sandwich Archives - usatoday24

bring the sandwich from home

July 13, 2026 by usatoday24

A mother hid some sandwiches at the bottom of her backpack so her children could eat on the beach without having to go to the establishment’s restaurant. When it was time for food, he asked them to move away towards the shore so as not to attract the attention of the staff. The episode has ended up becoming the symbol of a debate that has been growing for years in Italy: how far the private beach business can go. It’s not who occupies it, but what you can do. we have been counting. Private concessions have been part of the Italian coastal landscape for decades. In regions such as Liguria or Emilia-Romagna they come to occupy about 70% of the coastlineoffering hammocks, umbrellas, bars, restaurants and all kinds of services. The problem is that, as the price of enjoying a day at the beach has increased, many users feel that the cost does not end when they rent their space on the sand. The last front of this tension no longer revolves around access to the sea, but rather something much more everyday: whether a family can take out a sandwich prepared at home. A symbol of the cost of going to the beach. The controversy broke out on a beach in Puglia, where a woman was reprimanded after introduce homemade food for her and her children. There is no national rule that prohibits bringing food to these establishments, but some concessionaires establish your own rules to protect the activity of its bars and restaurants. For many clients, however, the situation is hard to accept. After paying hundreds of euros for a full season or increasingly higher daily rates for an umbrella and two sunbeds, they consider it excessive to be forced to also assume the expense of the restaurant. Two business models in the same arena. The managers of the private beaches maintain that maintaining these facilities requires heavy investments and remember that they must take care of staff, cleaning, taxes and waste management during a very short tourist season. Furthermore, they assure that the problem is not so much the sandwiches as those who turn the beach into an improvised dining room with complete menus and then abandon the trash. Faced with this vision, many families respond that bringing food from home does not respond to a question of comfort, but of economyespecially at a time marked by the increasing cost of living. The real problem. The controversy has also put the spotlight on the state of many beaches Italian public Many users acknowledge that they would prefer to use them more frequently, but report that they lack basic services or are poorly maintained. This situation pushes many people towards private concessionswhere they find comfort and services, although in exchange they must assume costs that become higher every summer. The result is a growing feeling that access to the sea is still public, but enjoying it is beginning to seem like a luxury. Prohibited solutions. Not all establishments have chosen to tighten the rules. Some have started offer simple menus and affordable that customers can consume under their own umbrella, trying to reduce conflict without forcing them to give up catering. It is a formula that seeks to balance the interests of the business with the economic reality of many vacationers and that demonstrates that there are alternatives to the permanent confrontation between clients and dealers. The great battle. Be that as it may, the sandwich episode has transcended because it summarizes a discussion much broader on the tourism model and the use of public space. The question is no longer just how much it costs to rent a hammock, but where does the right end of the dealer to manage his business and where the freedom of those who have already paid to occupy a small piece of sand begins. In that sense, the humble hidden snack in a backpack has ended up becoming the unexpected protagonist of a debate about the future of Italian beaches. Image | °cute°!° In Xataka | Italy had a problem with its beaches called “tourism”: now it has a solution and an even bigger problem In Xataka | A beach in Sardinia has banned umbrellas for people between 10 and 65 years old. The reason is simple: fire

We’ve found the secret ingredient for using desert sand in construction: sawdust and a giant sandwich maker

April 18, 2026 by usatoday24

At a time when humans do not stop building and erecting large buildings, there is a problem that should concern us more and more: there is a lack of sand to make concrete. But here anyone can laugh, since we have great deserts on the planet where there is a huge amount of sand that we could use without any problem. But it’s not that easy. The problem. Today, traditional concrete is quite exquisite, since river sand is necessary to achieve a good result. And it has to be that way, because the desert sand is too round and fine to be able to “stick” well. But the truth is that we were running out of this sand so necessary to continue building. In Xataka The rain has transformed the driest desert on the planet into a sea of flowers. It’s a sight to behold and a problem for experts We have a solution. The University of Tokyo and the University of Norway they have hit the key to turn the tables, and the solution is not only to use the desert sand that a priori we have left over, but rather it is to mix it with plant waste to create a material that has received the name Botanical Sandcrete. The recipe. The recently published study details a process that deviates from traditional cement setting, using a hot-pressing technique instead. And for this you only need two ingredients: Fine desert sand which, as we have said before, is useless for conventional concrete due to its morphology. Wood particles and plant additives that act as organic “glue.” All this, together with a temperature of 180 ºC and high pressure, means that the wood components help create a solid matrix that traps the grains of sand and transforms them into a handful of powder in a block that has great mechanical properties. {“videoId”:”x7znesx”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Self-consumption building THIS IS HOW THEY WORK – Solar panels in apartment blocks”, “tag”:”solar”, “duration”:”564″} What is it for? Here we should not be happy to find an alternative to a problem that we already had on our heads, since we are not going to be able to build skyscrapers with these tomorrow. Here the researchers point out that the material, as it is right now, is a non-structural alternative. In this way, its use is mainly focused on pavements, urban tiles and enclosure blocks or outdoor furniture. Things that are ultimately not pillars for large buildings, but do allow us to save river sand. Your advantage. Having an alternative, although it cannot be used in everything, allows us to drastically reduce dependence on quarries and the transportation of river sand. An action that results in the destruction of river ecosystems around the world by removing a fundamental element. In addition to all this, using wood waste and plant additives means that it has a much smaller potential carbon footprint than concrete based on classic cement. In Xataka 30 years ago the US was the country that dominated rare earths. This graph shows how China devastated at dizzying speed Its importance. To date, most attempts to use desert sand involved expensive chemical treatments or mixing them in very low percentages with conventional sand. But the focus of these researchers involves the use of biomass, making us a perfect example of a circular economy. And if we see the full context of the situation, we are taking advantage of a resource that is very abundant but a priori useless like desert sand, along with a byproduct of the logging industry. But logically it still remains to be seen how it behaves over time and how well it endures adverse conditions. Although a priori we are facing great news. Images | Keith Hardy rawpixel.com In Xataka | A 29-year-old young man has invented a cement that makes magnetic walls: a solution to hang things without a drill or screws (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news We’ve found the secret ingredient for using desert sand in construction: sawdust and a giant sandwich maker was originally published in Xataka by José A. Lizana .

Tourism of juice and sandwich expands through the Basque Country French

August 25, 2025 by usatoday24

“I had never seen so many people doing picnic on the beach!” The phrase is from Sébastien Meric, manager of the Taverne Basque, a restaurant of Saint-Jean-de-Luzin Nueva Aquitaine (France), and although a priori it may seem a positive comment hides a feeling that worries the hoteliers of this village of the Atlantic Pyrenees as well as those of Other destinations From Spain: they arrive (almost) as many tourists as in 2024, but they think about it much more when it comes to their portfolios. And that is a problem. What happened? That with the summer campaign already advanced, the hoteliers of San Juan de Luz, a small commune of France famous for its traditional beaches, port and architecture, recognize having a bittersweet taste. It is not so much that tourists have stopped visiting the town and that they no longer do it with the same joy. So I know They recognized A few professionals recently to the newspaper Sud Ouestto which they admit their concern about what is promised a “mediocre” summer. Why’s that? To start because Julio has left a puncture in the influx of tourists. According to the Departmental Tourism Agency of the Atlantic Pyrenees, last month the flow of visitors in the Basque Country French descended -1%a fall that was even more pronounced if we talk about overnight (-4%). In the whole of the Atlantic Pyrenees the demand remained stable (+1%) thanks in part to a warmer and dry meteorology of the usual. Sud Ouest Precise That, according to the Julio Tourist Barometer, San Juan de Luz lost about 55,000 visitors, a fall that is largely related to the lower influx of visitors from other parts of Europe with respect to last year (Dutch, Spanish or Germans) but also from travelers from other regions of the country itself, such as Paris or the department of Hauts-de-Seine. From the City of San Juan de Luz, this decline in visitors, which relate to circumstantial factors, reduces importance in any case. “Time has been unpredictable and beaches have been closed by jellyfish,” Clarify The organism, “it is better to wait at the end of summer to draw conclusions.” Is there anything else? Yes. And that is perhaps the most interesting idea than comment The hoteliers of the region A Sud Ouest. Beyond the fluctuations in the influx of travelers, the really curious thing is that businesses perceive a contraction in spending. “Before we made a lobster barbecue per 100 euros, now we make chuletones with blue cheese sauce for three times,” confesses a restaurant, recalling that this is the second summer that does not meet expectations. “Last year we thought it was for the Olympic Games or Bayonne partieswhich coincide with those of Pamplona, but this year is the same. ” detects New habits among veraneantes. “I had never seen so many people doing picnic on the beach!” A third place specifies that this year has encountered an “excess template.” And what is the reason? The big question. The Agite Du Tourism 64 perceive “For the first time in many years” a decrease in the influx of customers with a high level of income (-2%) in the French Basque Country, a trend that the organism believes compensated by an increase in equal extent of the middle-class clientele. The regional press points out other hypotheses, such as a decrease in the purchasing power of tourists or the changes in the legislation that regulates tourist floors. The New standard It puts certain limits to holiday rentals of second residences, which limits their offer and forces tourists to use hotels in which the average price per night in high season, slides Sud Ouestcan perfectly be around 170 euros. A higher expense in the accommodation would leave visitors (especially families) with less margin when it comes to allowing other extras during their vacations, such as meals or dinners in restaurants. Why is it important? Although Saint-Jean-de-Luz is located in France his data and especially the testimony of his hoteliers are interesting because they show us another perspective of tourism. One that is not exclusive to Atlantic Pyrenees. He last balance The INE reveals a considerable rise in the total spending of international tourists (+5.5%) and the average daily expenditure, but in some regions there are also hoteliers who have alerted a billing drop. They did recently in Diario de Mallorcathe hoteliers of Port de Sóller, in Mallorca, where they have detected a puncture of the demand in full high season. “We have gone from not having workers to overcome us,” admits the owner of two restaurants that he has had to do without employees. “This is a rebound effect after the madness after Covid. We return to the situation we had before the pandemic, but with much narrower margins.” Images | Tourisme Pays Basque Office (Flickr) and Cylk34 (Flickr) In Xataka | The north of Spain has been complaining about mass tourism for years. Asturias has discovered the bitter consequences of losing it

The works sandwich on roads and Metro converts mobility into a puzzle

July 22, 2025 by usatoday24

Mire where you look, there are works. It doesn’t matter when you read this if you live in Madrid. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are retired. If something must be seen in Madrid are works. Because the city has entered a reformist spiral that touches all sticks. And if public transport should be the alternative to the private car … Guess. Yes, it is also in works. A summer of the least placid. It is not Madrid the best city to visit in summer. Cars, asphalt and high buildings are the perfect combination for turn the city into an oven. Much more if we consider that they shine Hard squares through the city center, which is about Give emergency solutionseither The parks are closed. But those of us who live in Madrid found a good part in spending the months of July and August in the city: it was calm. The usual river of people becomes a stream, some leisure can be done when heat stops squeezing and, above all, one comes to work at a time because the traffic jams did not exist. Today, that is a thing of the past. Mire where you look. Right now, it doesn’t matter if you use the private car as public transport: Madrid is collapsed. Every morning the traffic bulletin gives the usual notices on the radio. But to the usual traffic jams are added notices that have become repeat offenders. The city had not been seen in an equal. In The country They remember an anecdote that dated in 2001. Then Danny de Vito, who was promoting a film in the city, ironized ensuring that he loved Madrid but that “he will win a lot the day they find the treasure.” Impossible by car. If you travel by car you have to be careful with the entrance to the A-5, The great underground of one of the main arteries of entry to the city that, in addition, is causing problems with neighbors. Whoever access here inside the city will verify how the usual four lanes in the direction have become two lanes with a winding layout to save the cranes. Right now, you can no longer access the M-30 tunnel but those who get there await more works in sales, where you want cover the M-30 to generate a huge green space that connects the linear city neighborhood with that of Salamanca. Neither in the northern zone are freed from the works. In the current four towers A huge park has been projected Under which the connection between Sinesio Delgado with the northern knot (where they connect the M-30 and M-40) has been projected. Again, the intention is that in the upper area you can enjoy a huge green zone hiding cars in a tunnel. Public transport. Taking into account that circulating in Madrid with a private vehicle now resembles a Mario Kart race (Asphalt operation included)public transport should be the solution. But those who have chosen to leave the car at home and use interurban entry buses to Madrid for the A-5 have long known that it is not a simple task. The residents of Alcorcón have asked that camp military land can be used as a deterrent parking. Thus, drivers can connect with subway and vicinity. The problem is that In the Metro they will find a partially closed line 6affecting about 400,000 travelers. To line 6 are added from next week the Metro line 7 workswith the park stations of the avenues, Cartagena and Alonso Canoperativa. Who will expect to find refuge in vicinity, there are also bad news. Because right now there is Cortes in the C-5 Between Villaverde Alto and Ambassadors and until August The suns tunnel will be closedleaving unused the station station (nearby) and cutting the passage between Chamartín and Atocha of lines C-3 and C-4. Exchangers. Did you think we had finished? Well, to all these inconveniences we must add great exchangers that are under works. In Chamartín, remodeling is still underway And right now you have to arm yourself with patience and go with time if you want to take a bird. The Count of Casal exchangerthat has added traffic cuts in the entrance tunnel by the A-3 and that will serve as a key node in the Metro line 11 union with line 12the circular section that serves all urban nuclei in southern Madrid. And frozen projects. To all of the above you have to add the remodeling works of Metro line 7bthe connection between the Metropolitan Stadium and the Henares Hospital whose works were subject to a great controversy because they have caused irreversible damage to the homes of some neighbors. Click on the image to go to the original tweet Click on the image to go to the original tweet Click on the image to go to the original tweet Click on the image to go to the original tweet Constant anger. This entire barulo of works that has implications in filming traffic, in the subway and in vicinity is causing a fed up among the residents of the city that can be easy to trace on social networks. The chaos was complete yesterday July 21. A drop in yesterday systems in the subway caused Line 10 delays. To this was added a breakdown in a catenary between the stations of Laguna and Ambassadors, causing a funnel of travelers in that southwest. To close the circle, also the Bicimad public bicycle services was fallen and faults were recorded in the North Light Metro Line (ML1). Throughout the summer, social networks are broadcasting live the chaos that are lived in the Metro and in Surroundings where the stations are full and travelers have to miss trains because they are crowded. Photo | Madrid City Council and Community Transport of Madrid In Xataka | Guide not to be lost in Madrid with the megaobra and underground of the A-5: deadlines, traffic cuts and public transportation

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