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US sanctions are collapsing China’s factories. It’s bad news for the rest of the world

February 13, 2026 by usatoday24

The US has intensified in recent years its tariff policy against China. Under the shield of “national security reasons,” the Trump administration has attempted to isolate China from essential components to create cutting-edge technology. The play didn’t go too welland China is at its best moment of national production. So much so that the capacity of its factories is reaching the limit. There are those who warned. Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, warned at the beginning of February in his statements. He pointed out that the US blockade is only achieving the opposite effect, driving giants like Huawei to develop silently and accelerating the race for China to obtain the capacity to make three nanometer chips. SMIC confirmed it. He SMIC report corresponding to the fourth quarter of 2025 is a perfect summary of China’s efforts to one day end up leading the semiconductor race. China doesn’t just want to make chips for mobile phones: it wants to dominate the semiconductors that support AI, cars, telecommunications, industry, energy and defense: because whoever controls these chips controls technological power. The key data. That SMIC’s profits have grown by 39% in the last year is quite revealing, but that the capacity of its factories has risen to 93.5% is even more so. In other words, the Chinese company is practically at the limit of its production capacity, having to satisfy the demanding demands of both the government and local companies. How does this affect me?. Among the key sectors that China wants to lead is AI. And this one needs many, many chips. So much so that SMIC has warned that the demand for them is being so enormous that the rest of the consumer electronics orders are being compromised. This ends up translating into delays in supply, price increases and something that we have been warning about for months: basic components such as RAM, SSD memories and so on. They are going to be more expensive than ever. Without help from anyone. China, without access to ASML’s most advanced machines, is achieving alternative routes for your manufacturing processes. Although some of its manufacturers are still in collaboration with giants like TSMC (case of Xiaomi with “its” XRing 01 chip, manufactured by TSCM in 3nm), the plan is to be completely self-sufficient. Something that they will end up achieving, sooner or later. In Xataka |

They owe you a day of rest

February 3, 2026 by usatoday24

The Supreme Court has made it clear that holidays are not days of rest. They are different rights. Therefore, if a holiday coincides with your day of restthe company has to give you another additional day off. For years it has been common that, if a holiday coincided with, for example, a Saturday, that day of rest was lost. A Supreme Court ruling has considered that loss of a holiday “does not conform to the law.” Therefore, the employee must be able to enjoy both rights: to weekly rest and to enjoy official holidays. The injustice: that holidays coincide with your rest. The High Court ruled in this sense in a ruling from July 2024which establishes that workers who work from Monday to Sunday and have a fixed day of rest during the week have the right to an additional day when that rest coincides with a work holiday. This resolution corrects the previous criteria of the Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid in response to the demand of the workers of a business that opened from Monday to Sunday with rotating shifts, in which the staff’s breaks did not always coincide with the weekend. This meant that, if an employee was assigned, for example, Mondays as a day of rest, and it coincided with one of the 14 holidays recognized by law, that employee would lose either a holiday or a holiday, while his colleagues (with other days of rest) did enjoy both. On holidays you also rest. The usual practice to date was that, if the holiday coincided with the assigned day of rest during the week, the employee “lost” that day since, in reality, that rest was also occurring. However, the Supreme Court ruling reinforces that the 14 annual holidays recognized by law must be enjoyed in their entirety, without overlapping with the minimum weekly rest to which workers are also entitled, thus separating both rights and forcing the company to compensate the employee with another additional day off. Weekly and holiday rest are not the same. The doctrine of the Supreme Court is based on article 37.2 of the Workers Statutewhich indicates that “work holidays will be paid and non-recoverable.” That is, they cannot replace or be a replacement for any other type of rest. In practice, the court considers that allowing a holiday to overlap with the day of rest creates comparative grievances between people with different calendars within the same company. While some enjoy the 14 legally recognized holidays plus their weekly rest, others end up with fewer days off per year just because their day of rest coincides with the holiday. If both coincide, another day must be assigned. Based on this doctrine, if a national, regional or local holiday coincides with the assigned day of rest, the company must grant you an additional day off on another date. This compensatory day does not have to be the one immediately following the holiday, but rather must be set by mutual agreement, respecting the work calendar and ensuring that the holiday is not lost. For companies, this forces them to review quadrants and calendars in sectors that open every day, such as commerce, hospitality or certain essential services, where it is common to work on Sundays and holidays. How it affects you if the holiday falls on a weekend. In a classic weekday from Monday to Friday, if a holiday falls on a Saturday, the new jurisprudence prevents that holiday from simply “disappearing.” The company has to compensate with an additional day of rest. According to the article 47 of Royal Decree 2001/1983 that regulates the effective enjoyment of days of rest, when for organizational reasons the day of rest cannot be enjoyed, the company “will be forced to pay the worker for the hours worked” or to grant an alternative compensatory rest. That is, since the holiday must be taken because it is not recoverable, the day of rest is not “lost”, but must be compensated with another day or paid with a 75% increase if not enjoyed. In Xataka | If you can’t stand your boss anymore, you can resign, but you need to give advance notice of voluntary resignation: how and when to give it Image | Pexels (Leeloo The First)

Ryanair and the rest of the low-cost airlines have been charging for your carry-on suitcase for years. The European Union is tired of it

February 2, 2026 by usatoday24

It is no surprise that the main business of “cheap airlines” is precisely charge you for cabin luggage. A cheap Ryanair or EasyJet ticket can easily be double the price if you include a small suitcase to carry in the cabin. And from Europe I want this to end nowboth by users and legislators. not so fast. In this regard, the European Parliament has voted in favor to allow all passengers to carry one cabin bag of up to 7 kg free of charge, in addition to their personal bag or backpack. The measure has sparked criticism from low-cost airlines, since they rate it ‘existential threat’ to its business model, and that could raise ticket prices by up to 25%, according to EasyJet. The trigger. The European legislative proposal establishes that any passenger may carry at no additional cost one personal item plus one piece of hand luggage of up to 7 kg and with combined dimensions of 100 cm. This would affect all flights to or from EU airports operated by EU airlines. Of course, it should be noted that this bill must still go through the European Council before becoming law. Baggage and margins. Bag fees have become a great source of income for low-cost airlines. Jay Sorensen, airfare expert at consulting firm IdeaWorks, counted to the Financial Times that European airlines raised $16 billion in 2025 just for baggage, of which 60% went to low-cost airlines. Although these fees are not usually broken down individually, Sorensen estimates that they represent almost a fifth of the total revenue of low-cost airlines. Reaction of the industry. Kenton Jarvis, CEO of EasyJet, has qualified the “lunatic idea” proposal and warns that the additional costs “would have to be passed on” to all passengers through higher prices, even for those traveling without luggage. On the other hand, József Váradi, CEO of Wizz Air, account to FT that consumers are “much smarter” and “are able to navigate the current system of optional tariffs.” For its part, Airlines 4 Europe, the industry lobby, has presented a survey according to which half of passengers would prefer to pay lower fares and keep suitcases as an optional extra. Margins. The low cost model is based on eliminating minutes on the ground and fuel costs. Augusto Ponte, European director of the consulting firm Alton Aviation, account FT that if each passenger carried between 2 and 4 additional kg, a plane with 150 people would have 500 kg extra weight, which translates into between 15 and 20 additional euros of fuel per hour of flight. According to Ponte, for an airline like EasyJet, which flies approximately one million hours annually, that would mean more than €28 million extra per year in operating costs, approximately a tenth of its total profit. In addition, the executive says that 150 additional suitcases in the cabin per flight would cause delays of about 10 minutes in each boarding, not counting the time necessary to relocate the excess in the hold. Ponte assures that, in short-haul aircraft that make six flights a day, this would be equivalent to one hour less operation per plane each day. Consumer protection. Beuc, the European consumer association, strongly supports the proposals of Parliament and even proposes raising the permitted weight to 10 kg. Agustín Reyna, its general director, argues that passengers “expect their hand luggage to be included in the price of the ticket” and that forcing them to pay turns luggage into “a luxury item.” For his part, Andrey Novakov, the Bulgarian MEP who is leading the parliamentary negotiation on these rules, has declared that the goal is “to strive for clearer and more predictable rules for airlines and a stronger aviation sector, but never at the expense of passengers.” Cover image | Gabor Koszegi In Xataka | When Ryanair CEO went to a restaurant he was charged for two extras: “priority seating” and “legroom”

Mercadona and the rest of the supermarkets spend tons of paper on receipts that no one reads. Now they want to change it

February 1, 2026 by usatoday24

You go to the supermarket, you buy a couple of things (just enough for dinner), you go to the checkout, they give you the ticket, you put it in your pocket and you leave with the bag in the direction of the parking lot. Pure routine. Our daily bread. If the employer’s retail achieves its objective, there is one element of that scene, however, that will change radically. Which? That ticket that you will end up throwing away without even reading it. What has happened? Every year supermarkets print millions and millions of strips of paper in which in many cases only a handful of articles appear, so they end up in the garbage can without anyone having even looked at them. It is a waste, a waste of resources. For chains like Dia, Lidl or Mercadona, but also for the environment. So Asedas (Spanish Association of Distributors, Self-Service and Supermarkets) has had an idea: they want us to start printing receipts only when the customer requests it. What do they want? The news I advanced it on thursday theEconomist. Asedas has proposed to the Government that it slightly tweak the regulations that regulate tickets so that they are no longer printed systematically. That does not mean that they are no longer issued or that the customer no longer has a receipt that clarifies what they have purchased and how much they have been charged. The change would focus on support. The idea, clarifies Ignacio García, head of Asedas, is “that the ticket continues to be generated electronically for control purposes, but that it is printed on paper at the consumer’s request.” That is, the user can request the physical or digital ticket. Right now, remember theEconomistthe regulations provide that supers deliver the receipt in two ways: either in paper or digital format. What’s happening? Since not all clients are in favor of handing over their data (including email) to the chains, in the end they have no choice but to print it. Not only that. The employer’s data They show that many of the times we go to the supermarket we buy only a handful of items, so the receipts show small transactions, for low amounts that we do not even review. Result: those papers end up in the trash as they are printed. It is not even strange for the customer to reject them when the cashier offers them to them. Is it that serious? “Our companies have been confirming for years that, in about a third of operations, the ticket is abandoned at the checkout line,” confirm Garcia. It is not surprising if we take into account the data on the shopping basket managed by Asedas. According to their estimates, 30% of the operations registered in supermarkets respond to almost urgent visits, during which we take home at most four products and spend less than 10 euros. In 60% of cases, purchases involve between five and 25 products with average tickets of between 10 and 50 euros. Only the remaining 10% actually respond to large purchases. In practice, the fact that all operations end up reflected in a receipt means that the supers generate about 5 billion tickets that require the use of almost 4,500 tons of paper and a million-dollar expense. Is it important? Beyond the millions of receipts that are printed each year and the cost that this entails in tons of paper and euros, Asedas’ proposal is interesting for at least two reasons. To start with who throws it. Asedas presume to be “the first food distribution business organization in Spain” and cover 19,200 retail stores and 495 wholesalers. Between your partners Companies such as Mercadona, Lidl, Aldi or Dia appear. Another key is that its idea is in line with what is already done in other European countries. For example, in 2023 France said goodbye to the generation of tickets by default precisely because of the amount of paper it consumed. That doesn’t mean they no longer exist, but they must be requested. In the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden there have also been changes related to the generation of receipts. In Spain itself, some large chains they take time moving towards the digital ticket. Images | Xataka Mobile and Wikipedia In Xataka | There was a time not too long ago when the future of supermarkets seemed like Amazon Go. Now Amazon Go is dead

Apple announced with great fanfare that the new Siri would be different from the rest of the AIs. It turned out that without Google there was no Siri

January 28, 2026 by usatoday24

I’m not going to hide, I’m one of those who believed Apple when announced with great fanfare that Apple Intelligence It would be different from the rest. He had reasons to do so: his financial muscle, his obsession with taking care of the software and his philosophy of arriving late to the game to score the goals at the last minute. But here I was wrong. The only way Google has had to play in this game has been using someone else’s deck. From waiting almost two years to having it now. Apple announced Apple Intelligence in its 2024 keynote. One in which it did not give too many details but showed us a different approach to AI than that of Google and OpenAI. An AI with real interaction with the operating system, integration with both native and third-party apps… a real “co-pilot” completely integrated into iOS, and not a super-vitamined app, but isolated from the whole. From that keynote until then the only thing we have is Siri being able to open ChatGPT when the question gets a little complicated. And, just a few weeks after announcement of the agreement between Apple and GoogleGurman affirms that we will see the new Siri in a matter of weeks. If the prediction came true, it was not a matter of time. It was a matter of not having the resources. What’s coming in February. Gurman tells Power On that the Siri 2.0 that we have been waiting for since 2024 can become a reality in the second half of February. In fact, he points out that one of the reasons why Apple made the announcement of the collaboration with Google official was because it was close to obtaining sufficient demonstrations of its functionality. Although there are no details about how their disembarkation will be, the modus operandi from Apple is easy to predict: we will have to update our iPhone to the corresponding version of iOS 26 that includes these new features, since Apple introduces improvements to its native apps through system updates. Not so fast. Although there are no details on how long Apple and Google have actually been working, what we do know is that the new Siri is not ready yet. Gurman points out that it will arrive in beta phase starting in February, and that the objective is not to delay the final version until beyond April. Again, evidence that Apple did not have the Siri that it boasted so much about ready, accelerating and putting two extra gears now that it has the support of Google. It can turn out well. My colleague Javier Pastor told, very correctly, how Apple can the parasite’s strategy works for him. The company is not going to enter the investment battle for new models: it is going to spend millions of dollars to take advantage of an existing infrastructure and use an already proven pillar. The new Siri will be a premium wrapper for Gemini and, landing in the real world, few beyond those of you reading these lines will even be aware that Google’s AI is what is powering your iPhone’s AI. Image | Xataka In Xataka | The Apple Intelligence and Siri disaster has caused something unusual: Apple gives the keys to its kingdom to Google

Spain turns in the opposite direction to the rest of Europe. Form part of a geological plan: closing the Mediterranean

December 21, 2025 by usatoday24

Spain and Portugal are dancing to a different rhythm than the rest of Europe. They are moving clockwise and the consequence is clear: a long-term closure of the Mediterranean that connects the Iberian Peninsula directly to North Africa. The convergence between continents is slow, a few millimeters a year (so we will continue needing the tunnel between Spain and Morocco), but one thing is clear: another Pangea is on the way. And the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco will be a unit. In short. Continental plates move. Some separate, others collide, and that continental drift has caused the emergence the Pangea Ultima theory. In 250 million years, there will only be one continent. There is a long way to go for that, but now, some researchers from the University of the Basque Country have analyzed geodetic data that allows them to affirm that the Iberian Peninsula is rotating clockwise. This east-west rotation is driven by the convergence between the Eurasian and African plates, and the conclusion is clear: both are moving between four and six millimeters closer each year. This information is not new, but the researchers’ discovery is to specify the processes that take place at the diffuse boundary of the two western Mediterranean plates. Thanks, Gibraltar. Although the boundaries of other plates are well defined, this does not occur in the Western Mediterranean. There, the processes are much grayer, and there is something called “Gibraltar Arch” which plays an interesting role in this tectonic dynamic. To the east of the strait, the crust absorbs the deformation caused by the collision between the Eurasian and African plates. This ‘Gibraltar Arc’ acts as a buffer, but it has a consequence: in the west of the strait there is a direct collision between the plates, while in the east it is absorbed by the Gibraltar Arc. This lack of buffering from the southwest is what causes the clockwise rotation. Rotational strain rate field. Positive values correspond to clockwise rotation, while negative values refer to counterclockwise rotation. Active and potentially active faults are marked with solid and dashed gray lines, respectively. Double analysis. The researchers combined two types of accuracy analyzes to obtain these results. On the one hand, those of satellite deformation through GNSS system (Global Navigation Satellite System). Analyzing the data, they measured surface displacements with millimeter precision, relying on both permanent and occasional GPS markers. On the other hand, they also analyzed information from recent earthquakes that allowed them to determine the tectonic “stresses” in the area. They are independent data sets, but by crossing them they were able to draw a series of ‘lines’ that have allowed them to better specify the boundary between the plates. So that? Well, to better understand which sectors are in direct collision between plates and which are still more protected by the Gibraltar Arc. And the neighbors? The problem is that, although they claim that it is a rapid tectonic movement, this is true in geological terms. For us it is invaluable, but it also comes into play that we only have satellite data since 1999 and detailed seismic data since the 1980s. Even so, if with such a short range of data we have reached that conclusion in the annual approach, it is because the phenomenon is not in a hurry, but it does not pause either. And the most interesting thing is that this only affects the Iberian Peninsula. It is not that we are going to separate from France, since we ‘drag’ the rest of the continent thanks to the effect of the Gibraltar Arc, but we are not turning in the same direction as other neighbors. Italy, for example, experiences a counterclockwise rotation that exerts pressure in the alpine zoneand in the anatolian plate (where most of Türkiye is), there is also this counterclockwise rotation. Hello, Morocco. While in Turkey the consequence may be more earthquakes or mountain formations, this current speed of between 4 and 6 millimeters will cause, at some point, the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco to unite. This continental collision would close the Mediterraneanbut there is a lot left for it. How much? About 100 million years. They estimate that for 20 million years we will continue at the same speed, but within about 50 million years, things will gain momentum, accelerating the process and turning the region into one of the most active volcanic and seismic areas on the planet. It’s… foolish to worry. present utility. Now, beyond curiosity, the most immediate implication that the researchers point out is a better identification of active faults or areas in which previously unidentified tectonic structures could exist. Asier Madarieta-Txurruka, one of those responsible for the investigation, explains This information indicates where to look for these structures and boundaries to determine what type of folds and faults there may be. Thus, we can anticipate the type of earthquake that there will be and its magnitude in areas such as the Western Pyrenees or the region of Cádiz and Seville in which we know that there are numerous places with significant deformationbut we do not have well identified the active tectonic structures that cause them. And, although there is still a long way to go before the Alps and a new mountain range are founded across the peninsula and all of North Africa to Arabia, knowing better what we have right under our feet is much more useful. In Xataka | We knew that Africa was going to split in half. What we didn’t know was that it would happen so quickly.

If there is finally peace in Ukraine, Russia has a surprise for the rest of Europe

December 16, 2025 by usatoday24

The talks in Berlin have revived the idea of an agreement to end the war in Ukraine like never before, to the point that Donald Trump has assured that peace is “closer than ever” after prolonged contacts with both European leaders and Vladimir Putin. If this horizon occurs, Finland has just sounded the alarm. The peace that appears. The United States has put on the table a plan that, according to its own negotiators, would solve around 90% of friction points and that includes a ceasefire supervised by Washington, security guarantees powerful and a central role for Europe in the stabilization of the country. kyiv admits real progressalthough he emphasizes that the territorial issue remains the most painful core of the negotiation, with Russia demanding concessions in the Donbas that Ukraine is reluctant to accept. Still, the general tone is contained optimismwith the feeling that, for the first time since 2022, there is a minimally viable political architecture to stop the fighting. Security guarantees. The key element of the plan is a package of security guarantees described by US officials as the most robust ever offered to Ukraine, with explicit parallels to NATO’s Article 5. Europe is ready to lead a multinational force on the ground, a “coalition of the willing” that would help regenerate the Ukrainian armed forces, protect its airspace and guarantee maritime security, always with political and operational support from the United States, although no US troops deployed in Ukraine. Furthermore, Washington would assume supervision of a ceasefire and an early warning system for possible violations, while European countries would legally commit to act in the event of new aggression. For kyiv, these guarantees are the essential condition to accept any freezing of the conflict, even leaving aspirations such as membership in NATO on hold, something that Zelenskiy has come to openly raise. The hidden price of peace. However, beneath this apparent diplomatic advance lies growing unrest on Europe’s eastern flank. Finland has issued a warning as clear as it is uncomfortable: peace in Ukraine will not mean the end of the Russian threat, but very likely its geographical displacement. According to Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, Moscow would take advantage of the end of hostilities to redeploy forces towards NATO’s borders, especially in the Baltic and northern Europe, strengthening its posture vis-à-vis the Alliance in a period of just three to five years. From Helsinki, it is insisted that Russia would continue to be a revisionist power and that interpreting peace as a general de-escalation would be a strategic error of the first order. The eastern flank prepares. The most exposed countries already act accordingly. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are on track to spend more than 5% of its GDP in defense, well above the traditional objectives of NATO, while coordinate common capabilities in air defense, drones and ground forces, and are working to accelerate the movement of troops and weapons across the continent. Finland, with its historical culture of preparation against Russia, maintains bunkers, strategic reserves and training programs civil, despite going through a serious economic crisis. These countries fear that a peace agreement will lead some European partners, further away from the front, to relax their attention and their military spending just when, in their opinion, the threat would be reconfiguring and not disappearing. Europe and a decision. The debate comes in a critical week for the European Union, forced to decide whether to support financially to Ukraine in the long term, unlocks the use of frozen Russian assets and assumes that your future security It depends less on Washington and more on its own deterrence capabilities. Orpo has been explicit by warning that Europe cannot afford to just talk about peace, but must act quickly and resourcefully, because there is no credible alternative plan if support for kyiv fails. Thus, the paradox is strongly imposed: the advance towards peace in Ukrainefar from closing the chapter on European security, could open another equally delicatein which Russia, freed from the Ukrainian front, once again strains the continental chessboard and forces Europe to finally face the strategic consequences of a conflict that never was only from Ukraine. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | Something unprecedented has happened in North Korea: a video has revealed that they are sending their soldiers in Ukraine to the “slaughterhouse” In Xataka | The drone war in Ukraine is complete nonsense: the manuals that were useful two weeks ago are a death trap today

that of the US trying to find it before the rest of the powers

December 2, 2025 by usatoday24

What could perfectly be the beginning of a work of fiction framed in a novel or a film, is taking place right now in some remote part of the planet. The episode of the GBU-39a bomb of American origin, lost somewhere in Beirut, has sparked a silent race between Washington, Lebanon and, potentially, Russia, China and Iran. The loss that can alter a strategic balance. What, on the surface, might seem like a mere failure to detonate a guided bomb becomes a matter of the highest strategic priority when the device in question belongs to one of the most important families of precision munitions. studied, valuable and restricted of the American arsenal. According to JPostthe bomb fell during the attack that killed Hezbollah’s military commander, Ali Tabatabaiand when it did not explode, it was made available to anyone who managed to access it before the American or Israeli teams. Washington solicitous immediately to the Lebanese Government for its recovery, aware that, if it reached the hands of Russia, China, Iran or even Hezbollah, the loss would be much greater than a simple lost device. It would be a direct access to decades of researchadvanced composite materials, guidance algorithms and electronic architecture whose reproduction could transform the ability of various powers to counter or replicate the American model of surgical strike. These types of incidents, in fact, it’s not newbut its context (a capital burned by regional tensions and the active presence of actors with the technical capacity to exploit the discovery) makes it an exceptional threat. A small bomb with huge implications. The GBU-39 is a glider bomb small diameter designed to combine range, penetration and millimeter accuracy within a compact body. just 110 kilos. Its operational concept is simple but devastating: when launched, it deploys wings that allow it to glide up to about 110 kilometers even without an engine, keeping the launching aircraft out of enemy defensive range. Its GPS and inertial guidance achieves errors of less than a meter, which reduces the number of ammunition needed for an attack and increases the survival of the device. The relationship between weight and damage generated is what has made it a benchmark: thanks to its highly efficient warhead, it can destroy reinforced structures without having to resort to much larger bombs. Its size allows an F-35 transport up to eight in its internal hold without compromising its radar signature, and for a single aircraft to carry out multiple attacks in a single sortie. That’s why the United States strictly controls its export, limiting it to close partners and technologically reliable family members. Loading a Gbu39 Washington’s fear. The American concern lies not in the explosive (easy to replicate), but in what the bomb hides: miniaturized sensors, lightweight and resistant composite materials, navigation and data fusion algorithms, microelectronics designed to survive thermal and vibrational stress, and a guidance system robust against interference. All this represents billions in R&D accumulated over two decades. Whether Russia or China could examine an intact GBU-39 would mean accelerate your capacity to improve anti-radar systems, develop countermeasures against precision attacks or even integrate equivalent technologies into their own arsenals of gliding bombs, which are advancing today but still lack American refinement. For Iran or Hezbollah, access to the bomb would have a additional value: would allow studying how to degrade American precision in an electronic warfare scenario, or even replicate part of the design in local munitions. A race against time. The United States has already experienced similar episodes that fuel its current reaction. In 2022, after the crash of an F-35C In the South China Sea, the Navy mobilized an urgent deep-sea recovery operation to prevent the device, with its AESA radarits distributed sensors and its stealth coating, will end up in the hands of Beijing. China itself denied interest, but the precedent from 2001 (when an American EP-3 made an emergency landing in Hainan and its equipment was inspected for months) made it clear that every opportunity for technological dismantling is taken advantage of without nuances. The possibility of a perfectly good bomb resting in a Beirut neighborhood, accessible to state and non-state actors, reproduces this pattern in an environment much more chaotic and close to the territory of pro-Iranian groups. Geopolitics of a lost artifact. For Israel, the lost bomb represents a direct operational risk: its technology in the hands of Hezbollah would allow the design of local countermeasures adapted to its mode of attack. For the United States, the problem is much broader: the proliferation of sensitive knowledge that can fuel Russian military modernization in the midst of a war of attrition, accelerate the Chinese transition towards highly efficient guided munitions or reinforce the Iranian reverse engineering ecosystem. For Russia, China or Iran, however, the discovery would be a capacity multiplierespecially in electronic warfare and in the development of long-range gliding munitions, key in future conflicts. And for Lebanon, caught between American, Israeli and Iranian pressures, the return or not of the GBU-39 becomes a deeply political actalmost inevitably interpreted as a gesture of alignment on a board where every piece counts. Strategic consequences. He incident reveals an inconvenient truth: in modern warfare, a single unexploded device can be equivalent to thousands of pages of classified documentation. The proliferation of gliding bombs (from Russia to China via Türkiye or Iran) means that competition is no longer just about launching ever more precise ammunition, but about preventing the adversary from understanding how to do it the same. If the lost GBU-39 ends up recovered by the United States, the episode will likely remain an anecdote. But if not, its impact could feel in development of new interference systems, in stealth attack doctrines, in the precision of Chinese gliding bombs, in the resilience of the Americans or even in the behavior of the Israeli air defense. Image | Master Sgt. Lance Cheung, Ministerie van Defensie, Picryl In Xataka | No one has seen Israel’s atomic arsenal. And that’s because Israel has an … Read more

Christmas lights begin in a town in Andalusia that sells them to the rest of the planet: Puente Genil

November 30, 2025 by usatoday24

Every year, while cities like vigo boast of their light shows and countries like Venezuela either Portugal compete to light Christmas before anyone else, there is an Andalusian municipality that, discreetly, has been setting the real rhythm of that calendar for decades. Although few know it, this is where Christmas really begins. A light by chance. The story begins in Genil Bridgea town that, before becoming a global benchmark for festive lighting, already had an intimate and almost genetic relationship with electricity. At the end of the 19th century, its flour and electricity factory “La Alianza” turned on some of the first electric streetlights in Andalusia. From that early love affair with light would later arise a seemingly minor moment that would end up changing everything: an electrician named Francisco Jimenez Carmonaowner of a small appliance store, decided to build a wooden star with light bulbs to decorate his window one post-war Christmas Day. What could have been just a nice gesture of local commerce unleashed a collective fascination. The neighbors gathered, the City Council asked to illuminate entire streets, the nearby towns demanded the same, and without anyone being able to foresee it, a company had just been born that would end up illuminating half the planet. The birth of a giant. Decades later, that initial spark transformed into Iluminaciones Ximénez, today Ximenez Groupa group capable of designing and manufacturing lighting installations for more than 600 cities in 40 countriesfrom Madrid or Vigo to Dubai, passing through New York, Moscow, Sydney or Malabo. An expansion that maintains, however, a deeply artisanal root: all the lights are They manufacture in Puente Genilwhere every Christmas campaign more than 180 workers produce millions of LED points day and night that will then travel to the five continents. The company operates like a bright boutique that adapts each project to the culture of the destination, from the amber warmth of the Nordic countries to the explosive colors of Latin America, passing through the classic tones of the United States or the monochrome designs of some Spanish cities. To your catalog collaborations are added with renowned designers and projects as imposing as the largest Christmas tree in Europe or the tallest in Central America, or even giant tunnels in Moscow capable of transforming entire avenues into immersive scenarios. Puente Genil as a secret laboratory. Although the lights travel so far, everything always begins at home. Puente Genil has become a testing ground open, a space where the most risky and innovative proposals are experience before traveling to Vigo, Brussels or New York. La Matallana and Paseo del Romeral function as a technological gateway where new structures, lighting patterns, immersive tunnels and shows synchronized through pixel mapping appear every year, capable of converting entire streets into changing audiovisual surfaces. This 2025 the town will deploy about two million LED pointsa forest of illuminations that extends through villages, avenues, streetlights, squares and facades, accompanied by a cultural program of almost thirty events which turns the city into a first-rate Christmas epicenter. And more. But the hyperbole goes beyond the visual spectacle: Puente Genil, located between Seville, Córdoba, Málaga and Granada, preserves a unique industrial heritagefrom its old power plants to its modernist palaces, and a festive life that transcends even Christmas, with an Easter (the “Mananta”) so unique that it has rituals and processions impossible to find anywhere else. Economic impact. The success by Ximenez Group It not only lies in the ability to dazzle visually. Their projects have become real economic drivers for the cities that hire them: they attract tourism, increase sales, reactivate entire neighborhoods and generate local identity through decorations designed to dialogue with each culture. In Sydney they designed an interactive maze that changes color according to human movement, in Moscow they built an enchanted forest and a 200-meter tunnel, in Seville they synchronize Three Wise Men’s crowns with light and sound, in Vigo they deploy monumental digital trees, and in New York they provide engineering, design and pieces manufactured in Andalusia. The crux. The key, they countis in the fusion between tradition and avant-garde: a family business founded in a small store in Córdoba that today produces shows with its own low-consumption technology, advanced LED systems and intelligent motors capable of rescheduling shows in a matter of hours, as if the streets were gigantic living screens. Homemade star in global phenomenon. Despite driving more than 40 million euros annually and project a 50% growth In the next decade, the company continues to have the soul of a workshop and memory of origin. Three generations have given continuity to that first star burning wood in Puente Genil, transforming it into an industrial model combining craftsmanship, innovation and a deep understanding of what it means to illuminate as a business. Perhaps for this reason, Puente Genil is not only a global supplier: it is, in its essence, the place where Christmas is rehearse every year, where ideas are born that will later shine in giant cities like New York or Dubai, and where technology and tradition come together to demonstrate that some of the most universal stories begin, almost always, with a gesture as simple as turning on a light bulb… in a remote municipality in Andalusia. Image | Ximenez, Vigo Tourism In Xataka | The hidden cost of Christmas in Spain: how spending on lighting has overflowed in just a few years In Xataka | Abel Caballero had his enemy at his doorstep: Portugal’s plan to beat Vigo for Christmas

It’s bad news for the rest of the city.

November 28, 2025 by usatoday24

Like any big city in the world, in Barcelona there are quieter neighborhoodsothers in which cultural and leisure activities live in constant effervescence and, then, far from the madding crowd and prying eyes, they are the wealthiest neighborhoods. At least that’s how it was until not long ago. Now the rich already They don’t want to live isolated in the neighborhoods that were traditionally inhabited and are beginning to abandon historical enclaves of the wealthy classes of Barcelona, to settle in neighborhoods with more economic, leisure and cultural activity. This is bad news for the residents of those neighborhoods. Goodbye to the isolated upper area. Traditionally, neighborhoods in the upper area of Barcelona, such as Pedralbes, Vallvidriera or Bonanova, were the natural habitat of the richest Barcelona residents: large houses with gardens, stately apartments with separate entrances for the staff, lots of privacy and international schools next door. The average income data per person in 2022 for these neighborhoods already revealed that 52% more wealth is concentrated in them than the Barcelona average. But now, that tranquility seems boring to the wealthiest in Barcelonawho prefer the energy of the city. “Hiding in the mountains of Barcelona is no longer so fashionable,” assured to The Vanguard Joan Rubiralta, real estate expert and co-founder of Luxline Real Estate. According to the expert in the luxury real estate market, instead of isolating themselves, the rich of Barcelona now seek to integrate into the cultural and commercial bustle, letting those high areas lose a little of their exclusive shine. Eixample, the top neighborhood now. The Eixample has become in the new favorite place of the best of the Barcelona elite and the ultra-rich attracted for the Mediterranean and cosmopolitan life that Barcelona offers. The reason: it mixes stately apartments and the comfort of being much better connected to the center. “Luxury today is defined more by the quality of the experience than by ostentation,” assured to The Vanguard Sven Odia, executive president of Sotheby’s in Spain. The most sought-after properties in this neighborhood are spacious renovated apartments of between 120 and 140 m2. The modernist style buildings and the high ceilings of their apartments have contributed to the sale price of these apartments exceeds 8,000 euros/m2placing the average at 6,299 euros/m2 for the neighborhood. This represents an increase of 11% in the price in just one year, standing out from the rest of the city which is around 5,000 euros/m2. Offer price m2 in the Eixample of Barcelona in 2025. Source: puntohabitat.es The million euro apartment. As and as they pointed out in Open Metropolisthis growing demand for apartments in Barcelona’s Eixample has made housing that meets the demands of this buyer profile scarce, which has caused a shortage of supply. This makes it difficult to find these days. a luxury three-bedroom apartment in that neighborhood for less than a million euros. In 2026 everything below two million will have been liquidated. It is urgent to activate mechanisms that generate new supply. “We have no product,” warned Albert Milián, managing partner of the Barnes luxury real estate. It begins to spread to other neighborhoods. The new fashion among the rich of living in central neighborhoods, is also spreading to other neighborhoods in the city, putting Diagonal Mar and Poblenou in the spotlight for price increases. These neighborhoods are characterized by having become the technological heart of Barcelona, with large companies and startup incubators, which makes them the preferred destination for international millionaires who took the opportunity to buy apartments already on the horn of the end of the “Golden visa”, which gave them access to residency in Spain in exchange for an investment of more than 500,000 euros. In these neighborhoods, for the same million euros that you would pay in Eixample for a 3-bedroom apartment, you get about 140 m² with all these extras. This situation won’t last long. Rubiralta confirmed that these areas “have experienced a notable increase thanks to their consolidation as the new technological and creative hub of Barcelona, with the arrival of multinationals and international talent.” In Xataka | The list of the richest people in Spain in 2025: many changes in the figures, but not in the protagonists Image | Unsplash (Logan Armstrong)

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