Spain

The new law puts an end to one of the last tobacco subterfuges in Spain

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Some customs survive by pure inertia. In Spain, one of them consists of going out to a terrace, ordering a beer and assuming that someone, sooner or later, will light a cigarette half a meter from your table. It doesn’t matter that you are eating, that there is a baby carriage and a mother breastfeeding. It doesn’t matter if the smoke reaches you before the waiter does. So far: the Council of Ministers has given the green light to the project of the largest anti-smoking reform since the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants in 2011. To exemplify the power and scope of this measure: in Madrid alone more than 6,300 bars, almost 64,000 tables and more than 200,000 chairs on terraces. That’s a lot of money. The terrace will no longer be a shared ashtray. The most visible measure affects one of the great symbols of Spanish hospitality: the terraces. When the law comes into force after its parliamentary processing, smoking will not be allowed on the terraces of bars and restaurants. Nor vaping. The Government equates e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches with conventional tobacco in most restrictions. The Ministry of Health survey said, STUDIES 2025that the prevalence of daily smokers among adolescents was registering all-time lowssince counting began in 1994. However, it seems that the problem lies more in a distortion of the samples. The danger of vaping. The Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFyc) warned, however, that the problem, rather than disappearing, has moved: 90.5% of underage smokers use both vapers and conventional cigarettes. Many young people, in fact, They do not smoke other cigarettes that are not electronicmore in line with other lifestyles and appearances cleaner and more modern. An alternative, clearly, defective. Although the legislation protected the interior of the premises but left a huge legal vacuum in the exterior spaces, this has now ended, understanding that a risk exists and persists, especially for children, pregnant women and hospitality workers who spend full days breathing that environment. Now the inn will have to face this new reality which leaves the local smoker without margin and equates it with that of Sweden, the only country in the EU where smoking is prohibited in public spaces. Tobacco also disappears from campus. The reform promoted by Minister Mónica García seeks to expand smoke-free spaces to marquees, music festivals, and outdoor or non-open-air events (in addition to theaters, cinemas, and any closed venue) and, for the first time, expressly prohibits smoking by minors. It is a cultural change. And there is more: the text, which modifies Law 28/2005, also adds as cigarette-free spaces the beaches, both sea and river, sports centers and public swimming pools, the network of National Parks and the work vehicle itself, as long as you are on professional duty. Denormalize tobacco consumption. Or so the norm says: that smoking stops being part of the daily landscape. Yeah you see smokingit is more likely that you end up smoking. Because if a teenager spends his entire life watching smoking on terraces, at concerts, at universities or in swimming pools, he ends up perceiving it as normal behavior. Reducing this presence also reduces the social attractiveness of cigarettes, according to the scientific evidence supported by the Ministry. “The reality of smoking has changed and this reform pursues a very clear objective: moving towards a tobacco-free generation,” said the Minister of Health, Mónica García. And the data seems to support his claim. The big news: the minors. Until now, the law prevented the sale of tobacco to minors. Now it also prohibits them from consuming it. It may seem like a semantic difference, but it has important legal consequences. The text incorporates an express prohibition on smoking, vaping or using nicotine pouches as a minor. The sanctions will fall on those legally responsible when appropriate and seek to reinforce the preventive message rather than collection. Of course, the reform modifies the sanctioning regime and establishes fines from 200 euros for these infractions. In the case of minors, the financial responsibility will fall on the parents or legal guardians, as always. But the project also foresees that this economic sanction can be replaced by work for the benefit of the community, with a clear educational and preventive focus, similar to what already exists in other regulations aimed at minors. Images | Pexels (Eyüpcan Timur, Helena Lopes) In Xataka | Experts agree: “Regular physical exercise makes the difference in quitting smoking” IN Xataka | It’s never too late to quit smoking: the lungs have an incredible capacity to regenerate

Spain has won the World Cup. Good luck finding the exact video of that moment you want to see again.

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Spain is world champion again. And one of the questions that struck me this morning was how complicated it is, paradoxically, to find specific moments from this 2026 World Cup as opposed to how easy it is to locate those from the 2010 World Cup. It is a question that has nothing to do with the scoreboard but with how the Internet has evolved. In 16 years… will it be as easy to find the moments of 2026 as it is now to find those of 2010? The panoramic. In 2010, YouTube was the home of online video. Any recording of the South Africa final, made with TV or mobile cameras, ended up uploaded there, indexed on a platform designed to locate specific videos, with title and date. In 2026 that exercise is more difficult, and that difficulty is going to get worse. The video no longer lives in one place, now it also lives on TikTok, on Instagram, in private accounts, in stories that disappear after 24 hours, in whatsapp groups that never reach the search engine. Why is it important. We assume that we record and share more than ever, so we assume that everything is archived somewhere. It’s not like that. A fan records the goal from the stands with his cell phone, uploads it to TikTokgoes viral, a TV cuts it out for its news citing the source… and there the trail ends. That video may never make it to YouTube. The account that uploaded it may be private. It may not be easy to locate later using the TikTok search engine. And there may never be a record of that shot anywhere else. Between the lines. All platforms have become video platforms, but each one has a different purpose and editorial line, and that makes finding something specific a more complex task. Or impossible. It is a phenomenon similar to what has happened with text search, although for different reasons: content and communities have been divided into fragments that do not communicate with each other. The rise of newsletterscommunities locked in Discord or Telegram, etc. A centralized search engine indexes text designed to be found. An ephemeral video app indexes immediate attention, but not long-term memory. They are opposite design goals. Yes, but. For the occasional user it is much more difficult to locate moments in this atomization. For the user hooked on specific platforms, it is not so much because they know how to navigate them and know where to look within each one. That means that the problem is not only technological, but also one of skill and time invested in learning the logic of each application. And now what. In 16 years, someone will want to see moments from this World Cup, like the anthem played by tubas, or Ferran’s goal recorded from a very specific seat. If that video never reaches a platform with an archiving vocation, that person will find an empty space. The collective memory of that World Cup will largely depend on editorial decisions that none of the platforms involved took with the archive in mind, but rather with the minute in which that video retained attention. In Xataka | Shy of the world, we are losing the Internet Featured image | FIFA

Spain became accustomed to losing in the 20th century. In the 21st century, Spain FC is the best team in the world

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Spain is the best team in the World of the 21st century. I know it’s difficult to assimilate. For a country that has built its history on the story of Tassotti elbowof the Cardeñosa rulingfrom those sung by Arched and Zubizarreta or of Gamal Al-Ghandour heistbeing the best is something that almost catches one off guard. But turning the story around, becoming the best is not a matter of luck. Spain is not the best by chance. The best. When we closed our eyes, Spain had in its record an almost forgotten Euro Cup won in 1964 with a goal from Marcelino in the final minutes. When we open them and close the blink, Spain has become one of the most important teams in history: two World Cups, four European Championships and only one lost final between both tournaments since 1964. In the 18 years that separate the 2008 Euro Cup and the 2026 World Cup, barely a blink in the history of football, our country has won two World Cups and four European Championships. That is, he has risen to the top of the podium in five of these 10 events. He has also been champion of a UEFA Nations League and runner-up on two other occasions. Beyond selection. Dominance in Euro Cups and World Cups goes far beyond national team competitions. In the last 25 years, Spain has added 11 Champions League and three runner-up finishes (Valencia’s in 2001 and Atlético de Madrid’s two against Real Madrid). When a Spanish team has reached the final so far in the 21st century, it has always won, except in the case of Valencia. In the Europa LeagueSpain has won 12 titles and two runners-up (Espanyol and Athletic Club de Bilbao played against Sevilla and Atlético de Madrid in those years). Again, if a Spanish team reaches the final, the Spanish team wins. In the Conference LeagueOf the five editions played, Spanish teams have added two runners-up finishes (Real Betis and Rayo Vallecano). In the European Super Cups (winner of the Champions League against the winner of the Europa League), Spain has 14 titles and nine runners-up (only Sevilla on three occasions and Villareal on one occasion have lost against foreign teams). There have been five finals between Spanish teams, three of them in consecutive years. Because? Analyzing Pedro Porro’s goal against France in the semifinals of the 2026 World Cup, the team’s second, Tierry Henry, former French soccer player for Arsenal and FC Barcelona, argued that this was the result of a way of playing that Spain has instilled in its players since they were children. A way of playing that has been installed in the DNA of most of the youth teams in our country. Spain has been dominating the European youth categories for years. The under-19 team has achieved 10 Europeans so far in the 21st century and two runners-up finishes. The European under-21 (it is played every two years unlike the previous one) has brought us three championships and two runners-up. At the Olympic Games, Spain was a finalist in 2020 (played in 2021) and won the 2024 ones. Of that last team, four players won the absolute World Cup yesterday and another five were present in the silver medal in Tokyo in 2021. Fermín López (champion in Paris in 2024) would surely have been added to them, not on the list due to an injury in the final stretch of the season. With an average of 26.7 years, Spain is the sixth youngest team in the World Cup. The goal. On October 13, 2007, Spain began to write its recent legendto. That day against Denmark, Sergio Ramos (then right back) completed a play built for more than a minute by chaining 28 passes. Many consider that this was the germ of the new Spanish football philosophy. Until then, Spain had built his story about “the Fury” and testosterone. Luis Aragonés found a new formula. He built a team around the ball with players who could not compete physically but surpassed their rivals in technique, positioning and knowledge of the game. The first Spain was structured around the backbone of FC Barcelona, ​​which already played the best association football in the world. In 2009 and 2011 he won the Champions League. Xavi, Iniesta, Pujol, Piqué and, later, Villa, consolidated a backbone that won Euro-Champions-World Cup-Champions-Euro Cup in five years. The association. Luis Aragonés’ greatest merit was believing in the idea and surrounding these players with similar associative profiles but who contributed their own style. To Silva, Jesús Navas, Fernando Torres, Spain became favorite 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 and he complied. But the merit was supporting the idea among the youngest players and getting the idea of ​​the game to penetrate the teams and their quarries. This has allowed Spain to win its last championship with its biggest star, Lamine Yamal, playing a discreet role and without large clearly differentiating individuals in world football. The secret is that Spain has managed to make its team play like a football club. It has maintained a base that it has been able to adapt (such as the commitment to wingers in the 2024 Euro Cup) to the circumstances of each moment in the last two years but that has taken flight throughout this championship, returning to its roots, managing itself around the ball. Fresh air. Spain’s victory also brings fresh air to a world football that has turned to physicality and individualism. Few teams have known how to play like a football club and only in the most conservative approaches have teams really worked on the same concept. However, all the favorites have given ground to individualities in the World Cup with the most names in history. Faced with an event where the four French attackers, Erling Haaland, Lionel Messi, Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane, have shone, Spain has been able to build a block without big names of its own and without huge World stars but … Read more

a goal from Spain is enough

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The Spanish National Team has once again given us another historic moment to remember with its 1-0 victory against Argentina in the World Cup final, proclaiming itself world champion for the second time. And the curious thing is that the celebration has not only been seen and heard, it has also been measured. The seismologist Jordi Díaz Cusí, researcher at Geosciences Barcelona (GEO3BCN-CSIC), have shared on your X account a graph with the records of the institute’s Educational Seismic Network during the final between Spain and Argentina. In it, vibration peaks can be seen right at the moments of the first goal, Mikel Merino’s disallowed goal and the final whistle, captured by seismometers distributed by different institutes and centers in Catalonia. What exactly does the graph show? In it we can see the records of nine stations, from the GEO3BCN building itself in Barcelona to institutes in Santa Coloma de Farners, Sabadell, Olot, Banyoles, Mollet, Santa Coloma de Gramenet or Torroella de Montgrí, over a period of just over half an hour. Vibrations generated by the moments of Spain’s goal, Merino’s disallowed goal and the final whistle. Image: CSIC Three arrows indicate the key moments of the match: Ferran’s goal, the disallowed play and the end of the match. In some stations, such as that of the Vallès institute in Sabadell, the lines are triggered very visibly at those moments; In others, the change is much more discreet. The difference, above all, depends on how many people were celebrating near each sensor. The same happened with the measurements detected by the seismic sensor of the Royal Observatory of Madrid. And just as share the National Geographic Institute-OACNIG in its X account, the Argentina-Spain match made the city of Madrid vibrate last night. How a seismometer notices a goal celebration. They are designed primarily for earthquakes, but they also have other uses, since they are devices so sensitive that they register any vibration that is transmitted through the ground, as well as that generated by our activity. Jumps, shouts, applause or firecrackers produce mechanical waves that travel through the terrain and reach the sensor, just as the passage of the subway or traffic on an avenue does. This was already documented years ago in a study from the institute itself (then ICTJA-CSIC), which analyzed how the seismic station installed at its headquarters “detected the vibrations generated by phenomena such as subway circulation, traffic and the celebration of goals during the matches played at the Camp Nou.” In that same study, for example, the signal generated by Barça’s three goals against Bayern Munich in the first leg of the 2015 Champions League semifinals was analyzed. What network has captured this data. The GEO3BCN-CSIC Educational Seismic Network is a scientific dissemination project that has been underway for several years. It is made up of Raspberry Shake seismometers installed mainly in secondary schools in the provinces of Barcelona and Girona, which they manage together with the teachers of each center. According to explained Jordi Díaz himself, when the network was expanded a few years ago, the objective was “to make seismology known to the students of the centers involved.” According to collect the Tutiempo.net portal, there are around 18 stations of this type spread across the network. It’s not the first time. This type of publication has almost become a tradition at the institute every time there is a high-profile match. It already happened in the 2024 Euro Cupbecause when Spain was proclaimed champion, the seismometers in Madrid and Barcelona recorded the vibrations associated with the goals of Nico Williams and Mikel Oyarzabal. Beyond the anecdote. Although a goal graph does not contribute anything to earthquake research, the institute itself has pointed out in the past that these educational stations also have real scientific utility. And if a local earthquake occurs, they can provide complementary data to that of permanent seismic networks. Cover image | RTVE In Xataka | A century of tectonic energy released in just 39 seconds: the unusual “seismic double” that has shaken Venezuela

Spain has just won its second World Cup. It’s the perfect time to ask your boss for a raise.

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If you have been thinking for a while about going to your boss’s office to ask him a salary increasewe have good news: that time is today. At least if your boss is a soccer fan and a supporter of the Spanish National Team. We don’t say it, it says it a study prepared by US economists who have found a clear relationship between the happiness caused by the successes of a person’s team and their predisposition to be more generous or risky when it comes to spending. After all, sport may be passionate (Of course football is.), but passions often creep into business as well. Why do you decide what you decide? It sounds strange, I know; But that is the question that a group of US economists asked themselves a few years ago, including Judd Kesslerfrom the University of Pennsylvania, or Andrew McClellanfrom the University of Chicago. To be more precise, the team attempted to clarify the relationship between a person’s mood and their financial decisions. “While angry people are advised to ‘think it over’ before making angry decisions, they are rarely advised to consider how incidental happiness influences their behaviors or giving,” slide. What does it have to do with sport? A lot. If something knows Spain today is that a sporting success can bring hundreds of thousands of people to ecstasy and raise the general mood of a country. Having your team achieve a victory triggers your dopamine levels and that is something that Kessler and his colleagues knew well, so in 2013 they went to a bar on the Upper Esat Side, New York, with a group of American football fans and, once there, they started watching games. And that for what? To do science… although in an unconventional way. What the economists did was put their ‘Indoas pigs? two live NFL games. In the first, held in December 2013, the Dallas Cowboys they faced Philadelphia Eagles. In the second, in January 2014, the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles. During the commercial breaks, the economists gave them questionnaires to assess how the game affected them on an emotional level (basically whether they felt more or less happy) and then a series of questions related to their greater or lesser willingness to make donations, purchase items or place bets. It was not a simple theoretical exercise. At stake were real dollars with which researchers compensated experimental subjects for their time. What did they discover? More or less what common sense dictates: when the person interviewed was ecstatic because things were going well for their team, they showed considerably fewer qualms about donating or spending money. It may seem obvious, but researchers claimit is one thing to have an intuition based on experience and another to have a study with academic parameters that demonstrates it. And taking into account that we are talking about something as serious as the factors that influence economic decisions, that is not a minor nuance. “We have observed that what happens in the game influences the subjects’ incidental happiness, and that changes give rise to predictable variations in their decisions,” they explain researchers, who claim to have developed a system that incorporates mood into economic models. As a reference, the matches altered the emotional state of 81% of the subjects. Did they go further? Yes. The study results were published first in June 2020 and a few months ago at Cambridge University Press. In their paper, Kessler and his colleagues confirm that “changes in incidental happiness significantly affect” most economic decision-making (two of the four included in the questionnaire) and that the happiest people are those who donate the most to NGOs, spend on consumer goods and take greater risks. “We observed variations in the economic decisions that the participants made throughout the game. 30 of the 64 participants (47%) change the amount they decide to donate; 36 of the 64 participants (56%) change the maximum amount they are willing to pay for a consumer good, and exactly the same number, 36 of the 64 participants (56%), change the maximum amount they are willing to pay for a lottery,” points out the article of 2020. Is the relationship so clear? The economists are clear. “We observed that when subjects’ mood improves, when they report feeling happier, they donate more to charities and may be more willing to pay more for a good, be less risk-averse and more confident,” Kessler points out and colleagues: “A person who is in a good mood can be modeled as equivalent to a person who feels richer.” Images | Wikipedia, Vitaly Gariev (Unsplash) and EmbedSocial (Unsplash) In Xataka | We believed that there is only one Erling Haaland. Until Peru got imaginative when baptizing its babies

It was the largest batch of medieval helmets found in Spain

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It was 1990 when the nets of some local fishermen “fished” two large metal blocks off the coast of Benicarló (Castellón), like says the University of Alicante. Inside were dozens of iron helmets that were initially thought to be Roman. After all, all the clues pointed in that direction: they appeared alongside Roman amphorae, Roman anchors and bronze helmets of the Montefortino type, a model used during the Punic Wars. Almost 40 years later, the error has been discovered: They were old but not that old. The discovery. In fact, they were almost 1,500 years more modern than initially thought. This new study has identified at least 43 matted and corrosion-melted helmets as belonging to the Late Middle Ages. The key to identification has not been the metal, but the textile remains that remained inside some helmets, which, thanks to the fact that they were adhered and sealed by the marine concretionsthey held out until they were able to radiocarbon date them. Why it is important. With 43 copies, according to the University of Alicante the set constitutes the largest known collection of medieval helmets recovered in Spanish waters and even in the western Mediterranean. Furthermore, they are a little-known rarity. according to the research team: non-elite infantry equipment, manufactured in smaller workshops and distributed through secondary or regional markets, and prior to the European standardization of plate armor. On the other hand, this correction several decades later serves as an example to illustrate a common problem in archeology: dating by association, that is, if the remains next to it are ancient, this too. However, if this hypothesis is not supported by absolute scientific methods, glaring errors can be made. On the other hand, it is also a poorly documented rarity, according to the research team: non-elite infantry equipment, manufactured in smaller workshops and distributed through secondary or regional markets, and prior to the European standardization of plate armor. Context. The dates of the dating fit with a time of strong instability on the Valencian coast. The study documents that Islamic piracy on the coast went from sporadic attacks to a structural threat since the mid-14th century, which led to fortifying the coast with watchtowers and mobilizing local militias. In this scenario, a shipment of cheap infantry helmets could have been destined for troops from the Kingdom of Valencia, mercenary companies or municipal militias. By type, these helmets date back to just before Europe standardized 15th-century plate armor, when workshops in Lombardy and Milan were beginning to dominate large-scale production. Before that, armor varied greatly depending on the region. In detail. The samples were sent to two independent laboratories for dating, one in Miami and another in Mannheim, where accelerator mass spectrometry was used. Four of the five dates fell between the third quarter of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century and the fifth was deviated, pointing to being later (more than 100 years later). As a curiosity, the fabric turned out to be a simple taffeta fabric, with vegetable fiber threads, probably a lining or interior padding. Yes, but. The research team points out that the exact origin of the helmets remains open: they could have been manufactured locally in the Iberian Peninsula or arrived via the trade routes of the western Mediterranean, at that time dominated by the workshops of northern Italy. The Crown of Aragon, with Valencia as a weapons producing and exporting centermaintained intense commercial traffic with Genoese merchants that operated in their ports. This fifth date, which behaves like an atypical value, points more to pollution produced on the seabed than to the helmet being used for a longer period of time and at some point having its inner lining changed. As for the reason for the sinking, the study only points to piracy, which is a reasonable assumption, but not a proven fact. In Xataka | The oldest bone spearhead found in Europe was not created by our species: it had already been there for 30,000 years In Xataka | More than 3,000 years ago Europe was already hosting battles involving several regions. We know it thanks to some arrows Cover | cambridge

How to watch Spain – Argentina: date and time of the 2026 World Cup final, and where you can watch it on any device

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Let’s explain to you How and where you can watch Spain’s match against Argentina. This is the grand final of the 2026 World Cup, in which our team has the option of getting the second star, the second World Cup in its history. But in front of them they will have an Argentina with Messi in a state of grace. Let’s make the article simple. First we are going to tell you the date and time to which this match is played. And then, we will tell you what your options are to be able to watch it from any device. Date and time of Spain – Argentina Spain’s match against Argentina will take place tomorrow, Sunday, July 19. Both teams will face each other at the New York New Jersey Stadium, a field where the New York Giants and the New York Jets of the NFL American football usually play. The grand final will be played at 9:00 p.m. in Spanish peninsular time8pm in the Canary Islands. And with this match we will know which of the two teams finally takes the world cup home. Where to watch Spain – Argentina As we have explained to you when we told you where you can watch the 2026 World Cupas it is a match for the Spanish National Team, you will be able watch it for free live through La1. This will allow you to see it both on DTT and on mobile phones or browsers through RTVE Play. Obviously, the party It will also be issued in the payment options that you could have to watch all the World Cup matches. It will be broadcast on DAZN and you will be able to watch it on any device if you have it contracted. You can also see it on the DAZN Mundial channel, available on both Movistar Plus and Orange TV. In Xataka Basics | Apps for football results: the best 14 applications to receive notifications and see match statistics

Europe wants to put an end to the particular Iberian exception of the Spanish train. And Spain has a clear answer: no.

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There are investments and investments. More or less necessary. More or less large. But there are also more or less viable ones. And, of course, the Ministry of Transport considers that the European Commission’s proposal to change all roads from Iberian gauge to international gauge is anything but viable. And they have a good reason: 30,000 million euros. What does Europe want? In October 2025, The European Commission presented its project to cement, once and for all, the connection between Madrid and Lisbon with high-speed trains. After many delays, if the plans are fulfilled and both cities end up being united in 2030 with a single train, high speed will arrive on this line 20 years late. In the writing The bases that the routes must follow are reflected and there is an important paragraph in them: With the ambition to fully integrate the Lisbon–Madrid high-speed rail connection into the broader high-speed network in Spain and France, adopting the European standard nominal gauge of 1,435 mm is a key step. In this way, the competitiveness of long-distance passenger traffic will be strengthened. By connecting Portugal and Spain, and extending to France, the Lisbon–Madrid high-speed rail connection has a clear cross-border and Union dimension In it it is clear that we are talking about the Madrid-Lisbon line but on the occasion of this text, public entities must study the economic viability of migrating the railway network to the international gauge and definitively abandoning the Iberian gauge. The answer. No. Simple and concise. According to The Countrya medium that claims to have had access to internal documents of the Ministry of Transportation, the Government’s response to this migration is a resounding “no.” The reasons are as simple as that it would take 30 years of works and an investment of 30,000 million euros to reverse the Iberian exceptionalism of the Spanish and Portuguese train. In the documents that Spain will present to Brussels, it is specified that the matter is not viable in its entirety or in part since the possibility of installing “third threads or lanes to achieve mixed widths” was contemplated, they explain in the medium. No, no and no. They explain in The Country that the Ministry of Transportation rejects all the options that have been put on the table: Changing exclusively the lines of the European corridors: it would leave, according to Transport, more than 5,000 km of the network isolated. Implement a mixed width with third rails or threads: discarded due to the complexity of the work and the high maintenance cost Change all Iberian gauge roads: Transport considers it unapproachable although it has been the most studied option because it is ideal. What is this track width? Spain, since the 19th century it has lived in an Iberian exceptionality next to Portugal. Throughout this century, the railway was gaining followers all over the world. During its expansion, the lines were built with different track widths, taking into account the particularities of the terrain. In Europe, the number of tracks built with a width of 1,435 mm multiplied and ended up becoming established. Everything above it is considered “wide gauge” and below it as “narrow gauge” because those 1,435 mm were accepted as the standard. This is how the international gauge was born. In Spain, however, we chose to build our railway network on a track gauge of 1,672 millimeters, defended by three engineers who were entrusted with the task of projecting the future of the Spanish train. They argued that a wider track width allowed the use of more powerful locomotives and that this was essential in a mountainous country like ours. And the consequences? The consequences were immediate. Already in the middle of the 19th century From Portugal they asked Spain by letter to desist from building their roads with this new gauge because they would be isolated from Europe. And the problem, evidently, was greater for Portugal, which was dragged along by the Spanish decision. Spain, as you imagine, did not give up and now lives between three gauges of road: the international one (for about 4,000 km of high speed), the Iberian one (for 13,000 km of Cercanías) and the metric width (1,210 km for especially mountainous terrain). This is a problem for connectivity between tracks because trains cannot jump from one to another, except for the Talgo Avril. And it’s an advantage. At least for Renfe. And Renfe can take advantage of this particularity in some very specific points on the Peninsula. For example, in Madrid-Galicia, international gauge and Iberian gauge are used, already in the Galician part. Only Renfe has trains that can jump from one track gauge to another, so competition is eliminated. And the same will happen in Portugal. The connection between Madrid and Lisbon is being built on an international gauge but the Portuguese high-speed line between Lisbon and Porto will operate on an Iberian gauge. This leaves Renfe as the only company that could operate a Madrid-Porto train passing through Lisbon without the need to transfer. Now it is better understood why Renfe will invest in converting the Avrils fixed gauge on variable gauge trains and why Transportes believes that Portugal is a great market opportunity. Photo | Falk2 In Xataka | Renfe offers its juiciest contract: 4,000 million euros to buy trains. And everything indicates that he will not stay in Spain

Spain is going to have three heat waves in six weeks. AEMET is clear: it is no longer a wave, it is the climate

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Spain has just signed its start to the warmest summer in the historical series. There it is nothing. Between June 1 and July 15, the average temperature was 3.3 ºC above normal. In these six weeks, we have suffered two official heat waves, an extreme episode that did not become extreme and, according to AEMETwe are already on the rise of the next wave this Sunday. So much so that the heat begins to be the least of it. The central question of 2026 is simple: if we cross the heat threshold three times in five weeks, isn’t something broken in that threshold? In Xataka "It’s brutal": Meteorologists have taken a look at the heat forecasts for next week and they are not optimistic The third wave does not exist yet. I don’t want to mislead anyone. AEMET has issued an information note (it is not yet a special notice) and this is because, although we know that there will be a generalized thermal rise, the criteria remain extremely strict. Spokesman Rubén del Campo talked about temperatures “extraordinarily high” and maximum temperatures of up to 44 ºC in the southern half. But the duration, extent and strength is yet to be defined. What is clear is that, if it were not, it would be just barely. That’s why what happens next week doesn’t change the general picture. Not only would it be three or four extreme heat episodes in six weeks, but some climatologists such as Jorge Olcina They also add the “Saharan advection at the end of May” and speak of four episodes in eight weeks. With old reference periods, we would probably be in those terms. But how explained José Ángel Núñez and Rubén del Campo On the agency’s official blog, the definition is not touched, precisely, to see things like what we are seeing. That is, what the threshold is doing is clearly showing that everything is changing. According to the agency’s own studybetween 2001 and 2025 Spain registered 91 heat waves compared to 43 in the period 1976-2000, and the days under the wave went from 210 to 510. This summer does not fit the threshold, it is true. But it fits perfectly with the trend. In Xataka Today the heatwave begins and the meteorologists are clear: "They paint coarse for the Mediterranean regions of Spain" And that’s the problem. The ISCIII MoMo system, the statistical model that indicates excess mortality, attributed 3,649 deaths to the heat last summer, the second worst figure of the decade. The problem here, as we pointed out a few days ago, is that in 2026 we will already we have spent half of that excess before the dog days begin (the worst part of summer). Meteorology has shown us that, at any moment, the situation can change suddenly. What remains is to wait, but the feeling that the world is changing faster than our adaptations to it has stopped being a fear and has begun to become something very real. Image | Meteociel In Xataka |Neither London nor the United Kingdom: the NASA map that reveals where the grayest sky in Europe is (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 Spain is going to have three heat waves in six weeks. AEMET is clear: it is no longer a wave, it is the climate was originally published in Xataka by Javier Jimenez .

In 2024, an eclipse wiped out 14 gigawatts from the Texas power grid. It is the best clue of what awaits Spain

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On April 8, 2024, at 12:15 noon, 13.8 gigawatts of sunlight entered the grid in Texas. Forty five minutes later 800 megawatts left: The Sun had gone out. It is true that the gas covered the gap, that the batteries helped overcome the pothole and that no one found out about anything. But that eclipse and everything we learned from it are the best possible information to understand what is going to happen to Spain’s electrical grid this August 12. What will happen? That’s the curious thing. On August 12, 2026, when the shadow of the Moon cross Spain from A Coruña to Mahónnothing is going to happen. Absolutely nothing. And not because we have a model electrical grid, nor because (since the blackout) we have done our homework. Nothing will happen because it will be half past eight in the afternoon. What happened in Texas. According to ERCOT datathe Texan operator, photovoltaics went from 27.6% of the electricity mix to 1.7% and then back to 27% in just two hours. The gas filled around 80% of the gap and the batteries helped as well (with, around, 1.4 GW). The thing is that during the Texan midday there is a lot of sunlight. Between 8:28 p.m. and 8:32 p.m., the Sun It will be just 12 degrees above the horizon in Galicia and only 2 in the Balearic Islands: Solar energy available on the grid will already be very scarce. That is, the eclipse will arrive in Spain when the photovoltaics will already be turning off by themselves. So nothing will happen? Although there are no official forecasts yet published, calculations indicate that the eclipse will add a second-order disturbance: the loss it can cause (between 4-5 GW) is in the order that the network usually handles on August afternoons. Shouldn’t cause too many problems this August. And “this August” are the key words. Because if we are wondering about the impact of the eclipse in Spain, perhaps we are looking at the wrong eclipse. On August 2, 2027, between 10:45 and 11:20 in the morning, we will see how The Moon will cover a minimum of 70% of the solar disk throughout the national territory (85% in Madrid and close to 100% in Cádiz and Málaga). That will be a test for the electrical grid because 65% of Spain’s photovoltaic park is in Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura and, at that time, it will be in full ascending ramp. And are we prepared? To tell the truth, it shouldn’t catch us by surprise. The Government has already created a commission with thirteen ministries for the trio of eclipses 2026-2028. However, today, we do not have a public plan for the network in 2027 and it would not be bad if someone started talking about this. Image | Luis Olmos | Martijn Baudoin In Xataka | A unique opportunity of 1 minute and 40 seconds: what citizens can contribute to science during the eclipse

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