problem

Japan has a problem with bear attacks in its cities. So they have started eating them

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If it is true that every crisis hides an opportunity, in Japan they have taken it to a new dimension. For some time now, the country of the rising sun has been dealing with a serious problem of bear attacks on humans, which has left more than a dozen victims since last spring. The authorities have been searching for some time the way to solve itbut there are those who have already found a way to benefit from it: the psychosis due to encounters with plantigrades is coming accompanied by what seems to be a growing interest in their meat. In Japan the (gastronomic) taste for these animals it’s not newbut there are hoteliers who they assure that demand is growing so much that they are unable to satisfy it. And they are clear about the reason: the news about attacks. Beware of the bears. Japan has long grappled with a serious problem birth rate, a trend that comes accompanied by the abandonment of rural areas and farmlands. That’s nothing new. Nor anything that Spain (and many other countries) has experienced firsthand. What is curious is the effect that this population decline is causing, combined with other factors, such as climate change, fluctuations in harvests and the increase in the populations of certain wild animals: an ‘epidemic’ of human bear attacks. One figure: 13 dead. With more bears prowling through the mountains, when acorns are scarce, the animals choose to approach towns and cities… with the risk that this implies. Sometimes his encounters with humans remain just that, scares, like what happened in october when a 1.4 m specimen sneaked into a supermarket in Numata. Other times the outcome is more tragic. According to the Government, between April and November 13 people died by claws and bites from these animals. To them are added 230 injured. It is the worst balance since the country began studying the phenomenon in 2006. Is the problem that serious? Yes. The figures are eloquent. And not only those of attacks, injuries and deaths. The japanese press (even the international) has been echoing the increase in sightings of bears, the increase in captured specimens and the problem that these animals are beginning to represent, which has led companies to look for ways to protect their employees and administrations to consider strategies to address the problem. Proof of how desperate the Government is is that it has approved emergency hunts and even has turned to the army. 13 deaths may not be a high number in a country of almost 123 million of inhabitants, but it is high enough to set off alarms, especially in certain regions. There are basically two species in the country: Asian black bears and brown bears, which can be found in Hokkaido and whose population has skyrocketed in the last three decades, reaching 11,500 individuals. according to The Japan Times. A delicious threat. All of the above was more or less known. In recent weeks local media such as The Mainichi, The Asashi Shimbun, NHK World Japan However, they have published articles that suggest something else: that in the midst of a wave of attacks, the Japanese seem to be rediscovering the pleasure of a good slice of grilled bear. a few days ago The Japan Times He even spoke with the owners of a restaurant located in a mountainous area of ​​Saitama who say they are having difficulty meeting the growing demand for meat. “With the increase in news about bears, the number of customers who want to eat their meat has increased,” explains to the newspaper the head of the business, Koji Suzuki. His wife confirms that they have even been forced to turn away clients. Another Sapporo restaurant presume also of the success of their “bear soup” and in Aomori there is a population that is promoting wild bear meat as a local gastronomic specialty. Those who promote the use of bear meat from the sector claim that it is a local and they insist in the usefulness of using the meat of slaughtered animals. Is it something new? Yes. And no. As Suzuki and Katsushiko Kakuta, a restaurant manager in Aomori, explain, bear meat seems to be arousing special interest among the Japanese, but for them it is not a new product. Does five years in Nishimeya (Aomori) they even opened a center to process meat from wild bears captured in the Shirakami-Sanchi mountains. And in 2023 in Akita they installed neither more nor less than a vending machine which sells 250 g of fresh meat from bears caught by hunters in the region for 2,200 yen. “Most say it’s delicious”. Kiyoshi Fujimoto, Sapporo chef, confesses that, in your opinion“now there are more people” interested in his bear meat-based recipe. What’s more, he assures that “most people who try it say it’s delicious.” The truth is that in Japan not only attacks and victims have increased. The captures of animals have also done so, which has forced the authorities to face the challenge of what to do with their corpses. Chosun remember that, although there are restaurants in the country that serve their meat, the law is restrictive on the consumption of slaughtered bears, so many end up incinerated. Images |Lucas Law (Unsplash), Adam Kolmacka (Unsplash) and Suzi Kim (Unsplash) In Xataka | A Japanese restaurant has taken its obsession with fresh fish to the extreme: it lets you catch it yourself

The last barrier against AI is good taste. The problem is that an entire generation is growing up without developing it

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The new normal in three acts: You open X and find a clearly AI-generated image trying to look legitimate. But it’s not bad, it complies. You go to LinkedIn and find a piece that reeks of ChatGPT, but you get the idea that its author wanted to convey. In GitHub You find code that works, but that no sensible programmer would write like that. You let it go. welcome to the era of “good enough”. Generative AI has made it easy, fast, and free to produce “acceptable” things, and that has moved the collective bar for quality. Not upward but towards “functional”. The worrying thing is not that AI produces mediocrity, but that it is accustoming us to accepting it. Before, if we needed an image for the article, we had to look for it or – for those who had ID – order it. There was friction or there was cost. Now we generate it in fifteen seconds (wink), and since it “serves”, it stays there (wink, wink, nudge). Even if it is generic or has that artificial veneer that we all recognize but no one talks about anymore. The problem is that when something acceptable costs nothing to produce, we stop asking ourselves if it is worth doing. We’re just wondering if it meets the minimum. AND meeting the minimum is not the same as doing something good. In development this is also very noticeable. An experienced and talented programmer instantly recognizes whether a code has been written by an AI. Even if it works (we already take that for granted), you can tell by the verbiage, because it is redundant, because it is not very elegant. It does what it has to do, but no senior He would be proud to have it bearing his signature. What is going to happen to a generation that is going to learn to program using AI from day one? If you’ve never written bad code and then understood what makes it good, how are you going to develop judgment? Good taste does not come standard. It is built by seeing many bad things, many good things, making mistakes. AI saves you that path by giving you something that works from the first try. But without going down that path, you never develop the eye to distinguish. Therein lies the risk. AI has raised the floor (anyone can produce something decent), but the ceiling is still just as high. At least for the majority. Creating something exceptional requires the same things as always: talent, effort, judgment. Only now it is buried under tons of slop and mediocre but functional content. And since creating it is free, we produce it non-stop. Human value remains in taste. Knowing how to look at something and say “okay, it’s good, but it’s not good”. But that criterion is only formed with practice. If an entire generation grows up consuming and producing what “just delivers,” how are they going to learn what is excellent? If you have never seen the difference, that difference does not exist for you. We are heading towards a world where it will be normalized that “good enough” is the only standard because we forget how to recognize when something will be done well. In Xataka | There is a generation working for free as a documentarian of their own life: they are not influencers but they act as if they were. Featured image | Xataka with Nano Banana

We have been telling ourselves for decades that we have the Internet thanks to military research. The problem is that it is false

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It is difficult to imagine that something as impressive as the Internet could be summarized just over 40 years ago in a single page. The map of germ of the internet, ARPANETtook up no more than a DIN A4 sheet of paper and reflected the less than 50 computers that at the beginning of the Internet were connected to each other. But even more curious is the story of how ARPANET was born, which may not be as you have been told. It all happened almost midnight on October 29, 1969, in a small room at the University of California (UCLA), and with a message that only said “it“. The true origin Search the Internet about its history (from the Internet itself), and you will find that the most common thing is to talk about its military origin. Technically it is correct since ARPANET was developed by the ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), an institution that depended on the US Department of Defense. But the reasons were not military even though One of the minds behind some of the ideas that helped create ARPANET, Paul Baran, worked precisely with the motivation that cold war between the US and the USSR would not end with a blockade and destruction of the communications and control structures of the US army in the event of a nuclear attack. You will indeed find many references to this idea, which results in a story that makes for an entertaining movie. hollywood but in reality it was not exactly with that motivation that ARPANET was born. In the 1960s, within ARPA there was the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), at that time focused on taking full advantage of computers within the administration. Robert Taylor, one of the fathers of the Internet, began his career as director of the IPTO in 1966, and proposed to the then director of ARPA the possibility of connecting computers together to optimize their use. With this structure of networked computers (an idea that he took from the previous works of JCR Lickliderpioneer in 1962 by proposing the possibility of interconnecting equipment with each other) the ARPA could better manage your budget for computers and not distribute efforts uselessly but concentrate them on a few but very powerful computers connected to each other which would allow resources and results to be shared between researchers and centers. “lo”, first message between computers on the network Taylor was not limited to the resource of sharing computers and results between centers as an advantage of his ARPANET. If the idea worked, the agency was ensuring that it could use more computer models of different types without the compatibility or use of terminals to access them being a nightmare, while at the same time allowing the creation of protection against failures, so that with the non-centralized network structure proposed, if one computer failed, the others could continue working. Taylor’s initial proposal consisted of a test network with four nodes that they could expand if the results proved them right. ARPANET was born. The Internet was on the way. If you are passing through California, a recommended visit is in room 3420 Boelter Hall at the University (UCLA). Do not look for it as such because after being forgotten and until its use as a common room, it was recently restored and became part of the Kleinrock Center for Internet Studies (KCIS). Much of the history and documents are concentrated there (there is no waste of original presentation of ARPANET) and equipment that allowed the first node to be established between computers. But it’s actually a fantastic tribute to Leonard Kleinrocka professor who in 1969, right from that small room at the university, sent the first message on ARPANET. It was 10:30 at night on October 29, 1969 when, from the SDS Sigma 7 computer in said room, Professor Kleinrock sent the LOGIN message to the SDS 940 computer at the Stanford Research Institute, the computer with which he was connected in a basic way. The message remained a curious “lo” since there was a transmission failureand it was not until an hour later that the initial transmission could be completed. The first connection had occurred between the first two computers within the ARPANET. Two weeks later there were 4 interconnected teams, and in two years, almost seventy. And no one could stop this revolution. In Xataka | In 1995 ‘Toy Story’ forever changed the way animated films are made. He did it with rudimentary computers In Xataka | In 1969, humans set foot on the Moon for the first time. He did it thanks to a computer less powerful than your cell phone

China is filling up with “quadricycles” that do not require a driving license. And they are a problem for road safety

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The two times I have been to China, two things about its automobile fleet have caught my attention: the furor for electric cars in terms of brands, models and dealerships, because you can almost find one on every corner of any central street in the big cities. And on the other side of the coin, I was also struck by the enormous amount of motorbikes (scooter is saying a lot) and cars without licenses parked in any side and circulating any manner. Don’t call it a light quadricycle, rather say laotoule. There they are known as “laotoule”, something like that like the joy of the old man. Because if in Spain the light quadricycles you see are usually driven by older people, in China too. They began to be seen back in the 90s from tuk-tuk modifications three wheels in rural areas, although today they have capacity for up to five people and a very diverse aesthetic. From occasional mobility to a vehicle for everything. Although the older ones are the star group, they are not the only ones: they are vehicles with very clear profiles of occasional use and short and (relatively) simple trajectories. As collects China Dailythese vehicles are the main means of transportation for running errands or picking up elderly grandchildren, but in recent years they have expanded their range to younger people: they offer a closed space and solve the problem of having to travel at a low cost. According to the China Electric Vehicle Associationannual sales of these lightweight non-highway quadricycles increased from 1.1 million in 2017 to 2.1 million in 2023, of which 1.4 million went to seniors. According to an investigation According to Banyuetan, the magazine linked to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua, these cars are flooding rural roads and urban peripheries. And its proliferation has aroused the suspicion of the authorities. The legal vacuum of laotoule. Because unlike Spain, where any motor vehicle requires a technical sheet and a license plate, in China they have been marketed as if they were devices for personal mobility, something like a scooter or an electric wheelchair. Thus, the bulk of laotoule are sold without registration or approval or the need to pass your MOT. In fact, they are increasingly sold online. like low cost imitations of luxury cars. There is even a Porsche Cayenne without a license. Because there are brands and models of Chinese electric cars to bore, in a light quadricycle version, too. In fact, There are even Maseratis and Porsche Cayenne modelsor rather, Maserati style and Porsche style, because they are not official from the respective houses. And because the Maserati costs about 3,200 euros in exchange. Is take a look at the Alibaba website and find models for all tastes, such as this Mini. Also There is a version without a license of Xiaomi’s second electric car, the ambitious Xiaomi YU7as you can see below these lines. From afar they hit the mark, up close already such. Under that attractive bodywork they hide electric motors of low or medium power and a top speed of up to 70 km/h. Tap to go to the post. The card-free version of the Xiaomi YU7 The real problem is road safety. Leaving aside industrial property issues, laotoules look like miniature cars but they are not: they lack basic elements that are found in passenger cars, such as steel frames or airbags. The Banyuetan report echoes of a fatal hit by a 59-year-old driver in a laotule in Hebei, northern China. From prohibition to regulation. Some local administrations have already made a move: since January 1, 2024, cities such as Luoyang or Beijing banned circulation on public roads to low-speed three- and four-wheel electric vehicles. However, there is a middle way: China issued a regulation of technical specifications and safety requirements for electric vehicles, finally classifying laoutoule as motor vehicles. From here and as explained by Lu Yong, researcher in the low-speed electric vehicle sector for Sixth Tone: “We must recognize the real demand for low-speed vehicles and strengthen the design at national level, both for industry development and traffic management. Clear and enforceable rules must be quickly introduced for both product and driving standards, as well as for road access.” In Xataka | China has so many electric cars running on its streets that it is going to use them to generate energy for homes In Xataka | China is the only country in the world where car prices are falling. So much so that the Government is taking measures

The “pop” Catholicism of Hakuna and Llamados is filling pavilions with thousands of young people. The problem: they seem evangelical

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Two Catholic events in Madrid in just 48 hours, making a couple of undeniable circumstances very clear. First, the Catholic faith has taken root among the youngest people speaking in their same language: with mega concerts and massive events. Second, behind this apparent en bloc following lie different trends that threaten to break up the crowded world of Spanish faith, overflowing with interests that pull in opposite directions. The events. On Monday, January 13, the Movistar Arena welcomed 6,000 people in ‘Llamados’, a prayer meeting organized by the Parish of Santo Domingo de la Calzada (Algete) and Alpha España (Spanish branch of Alpha International, a method of evangelization born in the 70s within Anglicanism and that explores faith in an informal environment). The next day, the Vistalegre Palace gathered 12,000 attendees at the Hakuna Group Music concertthe Catholic group fashionable in Spain. The debate. What has ignited the debate is the group’s presence in ‘Llamados’ hillsong as opening act This Australian evangelical group, a Protestant icon, is a clear example of some “evangelical ways” that radically depart from historical Catholic practices and discourses. Contemporary music with rock instruments, giant screens, an abundance of emotional personal testimonies, moments of worship with raised hands… and all in spaces more associated with concerts than with traditional liturgical celebrations. His actions are controversial among the most traditional sectors of Catholicismbut the discussion now reaches Spain. The context. Hakuna Group Musicthe Catholic youth movement founded in 2013 by Father José Pedro Manglano has become the emblem of this new trend of transforming faith into a mega-conceit. Their song ‘Huracán’ surpassed two million views on social networks after the September 2022 concert in Vistalegre, which brought together 8,000 people, figures within the reach of successful traditional pop groups. The precedent. This Spanish phenomenon has its clearest precedent in the United States. In July 2024, more than 50,000 Catholics gathered at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congressan event that marked a turning point and where catholic bishops sang ‘How Great Is Our God’, the characteristic hymn of Elevation Churchone of the most influential evangelical megachurches in the world. For many faithful, this phenomenon represents “a new ecumenical liturgical movement“which is not based on the harsher and more inaccessible Catholic tradition, but on shared music and common experience. And the truth is that this drift towards pop is normal: after all, traditional sacred music is not designed for crowds of tens of thousands of people. In other words, it does not have choruses or lololós. The CWM. The music that plays in ‘Llamados’ and in Hakuna’s concerts falls within a specific genre: Contemporary Worship Music (CWM), born in American Pentecostal and charismatic churches since the 1960s. It is now a global industry that moves millions of dollars. Among its characteristics are lyrics focused on direct praise to God and written in the first person, simple and repetitive melodic structures designed to be chanted, and instrumentation typical of pop-rock bands. The goal: an immediate emotional experience. The criticisms. Some critics draw parallels of this movement with the prosperity gospel or prosperity theology, an evangelical current that teaches that God rewards faith with material success and health. Magazines like the Jesuit La Civiltà Cattolicaapproved by the Vatican, warned in 2022 that elements of this theology had penetrated Catholic communities, especially through the charismatic movement, transforming the traditional understanding of redemptive suffering. That is to say, the loss of the traditional penitential component of Catholicism, to which the Latin faction is so closely related, is perceived. In Spain, the Church has welcomed with open arms the avalanche of young faithful brought by these concerts and events. But there are dissident voices: the Catholic School of Apologetics speaks of ‘12 Reasons why it is not good to listen to Protestant music‘, and warns about the “tyranny of feeling” that prioritizes “feeling” over “believing”, as these songs often enunciate. At Catholic.net they talk that this type of music can inject Protestant beliefs into the Catholic faith, and there are numerous isolated voices that warn of the danger of these mass events. All with Calls. However, the advancement of phenomena like Llamados is important. Organizers have explicitly positioned it as a model of mass evangelization ahead of the Jubilee of Redemption in 2033, which will commemorate the 2,000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Christ. With the religious practice in free fallevents like these are one of the few phenomena capable of massively mobilizing young people towards explicitly Christian experiences. But is it a renewal or just a youth fever, in line with the cycles of action and reaction (now that more conservative winds are blowing) that we have always experienced? In Xataka | A blessing that drives likes and sales: “x-ray of chic Catholicism”

Spotify has had to remove 75 million songs made with AI. Bandcamp has decided not to have that problem

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The Bandcamp music streaming and sales platform has announced that will completely ban music generated “in whole or in substantial part” by artificial intelligence, becoming the first major music distribution service to establish such a restrictive barrier against synthetic content. Bandcamp thus draws a very clear red line in the debate about where the use of creative tools ends and where total automation that dispenses with human authorship begins. What does the statement say? Bandcamp’s statement presents two fundamental prohibitions. On the one hand, any musical content generated entirely or substantially through artificial intelligence, a formulation that avoids defining exact percentages but establishes that there is a threshold regarding the weight of AI in the creative process. On the other hand, it extends the prohibition to the use of algorithmic tools to replicate styles or voices of real artists, connecting this restriction with the platform’s pre-existing policies against identity theft and intellectual property infringement. Citizen collaboration. The advertisement includes a complaint mechanism For users: users can report suspicious material using the platform’s reporting tools, which will be reviewed by a moderation team. The company explicitly reserves the right to remove music suspected of having synthetic origin, without the need for conclusive evidence, a clause that gives wide freedom to moderators but could also generate false positives. The company acknowledged that the policy may require updates as the generative AI landscape evolves, referring to how quickly these technologies are being developed. The conceptual debate. This decision is part of the debate about AI and creativity that is going through the world of culture: using algorithms as instruments as opposed to delegating the creative act to them. The United States Copyright Office established in January 2025 that work generated by AI can be registered when it “incorporates significant human authorship,” but that content produced solely through promptswithout additional creative intervention, falls into the public domain for lack of a recognizable author. Nuances and tools. And it is difficult to determine the limits. The spectrum ranges from musicians who use AI to clean up audio or get inspired by melodies to those who simply write text instructions and let the model generate entire tracks. There are conceptual artists who go to the opposite extreme of artificial intervention: composer Holly Herndon turned her voice into the project Holly+ into a “digital instrument” that is publicly accessible and that other musicians can play. The debate is endless: MIT Technology Review raised in April that tools like Suno and Udio produce “creators” who are not conventional musicians but “prompters“. The result is works that cannot be attributed to a composer or singer, dissolving the usual definitions of authorship. The flood. The figures reveal an exponential escalation in the appearance of music created with AI on platforms. Deezer spoke in November 2025 of more than 50,000 tracks completely generated by AI each day, 34% of its daily volume, and an increase of 400% compared to January, when the figure was 10,000 songs per day. A study by Deezer itself said that 97% of listeners do not know how to distinguish between human and synthetic music after a blind test for the participants in the study in which they were shown two tracks, one with AI and one real. The Spotify drama. While, Spotify revealed in September 2025 which had removed 75 million “spam tracks” in the previous twelve months, an amount that rivals the platform’s entire catalog of 100 million songs. The emblematic case of the fictional indie band The Velvet Sundown illustrates the dimension of the phenomenon: this group completely generated by AI It reached 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify during the summer of 2025 before its creators admitted its synthetic nature, under pressure from listeners. Follow the money. The case of Xania Monet is another side of the problem. This fully synthetic R&B artist generated over $42,800 in less than two months with over 17 million streams totals, which led to the signing of a multimillion-dollar record contract after a bidding war where a record company allegedly offered $3 million. At the same time, country was the first genre to be marked as a big loser in this war between real and synthetic artists: in December 2025, the number of country songs generated by AI outsold completely human jobs. There is a clear motive for these maneuvers: money. Tools like Suno and Udio produce for free and a user can generate hundreds of short tracks that can generate profits. Let’s multiply it exponentially: massive uploads to platforms, bot farms that generate songs and upload songs without rest, automation of payments… We are not looking for isolated successes, but to add millions of reproductions, against which a real artist cannot compete. Percentages. And that’s why Bandcamp and Spotify are so different. Bandcamp is a marketplace straight where artists charge an average of 82% of each sale, with the platform keeping 15% on digital items and 10% on physical items, with additional payment processing commissions of 4-7%. bandcamp has paid more than 1,640,000 million dollars directly to artists and labels since its founding in 2008, with 19 million transferred in 2025 alone thanks to “Bandcamp Fridays”, days in which the company completely waives its commission. This structure makes AI-generated music counterproductive for the platform: no one buys synthetic albums produced by AI. prompts. Spotify, meanwhile, operates on a subscription basis, distributing roughly two-thirds of its total revenue in royalties. The platform paid 10 billion dollars to the music industry in 2024but the average payment for stream ranges between 0.003 and 0.005 dollars. Besides,Spotify implemented a threshold of 1,000 annual streams in 2024 for a track to generate royalties. This structure creates perverse incentives to “cheat”: virtually free AI production, mass uploading of tracks, use of bot farms to inflate the number of views… The pay-per-play system stream It allows tiny fractions of a cent to turn into million-dollar amounts if there is enough volume. The reaction. The Bandcamp movement has some protection of its image, … Read more

The problem is how to prove something that is not impossible

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The capture of Nicolás Maduro by the US special forces has generated one of those stories that, due to its form and timing, seem designed to colonize the collective imagination even before a verifiable version of the events can be established. The rumor: Washington has been able to use its own secret weapon from a Marvel movie. It’s not impossible, and that’s the catch. The perfect rumor. We are not talking about something completely new, because this theory already sounded strongly with Washington and Cuba as protagonists years ago. The return of the “sonic weapon” now appears as a perfect story to explain a humiliating defeat. Also to elevate the operation to the category of a technological demonstration: a group of special forces captures Maduro and, according to a guard, leaves the defenders bleeding, dizzy and lying on the ground unable to get up. It is a type of narration that automatically has gone viral because it does not require nuances: it converts a confusing fight in a clear scene of absolute superiority and ends with a deterrent conclusion (“no one should confront the United States”), which is exactly the phrase that an intimidation campaign would want to put in the mouth of the enemy. From TikTok to institutional speaker. The origin of everything is quite flimsy: it appears in a TikTok videoa testimony impossible to verify (an alleged member of the Venezuelan security forces as a witness), then translated and later amplified by commentators with the clear intention of dramatizing it and making it viral. Then something happens that changes everything: the White House spokesperson share it and promote it as required reading. Without confirming anything, this gesture gives it authority and creates the most certain ambiguity: it is not official, but it is no longer a simple hoax, and in that gray area it fuels conversation, fear and propaganda. The Pentagon and SOUTHCOM take shelter in operational securitywhich leaves the ideal void for the myth to grow without the need for evidence. @franklinvarela09 loser of January 23 recognizing the surrender of Diosdado Cabello eschunlo friend s #greenscreenvideo ♬ original sound – Varela News What we know about the assault. He described operational framework was already, in itself, that of a high-risk mission with specialized means: nighttime heliborne insertion, armed support helicopters, shooting, American injuries and a high number of casualties on the defending side, including foreign military allies of the regime. With surprise, local air superiority, electronic warfare, cyber support, and precise fire, a defensive collapse can occur without the need for mysterious “lightning strikes.” That is why the rumor that has gone viral is not essential to explain the result: it is, in any case, an embellishment that transforms a complex tactical victory into a fable of technological domination. But there is something else. Technology that exists. What really means that the rumor does not die instantly and that many specialized media have remembered, is that it relies on a real background: Washington takes decades researching non-kinetic capabilities and “less lethal” to incapacitate without killing, from the called Active Denial System (millimeter microwaves that cause severe pain) to long-range acoustic devices LRAD type scope and dazzling lasers to deny vision. It has also been explored combine sensory effects (pain, disorientation, temporary blindness, confusion) to break an adversary’s coordination without resorting to immediate lethal fire. There is no doubt that programs exist of this type does not prove that they were used in Caracas, but it does provide veracity: “it may exist” is enough for the story to survive. A briefing slide from about a decade ago describing the “Non-Lethal Weapons Demonstrators” available to the US military at the time, including the Active Denial System and Acoustic Call-type systems “Sonic” as a label. They remembered in Forbes that sound as a weapon has physical limits and is riddled with historical exaggerations: it is easy to promise “paralysis” or “panic” over frequencies, but much more difficult to demonstrate consistent effects beyond hearing damage or disorientation from extreme volume. Furthermore, the TWZ analysts explained that a witness under stress can describe as a “sound wave” any devastating sensory experience: close explosions, flashbangs, overpressure, daze, and trauma. The language of the victim in this scenario does not identify the mechanism, it only transmits an experience, and that difference is crucial when the story travels through networks as if it were a technical report. An ADS prototype loaded into the back of a heavy truck EPIC, the hypothesis. Forbes too emphasized in a more “coherent” alternative with certain symptoms: EPICa concept that would use radiofrequency pulses to interfere with the inner ear and balance, causing extreme vertigo, inability to stand, and visual disorientation. The idea would be tactical and attractive because, unlike sound, radio waves cross obstacles and may feel like pressure or “popping” in the head as it affects the vestibular system. The problem is that there is no public evidence that this program went beyond early phases nor that it exists as an operational capacity, so here it functions more as a credible anchor than as proof. Havana Syndrome. It we count a few years ago. The debate over anomalous health incidents associated with the so-called Havana Syndrome prepared the ground: there was already a conversation about possible invisible mechanisms (acoustic, radioelectric or other) capable of producing real symptoms without an obvious explosion. The official evaluations have oscillated between skepticism about foreign authorship and the caution of not ruling out that a small number of cases could fit with known scientific principles used for harassment or incapacitation. In this scenario, any “invisible weapon” story is feasible because it leads one to think that the strange is not impossible, just classified. The most plausible explanation. If the strongest hypothesis is to be chosen, it is likely to be a combination of actual combat, explosions, distraction devices, smoke, shock and disorganization, amplified by testimony that has every incentive to exaggerate and convert defeat into technological inevitability. Details like “vomiting blood” or … Read more

Barcelona believes it has a night security problem. So you’re going to leave the Christmas lights on all year long

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Vigo risks losing his position as “city of lights” (from Spain). Although the Galician City Council usually displays its Christmas decorations already in July and boasts every year of the millions and millions of LEDs that adorn its streets for almost two months, from November to January, there is another city that is about to raise the stakes: Barcelona. There the Consistory has decided maintain part of the lighting for the festivities Old City during the remainder of winter. Their reasons actually have little to do with Christmas. Lights, lights and more lights. Christmas may be over, but in Spain it is becoming common for us to talk about its lights for months and months. In Vigo they do it because the City Council begins to hang them in the middle of Julywith the thermometer flirting with 30º and the city full of tourists in shorts and flip-flops. Now they will do it too in Barcelonaalthough for other reasons. What do they want to do there? The news I advanced it on Monday The Vanguard: Barcelona is finalizing a plan to improve the lighting of some of the narrowest (and darkest) streets of Ciutat Vella, taking advantage of part of the decoration that was installed there this Christmas. That is to say, in the absence of traditional streetlights, garlands strung between facades are good. Although Jaume Collboni’s team has not yet revealed the details of the initiative, the idea does seem clear: it is not so much about neighbors, merchants and tourists continuing to walk for months under decorations of Santa Clauses, Three Wise Men and Christmas trees, but rather about maintaining the most ‘timeless’ designs. Walking under light bulbs. The key is therefore to take advantage of decoration that does not clash with the rest of the winter. To reinforce it, the municipal government also proposes maintaining the garlands that the merchants themselves have placed. In the Gòtic there are businesses that have been hanging decorative lights on their own, although as these were private initiatives they encountered challenges such as the passage of garbage trucks or some parades. Where, when and how. While waiting for the City Council to provide more details about where, when and how the initiative will be deployed, The Vanguard has advanced some keys: the measure will focus on points in Ciutat Vella, Gótic and Sant Pere streets, Santa Caterina and Ribera that aspire to improve their lighting. Regarding the calendar, councilor Albert Batlle explains that the Consistory proposes keeping the lights for several months: “The will is that the measure be implemented, now and in the future, during the winter time period, approximately between the last weekend of October and the last weekend of March.” Two keys: trade and security. Batlle too confirm that the measure pursues two objectives: to favor the businesses and residents of the area and to put an end to alleys in which pickpockets find refuge. “We want to improve the lighting of some small streets in Gòtic and Sant Pere, Santa Caterina and la Ribera to promote commercial, cultural and social revitalization, and also to improve the feeling of security, especially on days with fewer hours of daylight,” he adds. “We are working on the formula to enhance this network.” “They give them more qualms”. The measure appears to have had good reception among the businesses in the area, which even proposed expanding the list of roads that were initially going to benefit from the lights. “If the streets are more illuminated, walking becomes safer and commerce will benefit,” recognize to The Newspaper David González, from the Via Laietana Merchants Association. Proof of how convincing the measure is is that at the time some businessmen from Born they already started to hang garlands at your own risk. “People go along Paseo del Born very happy because the promenade and the streets are usually well lit. But the dark alleys make them hesitant.” The idea has also been found with detractors who consider it a patch. But… Does it work? Although he has achieved reduce your crimeBarcelona usually appears in the area highest of the rankings about the cities insecure from Spain. The key is whether more public lighting will translate into greater real safety, a question that has generated debate in recent years. What they do seem to confirm cases like that of Vigo is that a good commitment to street lighting (even if it is seasonal) serves to attract thousands of visitors. Images | Barcelona City Council (X) and Núria (Flickr) In Xataka | The upper area of ​​Barcelona no longer interests the rich: the Eixample has become fashionable and its neighbors tremble because of the prices

It is raining so much in the province of Jaén that the olive oil harvest has had a problem: there is too much water

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The “liquid gold” market expected a great recovery after years of drought, but the data you have given the Food Information and Control Agency At the end of December 2025, they have had a significant impact. Especially in the epicenter of oil production in our countrysuch as Jaén, where it has been registered a 45% drop in its accumulated production. Although it is something that hides an important economic paradox: it is selling more than ever. The figures. As detailed by the Ministry of Agriculture itselfthe reality of the current campaign is radically different from the previous one. While in 2024 Jaén accumulated almost 300,000 tons at the end of the year, this 2025 it has remained at half speed with 164,841 tons, which represents a variation of 45.3%. Something that has also been noticed at the national level. What has happened? Although everyone might think that we are talking about the drought that has caused there to be fewer olives, the reality is that excess rain has been the problem. The intense rainfall of November and December 2025, although beneficial for the tree in the long termhave been an obstacle to the harvest. Logically, with the mud it is difficult to enter with the machines to be able to pick the olives or work by hand. This has caused the harvest to be delayed and has affected the yield of the fruit. Other factors. Beyond the excess of rain at the end of this year, we must also highlight the high temperatures that were recorded in the month of June 2025, which damaged the weight of the fruit after spring fruit set that promised a lot, but fell short. Besides, according to COAG Jaénthe delay in taking the olive to the olive mill due to the weather has caused part of the fruit to suffer damage, reducing the final yield. Less oil, but more sales. Even though the silos fill more slowly, the market is extremely active. UPA Andalusia has highlighted that, despite the decrease in production, sales have increased by 10% in the last quarter, with a month of November where oil output reached 129,727 tons. This means that the consumer continues to demand olive oil despite the instability of recent years. Exports are also doing well, with a substantial increase of 44% in Andalusia, which puts pressure on current stocks, which are 13% lower than last year. The price. Without a doubt it is the most important point for the consumer, especially when in the past we have already seen really high prices for olive oil due to a bad harvest. Logic dictates that if supply falls and demand increases, prices should increase, but experts call for considerable caution. Right now, the price of Extra Virgin oil at origin moves between 4.20 and 4.29 euros per liter, and what is expected is that it will remain at a stable price during the year 2026, without major drops to maintain the stability of the sector that needs to cover costs. Images | Kostas Morfiris Nazar Hrabovyi In Xataka | Half of Spain has gone crazy with the question of whether olives make you fat or not. But your biggest problem is not calories.

The Spanish business that Vodafone sold as ballast is now worth three times as much. Zegona has shown that the problem was the owner

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according to further Populi Voicea medium with a good track record in telecom exclusives, Telefónica has started talks with Zegona to acquire Vodafone Spain. The negotiations are recent (just a few weeks) and it was Movistar who picked up the phone first. Telefónica wants to close the operation in the first half of 2026. The rumors come from months ago. The problem is that arrive late, and that has a price. A little more than two years ago, Zegona bought Vodafone Spain for about 5,000 million euros. Vodafone (the British parent) was selling a problematic asset: It was the third operator in a market of four. He was caught between the scale of Telefónica and the agility of the low-cost He inherited a network that required constant investment. And he also inherited a tarnished reputation after years of complaints. For the British group, Spain was a drain of money and effort. For Zegona, a poorly managed gold mine. And in just two years, the fund has proven that he was right: Has returned to its shareholders 1.4 billion euros in dividends (28% of what was paid by Vodafone Spain). Has reduced the number of shares in circulation by 69%. And yet its current capitalization is around 3.6 billion. For fund shareholders, the return has been spectacular: The stock went from 345p when they bought Vodafone (less than 100 when they announced their intentions) to over 1,565p now. It has multiplied by 4.5 in two years. Vodafone Spain generates around 4.5 billion annual revenues and, with more focused management than before and without the bureaucracy of a global giant, it has become a profitable operation that Zegona can continue to exploit… or sell to the highest bidder. Telefónica is now negotiating from a weak position. It needs the operation (Marc Murtra has repeated that Movistar must lead the consolidation of the Spanish market) and the market knows it. An ERE of 4,500 people has just closed. And while Telefónica prepared the house to add more furniture, its price has fallen 27% since the end of October. Zegona, however, its value has skyrocketed. The price of this indecision is between 2,000 and 7,000 million extra euros. regarding what the purchase of Vodafone Spain would have cost in 2023. Zegona is in no hurry. It can wait, it can squeeze, it can even stay as it is. Telefónica now cannot afford that luxury because buying Vodafone Spain is not an expansionist move, it is an almost defensive necessity: needs critical mass before Europe forces further consolidation where Movistar is the main course, not the diner. But when negotiating is a necessity and the other side knows it, the price stops being a variable and becomes a toll. If the operation crystallizes, it will create a giant with more than 45% of the Spanish market, great cost savings by eliminating duplications (headquarters, networks, contracts…) and intense regulatory scrutiny from Brussels. Although not as brutal as it would have been with Vestager because Ribera has another look. Telefónica knows it and so does Zegona. The difference is that one is late and the other can afford to wait. That changes everything in a negotiation. In Xataka | The great dilemma of Spanish telecos: either they become giants or China swallows them Featured image | Vodafone, Telephone

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