tourist postcards. To be more precise, in 2024 the Municipal Tourism Secretariat registered 81,600 visitors foreigners in Vidigal and 45,600 in Rocinha. It is far from the 925,400 of Copacabana beach or 554,400 of Ipanema, but it still stands out among the busiest in the region. If we add the flow of tourists arriving from other parts of Brazil itself. That balance shoots up considerably. And in recent years? Interest in favelas does not seem to have waned. For reference, last January (high season in Rio de Janeiro) Rocinha received 41,852 visitors37% more than last year. Around those same dates Or Globeone of the most influential newspapers in Brazil, published a chronicle in which he confirmed the rise of favela tourism and the challenges that this entails. The growing ‘pull’ of the favelas can also be followed through the international press. In recent months the average reach of Associated Press (AP), D.W., Guardian either the BBC network have dedicated articles to the phenomenon, delving into the challenges, opportunities and moral dilemmas it generates. As a background, a fact that they stick out their chest the Rio authorities: in 2025 Rio received some 12.5 million of visitors, significantly above the 11.4 in 2024. Of them, 2.1 million came from other countries. They may represent a small proportion, but in just one year their influx shot up almost 45%. How do you explain your success? That there are more and more tourists who include favelas in their Rio tours is no coincidence. There are several factors that explain it. The first is that the authorities have done an effort to ‘pacify’ themsomething that dates back to the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. Over the years, a network of services, local businesses and guides has also been created that make the experience much more accessible for foreigners. The clearest example is the Na Favelaan app created precisely to facilitate the organization and management of activities with guides. Those responsible offer “authentic experiences” that, they say, boost the local economy. Does it generate wealth? There are testimonies that suggest this. A few months ago AP interviewed to Vitor, a local guide who works with visitors who are curious about the settlements. He previously worked as a taxi driver in Rocinha, but upon noticing that foreign visitors were increasing, he began offering tours and now basically lives off of tourists. In another interview He recognized that, after a life marked by drugs and violence, tourism offered him an opportunity. “I never imagined it. I didn’t finish school or manage to learn another language.” “If you come to Rio and only visit Copacabana Beach, the statue of Christ the Redeemer and the Sugarloaf Mountain, you are not really visiting Rio. You are visiting a luxurious and expensive part of Rio,” claims. “The essence comes from the favelas.” He is not the only one who slips that message. In May the BBC chatted with an expert in tourism that assures that the violence in the favelas of the South Zone has subsided, something that it attributes in part to the sector. He also assures that, although the area may pose a risk to residents, the cartels do not target tourists. @thefavelaunitedtour When global icons choose authenticity 🇧🇷✨ An unforgettable day showing the real Rio to Rosalía. Culture, stories, people and soul — this is not just a tour, it’s a life experience. Book your tour and discover the real Brazil with us. #RealRio #FavelaExperience #CulturalTour ♬ Cycle Syncing Frequency – Still Haven Is it all good news? No. Although it is no longer strange to meet foreign tourists in certain areas of some favelas, the reality is that they are still not the safest destinations in Brazil. It became clear only a few weeks ago, when dozens of visitors They were trapped in a viewpoint during a police operation against drug traffickers. Months before, in April, more than 200 tourists They had also been stranded for several hours in Morro Dois Irmãos in a similar episode. An operation against drug trafficking caught them in the middle of their tour. The touristification of favelas not … Read more

Artists are starting to ask their fans not to poop at concerts, even if they lose their place

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Olivia Rodrigo has confessed that she recognizes her most devoted fans by smell. They are the ones who poop in the front rows, unable to stop looking at it even for a moment. Behind the eschatological joke there is a somewhat more controversial fact (if possible): the front row at concerts is currently so expensive that many fans are not willing to lose their place for a squeeze. The fans have greater strengths. At KISS Breakfastthe morning show on the British station KISS FM, the hosts asked Olivia Rodrigo about the most uncomfortable place she had ever had to go to the bathroom. The singer redirected the answer: has been to concerts and festivals where people wear diapers to stand in the front row, not move and do their business on siteand he noticed that closeness firsthand. “I’ve smelled it,” he said. It’s not the first. Other artists that make you want to. The first time he noticed the problem was at his concert in Hyde Park in June 2025: it is a venue that prohibits leaving and re-entering once the entrance has been scanned. There he read a fan’s poster announcing that I wore diapers to last in the front row. She is not the first artist: years before, in 2023, during Taylor Swift’s Eras Toura wave of fans was detected showing off their diapers so as not to miss a single minute of the more than three-hour repertoire. ‘Glossy’ magazine documented how content creators taught how to put them under their dresses and recommended the most discreet diaper brands. Part of the problem. The question is funny, but there is an aspect of this story that is not so funny. Rodrigo kicks off The Unraveled Tour in Hartford (Connecticut) next September, a tour of 86 dates around the world. Prices already confirmed by Ticketmaster range from $83.40 to $799.50. General court access is around $250 and VIP early entry packages to the pit will be between $540 and $554. With these amounts, it is normal that if a fan is willing to wait up to ten hours in line to get a good spot, they are also more than willing to piss themselves. The image of the hysterical fans who can’t hold their pee is replaced by a sadder one: the design of the venue penalizes going to the bathroom, and the fans have to manage as best they can. We can discuss whether there are artists who really deserve all this ordeal, but the point is that live prices are not going to go down, and as we have seen in phenomena like Bad Bunnyconcerts are the new place where you have to be. With or without diapers. They all smell. Rodrigo is not the only one who has suffered from the issue in recent weeks. At a concert by folk singer-songwriter Noah Kahan in Philadelphia on June 26, someone didn’t even put on a diaper: defecated directly next to the seats. Kahan approached him the next day at Days later, in Toronto, he had the public recite an oath: upon entering the premises you sign a social contract by which you should not do belly on the floor. The size of the artist (and the age of the audience) who goes to see Rodrigo or Taylor Swift and who goes to see Kahan is different, so perhaps the proximity in time of this eschatological drift of the concerts may be coincidental. But of course, it articulates a story about how concerts have become luxurious and very expensive prisons that restrict us from the most basic needs. Of course, it opens the door to highly expressive means of claiming for crowding and delays. Header | NRK P3 In Xataka | In 1966, a professor traveled to Cartagena to meet John Lennon. And thanks to him Spain began to learn English

I wanted to know the closest place to go see the eclipse. So I programmed an AI app to look for it

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Next August 12 I will be in Madrid, and that is a problem. And it is because Madrid will not be the optimal place to see the astronomical event of the century: the solar eclipse that that day will have millions of people watching the sky around 8:30 p.m. My idea is to go see it with my family in a location where it can be seen in its entirety for as long as possible, but I would also like not to go too far. There is tools such as those of the National Geographic Institute They tell us what the eclipse will look like in each location, but I didn’t want to know that, but rather where to go to see it taking into account distance and travel time. There may be tools that do something like this that I haven’t found, but yesterday, when thinking about the idea, I realized that I could actually try to make my own tool. AI models and platforms such as Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, or OpenCode have already shown that almost anyone can turn an idea into an app, and as you know I was already amazed by the possibilities. Why not try it? That’s just what I did. Try it. I told it yesterday on my personal blogand I also wanted to share the experience here. The first thing was to find out if something like this was feasible. There are several ways to solve that, but I tend to go with the “Deep Investigation” modes offered by current models. I wanted to try ChatGPT in its free version, which offers this possibility, and I made my proposal to him to find out if it was possible. After eight minutes going through sources on the internet, he presented me with a really complete “executive summary” in which he confirmed, among other things, that there was a good set of data sources that I could use for the application: the IGN and the National Observatory, for example, have public resources with a CC-BY license, there are astronomical APIs such as OPALE (IMCCE) either USNO/APODwhile for routes to destination it suggested OSRMa fantastic and open platform for this type of function. GLM-5.2 program like angels With that information under my power, I began development with the AI ​​platforms and models that I have been using lately. This was also a perfect opportunity to test how it behaved the GLM-5.2 model from Z.ai. I have been subscribed to the platform for a few months—I took advantage of an offer at the end of last year—and now that they have launched this model I have been testing it with small experiments. The performance seemed fantastic and certainly close to what the Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-5.5 offer, so This was a fantastic opportunity to see how GLM-5.2 solved the problem.. What I did was create a directory on my Mac mini M4 (original name, “eclipse”), go into it and launch Claude Code preselecting the model I intended to use (claude –model glm-5.2). Once the AI ​​agent was started for scheduling, I explained my conversation with ChatGPT, copied the executive summary, and gave him some more guidelines to start planning everything. The conversation about the development of the project was long and GLM-5.2 ended up compacting it, but I asked him to show me a summary of that original plan. This was the idea. GLM-5.2 is a model that “thinks” quite a bit, and I like that it does: it makes the responses much more precise and complete in my experience, so even that first plan took a few minutes to get ready. When he presented it I thought everything was fantastic. I reviewed it, but I’m not a developer, so I simply relied on GLM-5.2 when choosing technical options for the entire project and looked more at the requirements and objectives that the plan established. I didn’t capture that part of the conversation and since I ended up “conversing” quite a bit later, Claude Code and GLM-5.2 compacted the conversation to avoid excessive token consumption. Even so, I have now asked him to show me what he had saved in that compaction, and that screenshot above shows a little what the idea for the development was. Everything seemed perfect, I insist, so I told Claude Code / GLM-5.2 to get going. And boy did he do it: spent 42 minutes creating and editing files without me having to intervene at all. When he finished (again, I didn’t take a screenshot of the terminal) he showed me a summary of what he had done, and told me how I could test the project. A few small commands in a separate terminal window to launch the web application and voila: I could now see the project in my browser. The first look left me stunned: the thing was promising. This is what I saw when I first opened the project in my browser. Some mistakes, yes, but nothing bad. I found the interface spectacular, but after a few seconds I began to detect errors. The “Distance” shown in the “Journey” part was unrealistic, and the locations chosen from Madrid were much further away than I had assumed. For some reason I had made some incorrect decisions when choosing these locations, so I started “chatting” with GLM-5.2 in Claude Code to correct everything. That process was entertaining and trivial: I told him what was wrong (“you are showing very distant destinations, a good option for example from Madrid is Lerma and you don’t show it”), and from there GLM-5.2 thought and thought to make its modifications. He presented them to me, I reviewed them and started again. After three or four attempts and another half hour of tests, things were already very clear. The recommendations from Madrid were great, and I considered several options in which I prioritized time to arrive (highway/highway) over distance, and of course, time of totality of the eclipse: the closer you get … Read more

2,000 years ago they wanted to build a temple to the goddess Minerva in Cuenca. They ended up doing it in the most unlikely place

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In a quarry one expects to basically find workers, machinery and stacked blocks. It is like this today and it was probably like this (with obvious differences) in times of the Roman Empire, when the stonemasons of Hispania dug in the mountains and caves of the peninsula in search of deposits. In a quarry exploited between the 1st and 4th centuries AD in Cuenca, archaeologists have however found Anything else: a temple of 2,000 years dedicated to Minerva. From a simple quarry to a temple. What has happened? that archaeologists have found a fascinating find in Carrascosa del Campo, in the municipality of Campos del Paraíso (Cuenca): a temple dedicated to the goddess Minerva. The discovery is interesting because of the value of the carving itself, but what makes it really special is its context. The aedicula It was not erected in the center of a city, the courtyard of a wealthy villa or on the walls of a sanctuary. The votive piece was carved into the rock of a quarry. Its creators carved it in front of the site, a place where it was surely easier to meet stonemasons than priests. What is the sanctuary like? The temple is located in a place known as Peña de la Saceda and experts estimate that it was carved between mid-2nd century and early 3rd century AD The complex is made up of pilasters, capitals, a triangular pediment and a carved entablature, which imitates a small sanctuary. Although the representation of the goddess Minerva has been greatly deteriorated over the centuries, experts have identified her traditional attributes (helmet, spear and peplum) and an owl, an icon used as a symbol of the goddess. Do we know anything else? “There is barely a glimpse of the goddess Minerva. What can be clearly seen is an owl, which is the totemic bird that represents Minera,” explains in the SER Juan Carlos Guisado di Monti, one of the archaeologists who signed the article from the magazine Mantva in which the discovery was revealed. The relief is accompanied by a brief inscription at the bottom of the aedicula, in which can be read: “Minervae dominae Ploti vs cun svo comitato”, that is to say: “To Minerva Domina, (dedicated) Plotius Vigor with his retinue.” And where did they find it? That’s the key. The temple, 0.7 m wide by 0.5 m high, was conceived as “a small facade carved directly into one of the stone fronts of the quarry.” Its authors carved the complex out of sandstone rock, and they did so in the quarry itself, not in a remote space. This is not a minor detail, since it tells us about a connection between the profane and the sacred, how a quarry, an a priori functional space focused on work, could also acquire a sacred meaning with a sanctuary dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, arts, strategy and craftsmanship. Is it something unique? “There are other temples dedicated to gods in other quarries, but in Spain until now none dedicated to Minerva had been discovered. This is the most important and surprising discovery, because it suggests that the quarry workers made their ‘votes’ to the goddess, for the work they were doing,” details in elDiario Dionisio Urbina, who has directed the excavations at the Roman site for more than a decade. Equally relevant is the brief inscription located at the bottom of the temple and which includes the formula “cum suo comitato”which suggests to archaeologists that the offering was not individual, but rather came from a group. What were the quarries? The temple was located just 15 km from Segóbrigaan important deposit that includes a theater inaugurated in the time of Emperor Vespasian, in the 1st century AD. As the authors of the study recall, the area was also known for the mines of lapis specularisa selenite gypsum stone highly appreciated in Rome for the manufacture of windows and whose exploitation generated wealth in the region. Now the temple discovered in Carrascosa del Campo reveals something else to us: the veneration of Minerva. “The rock sanctuary of Minerva constitutes a find of special value. The old quarry, transformed into a place of devotion, shows how the Roman religion was not only expressed in the large urban or peri-urban sanctuaries, but also in rural and productive enclaves where the community, the workers or their promoters sought protection and left both their veneration of the goddess and the memory of their vow inscribed in the rock,” they conclude the researchers. The discovery, yes, has come accompanied by some controversy. After the news circulated in recent days in general media, the director of the Cerro de la Muela excavation recalled that the work is still “in progress” and regretted what he considers an “unauthorized dissemination” of the results. Images | Government of Castilla-La Mancha and Wikipedia In Xataka | In 1778 Mozart attempted to teach composition to a French noblewoman. It didn’t go well at all, but thanks to her we now have unpublished works

For decades we climbed this New York skyscraper without knowing that the screws that held it in place could not hold.

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The situation was more or less like this. For two decades, hundreds of thousands of people entered and left the doors of one of the largest skyscraper in New York City. These people, many of them workers, went up and down in the elevator completely unaware of the critical failure that the building had, terrifying in architectural terms, and that no one took into account. Rarely in the history of urban planning in large cities has there been a similar situation. The story dates back to the beginning of the 20th centurywhen the Lutheran church of Saint Peter was located on land of 53rd Streetbetween Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue, in Midtown Manhattan. By 1960, the church community was experiencing serious financial problems, which led the city council to sell the land. The negotiations were not easy and lasted years. Mainly, because the church demanded the creation of a new building separate from the apartment block in which it could continue its activities. In the end the project was given the green light. The developer accepted the conditions, and Citi Bank commissioned Hugh Stubbins & Associates to design the skyscraper. William LeMessurier was in charge of engineering. The final project consisted of a skyscraper, a church, a public space below street level and landscaping. The most important element was, of course, the skyscraper. The plan marked 46 floors that were to be distinguished from the rest of the city by the polished and anodized aluminum of the façade. In addition, between the panels there were rows of windows. It didn’t really look complicated, at least not like the roof and base of the building. The happy roof Thus, in 1977 the skyscraper was completed. By then it had grown larger, with 59 floors and a total height of 279 meters. An architectural work that dazzled at first glance on the city skyline, a colossal tower where its 45-degree inclined top stood out. The top of the roof resembles an isosceles triangle. The original plan was to build terraces and apartments, but over time the architects decided to install huge solar panels. LeMessurier, a professor and graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, carried out a series of tests to verify their efficiency. It turned out that the energy converted by the installation was insufficient. Eventually, the idea of ​​a small solar plant was abandoned. However, nothing like the base on which the building stood. Some “stilts,” as LeMessurier himself described, among which the then seventh largest skyscraper on the planet seemed to float. We are referring, of course, to those four gigantic pillars (34 meters each) that are located in the center of each side (rather than in the corners) of the base. It also had a single column in the center, in this case narrower, which housed the building’s elevator banks and provided additional strength to the frames. This design made room for the church under the northwest corner of the building, and gave the giant structure a brutal effectalmost as if he were levitating. In fact, it was exceptionally “light”, of only 25,000 tons (for reference, the Empire State Building was 60,000). The famous pillars The base became an architectural icon, as it made the space in the corners empty. LeMessurier had the weight of the skyscraper distributed to the exterior skeleton. Specifically, in a grid of triangular-shaped frames hidden under the façade. Interestingly, this structure was visible from the inside. The elements were not completely welded, but only fixed with bolted joints. Apparently, the steel frame designed in this way was intended to withstand perpendicular winds. According to the engineers, other types of wind should not pose a threat. Furthermore, municipal regulations did not require other air gusts to be taken into account in the design. The truth is that the architecture hid an important mechanism on the upper floors. The Citigroup Center had one of the first tuned mass dampers (TDM). It is a 360-ton concrete sphere embedded in oil. When vibrations from the ground or wind moved the building, the mechanism would oscillate in the opposite direction to the tilt of the building. The problems begin This swing was in turn balanced by hydraulic arms that support the sphere. With this solution, the skyscraper was able to “maintain balance.” As LeMessurier explained at the time, this piece was key, since its function was to cut the sway of the building in half by converting the kinetic energy of sway into friction. Once completed, the building was praised, but also the first doubts arrived. New York is not a major hurricane state, but it does have them from time to time. What would happen if, once every 50 years, the winds blew over 100 km/h? These winds can blow from different directions. The Citigroup Center opened in 1977 under the name Citicorp Center (which changed to Citigroup Center in 1998 following the merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group). But only a year after its inauguration it became clear that it could have a very serious defect structural. A year later, LeMessurier receives the call that no architect expects in life. It was Diane Hartleyan architecture student at the prestigious Princeton University who had studied the construction of the skyscraper for her thesis. The first of the calls was to ask him several technical questions about the design. Hartley’s professor had expressed doubts to him regarding the strength of a tilted skyscraper where the supporting columns were not at the corners. Hartley did some calculations of the building’s wind load. He then compared them with LeMessurier’s calculations and discovered that the construction engineers’ figures were incorrect. The student asked to be sent exact load calculations for different types of wind. Only received data related to perpendicular winds and guarantees on the solidity of the structure. What’s more, LeMessurier told him that the professor had no idea and that everything was in order. The geometry of the building’s frame worked perfectly with the pillars in such positions, … Read more

The US had a ship with 2,000 marines ready to invade Iran. Now he has sent it right to the place where China worries the most

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An image that is still studied in military academies occurred in 1942, when during the call Battle of Midway The Americans managed to sink four Japanese aircraft carriers in just a few hours. That battle showed that, in the Pacific, moving a handful of ships to the right place could upset the strategic balance of an entire region, a lesson that continues to influence American naval planning more than eight decades later. A movement and what it reveals. For weeks there was speculation that the United States would expand its confrontation with Iran through more aggressive operations on the ground in the Persian Gulf. However, one of the most significant military moves has occurred far from the Middle East. He USS Boxeran amphibious assault ship capable of landing troops, vehicles and combat aircraft has abandoned any potential role in a ground operation against Iran and has set course to the South China Sea. On board is the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, some 2,000 troops specialized in rapid interventions and amphibious assaults. The decision suggests that Washington considers that the main strategic challenge today is not in Tehran, but in the growing rivalry with China. From the Gulf to the China Sea. When the Boxer left San Diego In March, in the midst of the crisis with Iran, many interpreted its deployment as a way to keep open the option of carrying out limited landings or capturing strategic objectives if the conflict escalated. However, after a logistics stopover in Singapore and a transit through the Andaman Sea, the ship has reappeared in the South China Sea integrated into the Indo-Pacific Command structure. It is a platform comparable in concept to the Juan Carlos I Spanish, capable of operating landing craft, amphibious vehicles, helicopters and F-35 fighters, allowing it to act as both a light aircraft carrier and a ground intervention force. What changes for Iran. The boxer exit It further reduces the chances of a US amphibious operation against Iranian targets. While the USS Tripoli continues in the region performing functions focused on air strikes and naval support, Washington seems to be betting on a strategy based on blockades, precision bombings and economic pressure, avoiding committing troops on the ground. The decision can be interpreted as a partial military de-escalation, although it also reflects a simpler reality: the United States believes it can contain Iran without deploying significant amphibious forces, while competition with China requires a constant presence and visible in Asia. The concern of Asian allies. Reuters counted that the issue was very present in the Singapore Shangri-La Dialoguewhere numerous Asian defense officials expressed doubts about whether the United States will be able to simultaneously maintain its focus on the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. Although Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth insisted in which Washington can manage both scenarios at the same time, countries such as the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Canada and New Zealand they are reinforcing their military capabilities and deepening their mutual ties to complement the American security umbrella. The goal is to build a stronger regional network in the face of growing pressure from Beijing. Japan and the new security architecture. Japan is becoming one of the pillars of that strategy. Tokyo has made more flexible historically its arms export rules and aspires to act as a connection point between the different partners in the region. The idea is that deterrence against China do not depend exclusively of the United States, but of an increasingly integrated network of countries capable of sharing equipment, training and military cooperation. This shift reflects the extent to which the perception of China’s military rise is transforming Asian security policy. The center of gravity of global competition. The arrival of the Boxer coincides with intense military activity in the Indo-Pacific. The USS George Washington aircraft carrier has started new patrols from Japan, while the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning operates in the Western Pacific under surveillance of neighboring countries. In this context, the deployment of a US amphibious force in the South China Sea has a strong symbolic and operational value. Because beyond the crisis with Iran, the Boxer’s journey summarizes an increasingly evident trend: although the Middle East continues to generate immediate conflicts, the great strategic competition that defines Washington’s priorities is being fought in Asia and, especially, in the face of the rise of China. Image | US Navy In Xataka | China has resurrected the strangest concept of the Cold War: a plane, a ship and a missile launcher in one machine In Xataka | Something is happening over the skies of Chile: the US and China are fighting their particular “cold war” in silence

Bad Bunny’s authentic party takes place in Sector T, the “stiffs” outside the Metropolitano

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600,000 tickets are a lot of tickets. They are the ones that Bad Bunny has sold out for twelve concerts in Spain. The cheapest ones are around 70 euros. The most expensive, 600. The venues are going to be full every night. And yet, hundreds of people stand on the street, spread blankets and take out refrigerators around Gate 20 of the Riyadh Air Metropolitano and listen to the concert with a clarity that rivals that inside the venue. They call themselves Sector T. The T is for “stiff.” Who are they? Bad Bunny’s second concert in Madrid On Sunday, June 1, it left in its wake, along with the inevitable celebrity counts at the Casita (which are invariably the most read news in the media that cover the concerts), an image that circulated on social networks: hundreds of people who did not get (or did not want) entry gathered spontaneously outside the stadium, specifically in the area of ​​gate 20. There the music comes with surprising clarity and you can even see part of the stands of the venue. The scene was summed up by a spectator with a phrase that accompanies many of the videos: “Sector T of stiff but happy being able to afford the 10 dates.” The expectation. Bad Bunny debuts in Madrid a residency format that he had only done before in Puerto Ricowith ten consecutive nights in the same stadium. The tour brings together more than half a million people in its ten dates at the Metropolitano, with tickets flying in a matter of hours after they went on sale. The demand was so brutal that thousands of fans were unable to attend, but the feeling has not diminished that the concert is the place in Madrid where you “have to be” right now (with permission of the Pope’s visit). That is why the T Sector phenomenon has occurred. Metropolitan FTW. The Atlético stadium was not always the first reference in terms of concert venues in Madrid. That role corresponded to the Bernabéu, whose expensive renovation was designed precisely to turn it into a continuous entertainment space, without depending on football. We already know the story: acoustic problems, complaints from neighbors, and now the developers have to take care of possible fines. Clearest consequence: the Metropolitan takes the biggest musical shows of the yearamong them Bad Bunny and his ten nights at the athletic stadium. The Metropolitano has established a contractual limitation that requires all shows to end no later than 10:59 p.m., as a measure aimed at protecting residents’ rest and bringing forward the departure of the public. The venue also states that it operates with one of the most advanced acoustic control systems in Spain, which includes real-time monitoring, limiters verified by the City Council, probes in homes in Canillejas and Las Rosas and state-of-the-art acoustic barriers. Neighborhood associations have complaintsYes, because of the chaos at the exit, with traffic jams, horns, screams and so on. Sector T, of course, is a free agent who is not subject to any of those restrictions. The future of the T Sector. Bad Bunny still has eight more dates confirmed at the Metropolitano: June 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 and 15. The makeshift sector of Gate 20 will have the opportunity to grow over the next two weeks: Sector T will grow larger as the tour progresses and images of the exterior circulate alongside those of the interior. What is not yet clear is whether the Metropolitan or the organization of the event will take any measure regarding the concentrations at the exterior entrances. For now, no one has told them to leave, so they will be there. And some will repeat. Image | NFL In Xataka | If the question is who can turn Amancio Ortega into his personal tailor, we already have an answer: Bad Bunny

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