The forests of the Balearic Islands have begun a transformation that will turn them, according to experts, into spaces increasingly similar to Morocco. The comparison, which is part of the Forest Network's analysis, is one of the warnings issued by forestry technicians after a summer that has particularly punished pine trees, holm oaks, and other Mediterranean species. The succession of extreme droughts and heatwaves threatens to transform the vegetation we know today. The first effects are already visible. “The change in landscape, without a doubt, has begun,” warns Carolina Rodríguez, territorial dean of the Official College of Forestry Engineers, to ARA Balears.

With the Balears Verd project, Miquel Ramis, a master stonemason, farmer, and building restorer, proposes planting a million trees and shrubs. Author of Regenerative Agriculture, he says that it is urgent to take action to mitigate climate change.

The problems with Llull, the program that is meant to replace Gest-IB as the management tool for educational centers in the Balearic Islands, continue to hinder the work of management teams. Half a year after ARA Balears made public the centers' dissatisfaction with the platform's incidents, difficulties with the digital signature of invoices persist and force directors to spend time on administrative procedures that, in theory, should be more agile. Furthermore, a large part of the academic functions that are supposed to allow leaving the previous system behind are still not operational. Because of all this, the management teams have created a WhatsApp group called Surviving Llull, where they share their concerns and dissatisfaction. The Department of Education reminds that it is software in the process of implementation.

The Avícola Son Perot project to build a farm for 80,000 laying hens at the Son Brau estate, in Manacor, has received all unfavorable reports from the Manacor City Council. Technicians question aspects regarding urban planning, environment, and mobility. The resolution for the integrated environmental authorization now lies with the Government.

A school in Palma, located in Son Espanyolet, has sent the list of school supplies for the 2026-2027 academic year to primary school families with numerous errors in the Spanish version. It resembles, setting aside the distances and the scope of the problem, that legendary 2013 Trepitja report, but in reverse. The 25-page document includes expressions such as 'battleship box', 'handlebar handle' and 'bag to carry spare clothes from the USA', which obviously do not correspond to the material requested from the students.

Last-minute agreement between the PP and Vox regarding Senate candidacies in 23 provinces with the aim of maximizing results. Among them, the Balearic Islands, where Vox has already announced it will not run in Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera. By virtue of the pact, the PP will cede the number two spot on the ballot in Mallorca to Vox.

The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, accused Marga Prohens' Government this Monday of an "unbearable hypocrisy" for demanding limits on the growth of the Balearic Islands' airports while, as he denounces, it does not reduce the supply of tourist accommodation. The statements come amidst the strong social opposition that has been provoked by the expansion project of Ibiza airport, promoted by Aena, a company 51% controlled by the State through ENAIRE, a public entity that depends precisely on the ministry directed by Puente.

The Palma City Council has postponed the 2027 budget votes for the Municipal Transport Company (EMT) and the Municipal Parking and Projects Society (SMAP) due to Vox's refusal to guarantee their favorable vote. The boards of directors of both municipal companies were scheduled to meet this Monday afternoon to approve the accounts, but were ultimately called off.

The Mallorcan Barça goalkeeper, Cata Coll, was awarded the Yashin Trophy, which recognizes her as the best goalkeeper in the world. During her speech at the Ballon d'Or gala, the Mallorcan chose to give part of her speech in Catalan, a fact that was very appreciated from the very first moment on social media: "congratulations for making Catalan visible in your impeccable speech, using our beloved Mallorcan language".

President Marga Prohens claimed to have fulfilled “more than 97%” of her electoral program in the general policy debate just held. But during the plenary session, the opposition also reproached her for promises made both in this and in previous extraordinary plenary sessions. These were the five most prominent reproaches to the head of the Executive.

Rafael González, current councilor for Gent per Formentera at the Island Council, has been chosen by the party membership as the candidate to represent the party in the municipal elections of May 2027.

The coordinator of MÉS per Mallorca, Lluís Apesteguia, expressed satisfaction this Monday at having finally included Podemos in the Ara Més-Front Ampli coalition. The leader of Podemos in the Islands, Lucía Muñoz, will go as number three on the lists, as an independent. "I love it when a plan comes together," said the eco-sovereigntist. In response to the call for a useful vote for larger parties, he sent a message to the left-wing electorate: "We are presenting a ballot with the security of obtaining representation and the capacity to influence state policy."

MÉS per Palma will present a motion to the next municipal plenary session in support of the general strike for housing called for November 11. The initiative demands measures to curb real estate speculation, limit rental prices, and facilitate access to housing in the Balearic capital.

Mateu Català is a 24-year-old young entrepreneur from Manacor, who a few months ago started MC Crono, a new vehicle rental and sales company with great aspirations for the future. We talk for a while about the rental market and the future of the Mallorcan car fleet.

STEI has denounced that the Department of Education and Universities is applying "improper" salary reductions to teachers who have been granted leave for legal guardianship. As the union has verified in the payrolls of the affected teachers, the Administration is deducting the salary corresponding to five hours per week, even though the reduction in working hours they have been granted is one non-teaching hour per day. The union organization maintains that this measure represents, in reality, a reduction of four hours per week of the working day, and not five, as the Department applies. Therefore, it considers that the salary deductions do not align with the hourly reduction that corresponds to the affected workers.

We talk today with Elisabet Femenies Mascaró (Vilafranca, 2003). A lover of mathematics, she left her teachers stunned when she chose the Social Sciences Baccalaureate. However, from a very young age she had dreams and longings that are coming true. Recently, she graduated with the best academic record of her Social Education class at the University of Lleida.

As a boy, he suffered from a strong obsession with animals and everyone thought he would end up as a veterinarian; he collected books about animals. He spent his adolescence singing Amy Winehouse and dancing to Madonna and Cher. He was also fascinated by Marilyn Monroe: “She was a cliché made into a person. I was very obsessed with Marilyn: I had photographs and posters of her in my room.” Cristina speaks, who still laughs when she explains it. She is the sister of Jaume Miranda (Palma, 1993), communicator and content creator on social media.

"The other day they laughed at me and my friends for speaking in Majorcan". This is how the testimony of Miquel Àngel Suau Morro begins, a young man who reports having suffered a situation of linguistic mockery in Majorca. According to his account, a group of teenagers began to imitate his way of speaking in an exaggerated manner and make derogatory comments when he and his friends were conversing in Majorcan.

I'll get this off my chest soon. I'll say it plainly: I'm very good at separating the artist from the work. It's not a dilemma for me. I'm afraid of how comfortable contradictions feel inside me. It seems they've found a wide and comfortable place, where they don't fight. It has always happened to me: perhaps I lack morals and have an excess of hedonism. I am jealous of the things that give me pleasure. Pleasure takes precedence over common sense and allows me, in the solitude of my screen and my headphones, to consume artists I wouldn't dare to confess to publicly and others that I would, with a certain shame.

On July 21, 1936, three days after the coup d'état, the Catalan Marina Ginestà Coloma, a 17-year-old communist girl, accidentally became the great icon of the anti-fascist militia woman. She was working as a translator at the Hotel Colón in Barcelona, which had been converted into the headquarters of the PSUC, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia. Her determined pose did not go unnoticed by Juan Guzmán, a Mexican photojournalist of German origin who was in the city to cover the People's Olympiad for the Efe agency, the alternative to the Olympic Games in Hitler's Berlin that, due to the military insurrection, did not take place. Guzmán asked the young woman if he could take a special photo session of her. He had her go up to the building's roof and lent her a rifle. The proposal caught her attention, as she had never touched one before. Due to the circumstances of the moment, however, she agreed to act as a model dressed in a militia uniform. In front of the camera, she exhibited a defiant attitude with the weapon hanging on her back.

Climbing Kilimanjaro without walking is much more than a sporting challenge for Mix Manresa. In 2023, after a trip to Kenya, he began to shape a project that would take him to the 5,895 meters of the African summit with a handbike and that would end up involving a medical team, friends, sponsors, and production companies. The result is Hatua. Ascent to Kilimanjaro without taking a step, a documentary that explains the expedition, but also everything behind it: the preparation, the bonds created around a challenge of these dimensions, and the way Manresa understands disability.

The Majorcan filmmaker Jaume Carrió presents at the Palma Mountain Film Festival The images arrived on time, a six-minute short film that combines archival footage and documentary essay to reflect on loss, memory, and the way society preserves memories in the face of natural disasters.

A quiet trip on a mountain road. A mother, a six-year-old boy, and a situation that, at first, does not seem to have anything extraordinary about it. But something does not quite add up. Little by little, the gestures, the reactions of little Pau –played by Marc Miralles– and the situations surrounding the characters make a tension grow that leads to an unexpected twist. This is the premise of La innocència, the short film by Miki Duran that arrives at the Colonya Palma Muntanya Film Fest.

Neighbors and animal rights activists formed a human chain this Sunday near Son Brau, in Manacor, to demand that the Government stop the 80,000-hen farm that Avícola Son Perot is planning there. With the file still in environmental processing, the opponents wanted to make visible a concern that ranges from animal welfare to water availability and the quality of life of the residents.

The Llumetes shipwreck, or what everyone knew until now as the Portocristo underwater museum, a two-million-euro reef financed by European funds, which was supposed to transform the port entrance into a showcase of reproductions of various ships historically sunk in the town, will not be built. The great attraction to draw specialized tourism, both national and international, announced at the end of the last legislative term, could not meet the required deadlines and procedures. This, which has been known for months, left, however, until now a question in the air: Where have the two million euros of the project gone? Have they been lost?

The current mayor of Andratx, Estefania Gonzalvo, will once again head the People's Party candidacy in the municipal elections of May 2027. The local board of the party, which is also chaired by Gonzalvo, has unanimously approved her designation as candidate. After the local board's decision, the PP headquarters in Andratx hosted a meeting with members and supporters of the party. The party plans to hold the official presentation event for the candidacy later on.

The Sóller 2010 works council has come out in defense of workers who are on medical leave and has rejected the idea of presenting them as the main cause of the problems plaguing the service. The union representation demands that the municipal company's management analyze the internal organization and working conditions before blaming absenteeism for the current difficulties.

Lula da Silva has added to his legend this Sunday with a resounding, improbable, and unprecedented electoral triumph, which will give him the possibility to exercise, at 80 years old, a fourth and final term as president of Brazil, with which he will close a long political career. There was no precedent in the New Republic –born from the 1988 Constitution, which the extreme right threatened to blow up– for the loser of the first round to be able to turn the situation around in the second round. And the "father of the poor", driven by the force of giant street mobilizations, has achieved it. The candidate of the Workers' Party (PT) has added 51.79% of the support (64,255,891 votes, the highest figure ever achieved by a candidate in Brazil), against 48.21% (59,825,984 votes) for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party (PL).

Unlike what happened in Argentina with Juan Domingo Perón, Lulism will not become an ideology nor will it perpetuate itself as a political movement in Brazil, but rather it will disappear when Lula da Silva, who turns 81 this Tuesday, decides to step aside. For the moment, however, that has not been the case. The footprint of the social and income transfer policies established during his first two terms (2003-2010), which benefited 50 million Brazilians, 36 million of whom rose out of extreme poverty, has transformed the South American giant forever.

“We will win, and I can't wait,” said Jovana, an electrical engineering student at the University of Belgrade and part of the Serbian student movement, a few days ago. This Sunday, Serbia chose the composition of its Parliament in the most important elections since the nineties. Since before the polls opened at seven in the morning, thousands of people were queuing at the doors of the polling stations. The turnout was 69.1%, the highest in the decade.

The Valencian playwright and actor Carles Alberola has won the 2026 Born Theatre Award with the play Tears of Marble. The award, organized by the Cercle Artístic de Ciutadella, comes with a prize of 14,000 euros and includes the publication of the work in the official languages of the State.

Andratx, like all our towns, is well loaded with linguistic anecdotes. The one that occupies us today arises from a confusion between spellings that the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic Dictionary (DCVB) unravels with documentary sources and philological criteria. At the entry 'Andratx', the dictionary documents the old spelling Andraig from the 13th century to the 19th and the modern Andratx from the beginning of the 19th century. In between, a parade of incorrect graphic variants, such as 'Andrayig’ and 'Andrag’, documented during the Middle Ages and the modern era. In the 18th and 19th centuries we find 'Andraix’ and 'Andrax’, while 'Andrache’, from the 18th century, and 'Andraxe’, documented in 1812, are identified as Castilian adaptations. But we still have another spelling, which appeared in the 19th century, that will take us to the very core of our history.

The Crown of Aragon: this is the shared history of centuries that the president of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens, reclaimed last October 15th, when the board of the Poblet monastery met for the first time in fifteen years, shared with Catalonia, the Valencian Country, and Aragon, and responsible for the management of this space, a pantheon of the common sovereigns. Well, yes. Or no? The truth is that the Balearic Islands were systematically sidelined –what a surprise!– throughout their membership in this confederation, practically during all the time they were part of it.

The Electoral Board has ordered the Government to remove from its official website some of the announcements that the president, Marga Prohens, made during the last general policy debate in Parliament, following a complaint by the PSIB. The socialists consider that these announcements violate electoral legislation, while the PP highlights that the Board has dismissed the request to open a sanctioning file against the president.

The left of the PSOE in the Balearic Islands will run united in the general elections on November 29. Ara Més and Podem Illes Balears reached an agreement this Sunday to run together in the elections, after negotiations between the two groups ended without an understanding when the electoral coalition had to be registered. The pact finally allows for the incorporation of Podem into the candidacy, with Lucía Muñoz as number three on the list for Congress, in the capacity of an independent.

The first shout from the Vox supporters in Palma when Santiago Abascal entered the rally was not, as is usual, "president", but rather "Pedro Sánchez, son of a bitch". For the party, Abascal is the "only candidate" in the general elections, and for this reason, he has already started visiting all the communities before the official start of the campaign. Surrounded by strong security measures in front of the Cathedral, Abascal put his programmatic axes on the table: "National priority, recover Ceuta and kick out the corrupt government". He also addressed the potential PP voters. "A small change is not enough", he assured: "If you don't want us to stop halfway, don't stop halfway on November 29th, give us great support".

The Ibiza City Council will take the first step this Monday to create a new green zone between Els Llimoners and La Real. The municipal plenary session will vote on the initial approval of a modification to the General Urban Development Plan that will allow for the transformation of 3,273 square meters of municipal property into public open space.

Madò Farta reports that the Santanyí Local Police forced her to take off her mask and identify herself while she was protesting in front of a delegation of political officials, including the town's mayor. According to her account, she had encountered the political representatives and had stayed by their side for a while, while they were talking about her, which is why she claims she felt uncomfortable.

The project for the Avícola Son Perot chicken mega-farm, which aims to produce 26.5 million eggs annually at the Son Brau estate in Manacor, presents urban planning non-compliances and serious environmental shortcomings. This is warned by the mandatory reports issued by the Manacor City Council, to which ARA Balears has had access. All municipal departments that have had to intervene in the administrative procedure have reported unfavorably on this controversial project that is accumulating opponents. The company's track record, involved in multiple complaints of animal abuse and health-related issues, has put the area's residents on a war footing.

There are children who know how to read, but do not know how to explain what they have read. They can pronounce the words of a text and reach the end of the page, but when the teacher asks them what that which they have just read means, the answer does not come. It is a scene that teachers consulted by ARA Balears claim to find more and more often in classrooms and which helps to understand a piece of data that is hard to forget: the Balearic Islands have lost 31 points in reading comprehension in the PISA tests, from the 472 of the previous edition to the current 441. The decline does not speak only of books. Reading comprehension is the ability to understand a text, relate its information, make inferences and draw conclusions from it. And, according to the teachers and professors consulted, the difficulties begin long before a student has a PISA text in front of them. They begin when they do not yet know how to read.

Teachers in the Balearic Islands who wish to transfer to another autonomous community will be able to submit their applications from November 5th to 26th, within the framework of the state transfer competition, coordinated by the Ministry of Education. Both career civil servants who wish to change their destination, probationary civil servants who do not yet have a permanent position, and those career civil servants who are in expectation (without a permanent position) may participate. This procedure is convened in alternate years to the autonomous transfer competition and allows for the mobility of teaching staff between communities. Thus, teachers from the Islands can opt for a destination outside the Archipelago, while teachers from other territories can also apply for positions in the Balearics.

The 2027 Balearic Islands teaching competitive examinations will begin on April 17th. The Ministry of Education has announced the date six months in advance and will offer a total of 474 positions across different teaching bodies. The goal is for candidates to know when they will be examined well in advance and to facilitate the organization of the islands' educational centers. The Minister of Education, Antoni Vera, has highlighted that advancing the calendar will allow for streamlining the administrative procedures prior to the start of the school year. "The candidates already know when the exam will be," he noted.

The Balearic Islands registered a total of 1,730,716 foreign tourists in September, thus becoming the autonomous community with the most travelers residing outside of Spain, ahead of Catalonia (1,576,701) and Andalusia (1,032,177). This is reflected in the Hotel Tourism Situation survey made public this Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), which also indicates that the Archipelago received a total of 168,851 Spanish tourists in September.

The port of Palma hosted this Thursday the Telefónica Innovation Day, a conference that brought together about 200 professionals from companies, public administrations, and startups to show how new technologies can transform the economic activity of the Balearic Islands. The company presented nearly 20 digital solutions applied to sectors such as tourism, industry, mobility, education, health, and security.

The cost of housing in the Balearic Islands pushes a total of 16,195 workers into a situation of poverty, according to a report made public this Tuesday by the NGO Oxfam Intermón. The study, titled When working is not enough: the impact of housing costs on working poverty, reflects that the poverty rate in the Archipelago stands at 6.12% before taking into account the money spent on housing, compared to 8.84% after, 2.72 points higher.

"The storm system that on Monday evening was threatening Mallorca deviated and headed towards Menorca: a reminder to keep in mind that, however good the models may be, there always remains a margin of uncertainty". With this reflection, the great Agustí Jansà, former provincial director of Aemet in the Balearic Islands, recalled a reality that we often forget when we talk about meteorology: predictions are always based on probabilities.

Before getting to know the Islands, Manolo García had already looked at them many times. They were in the photographs his father kept from his military service in Ibiza, where he had done his military service in 1954, and in the landscapes of the painters that fascinated him when, as a teenager, he went to the museum. "It was a paradise," he recalls of that paper Ibiza. Later he would arrive there himself, initially without the memories he would go on to accumulate through concerts, trips, and friendships. Now that he returns to Mallorca to exhibit, his father's images reappear among the explanations of his paintings and a very present concern: he acknowledges that many people make a living from tourism, but warns that "everything has a price."

Mecagondéu is the third album by Sr. À, after Fil per randa (2019) and Ordint la trama (2016). Sr. À is the stage name of Adrià Rubio, born in Barcelona 31 years ago, an Ibizan by adoption since he was 14; he currently resides in Camarasa (La Noguera), because it “hurts him a lot what is being done to Ibiza”. Precisely, the first single of the album has been ‘E.I.V.I.S.S.A.’, an invective against the social and environmental degradation of the island. In Mecagondéu, Sr. À combines poignant lyrics and rap with a classic air, with production by Jove Cirurgià del Sample, who has introduced fragments of sardanes or redoblat singing. Sr. À is also the singer of the band Malaka, is a social integrator by profession, and a restorer of peasant chairs. If you are fed up with pop without ideological substance, Mecagondéu is just what you were expecting.

The archaeological excavations at the Talayotic site of Son Mas del Potecari, in Inca, continue to provide new clues about the history of the monument. The sixth campaign of interventions has allowed for the location and documentation of part of a perimeter ring of the tumulus, a finding that will help researchers better understand the architectural configuration of the structure.

“The aforementioned building will constitute a model of its kind, a true palace of primary education, with simple yet elegant lines, large proportions, and a perfect finish...”. This is how the newspaper La Almudaina defined, in October 1929, the girls' school building that had just been constructed in Casa Blanca. A few years earlier, in 1926, the first one had been built, which became the one for the boys.

An archaeological research team will resume excavations this October at the Son Sunyer necropolis, in Pil·larí, with the aim of discovering what is hidden in the tombs from about 3,500 years ago. Researchers will search for burial remains that have been preserved without alterations, a finding that would allow, for the first time, the study of a Majorcan hypogeum using scientific methodology.

With an archaeological excavation, the remains of James IV, titular king of Mallorca, have been sought in Soria. In principle, it seems disconcerting that the bones of a sovereign of the Islands, even though he never managed to take possession of the crown, are found lost in the world. But this is just one more case of the strange adventures, after death, of those who in life were monarchs of the 'kingdom in the middle of the sea', between the 13th and 14th centuries: transfers, disappearances, a tomb with two heads and another with a strange object inside. Just as if they were victims of some kind of curse or, at the very least, of colossal bad luck.

My little vegetable garden grew every day. Weeding, tying up the tomato plants, and watching how the water, drop by drop, quenched the plants' thirst rewarded me with a bounty of tasty fruits. Only the pumpkin plant resisted, until one day it seemed to wake up from its laziness, as if the heat had plunged it into a long lethargy. Its shoots began to grow and exceed the parceled limits of the garden. A branch, free on the other side of the fence, filled with healthy and vigorous fruits, like an open hand generously offering its gifts.

The week ahead, with Jordi Garrigós

Some of the things we hope not to miss in the next seven days

I will begin the grief caused by the breakup of Zoo by listening to Malifeta, the project of the Valencians' guitarist, Arnau Giménez, and Mireia Matoses (from Pupil·les). After a while of releasing songs created during the pandemic, during which they both lived together and composed, their first album has just been released, Mitologia, a compilation of tracks they have been making over the last three years and which are now seeing the light of day. Ideal for missing Panxo and company's band a little less, because here there is also rap and love for the beats.

The British presence in Menorca during the 18th century left its mark on many aspects of island life. Contacts with England favored the arrival of new tastes, ingredients, and customs that, over time, were incorporated into the recipe books of Menorcan households. One of the most significant elements of this legacy is butter, which occupies a prominent place in many preparations. In a domestic kitchen where lard played a fundamental role in the making of pastries and sweets, butter offered other possibilities: it provided an unctuous texture, a characteristic aroma, and a particular consistency to the doughs. Its incorporation did not necessarily mean the abandonment of traditional fats, but rather the expansion of a repertoire enriched with new ingredients and techniques.

On this route, we explore the east of the lesser Pitiusa island, through paths and trails that traverse dizzying cliffs, old quarries, and a lighthouse with a long history. All in all, an immense cultural landscape that we can only perceive in its fullness through our steps and our gaze. Formentera has a human dimension and a leisurely pace that can only be discovered when traveling on foot and without haste. This is how we discover that near the La Mola lighthouse, at an altitude of 118 meters facing the immense Mediterranean, a monument was erected in 1978 in honor of the French writer Jules Verne (1828-1905), on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth. We do not have his visit to the Balearic Islands documented, despite the strong friendship he maintained with Archduke Luis Salvador, whom he had met in the summer of 1884 in Venice. Be that as it may, The Mysterious Island (1875), Off on a Comet (1877), and The Lighthouse at the End of the World (1901) seem to have, as noted by Nicolás J. Moragues in his book Jules Verne and the Balearic Islands (Edicions Talaiots, 2015), a clear and direct inspiration in the geography and heritage of Formentera through the reading of the Archduke's Die Balearen.

In this route we explore the only viable path to descend from Ferreries to Cala Galdana, the Torrepetxina staircase. A well-known traditional itinerary of Menorcan hiking, the path allows overcoming the unevenness of the rocky walls of the ravine, connecting the inland area with the valley floor. The origin of this path is historical and purely livestock and agricultural. The Algendar ravine has been, since the era of Arab rule and the Middle Ages, one of the most fertile areas of the island thanks to its permanent water stream. The orchards at the bottom of the ravine needed to be connected to the places on the upper part of the rocky platform, such as the Torrepetxina site. Hence the existence of this route, given that the traditional one, which starts from the same clearing of the monumental holm oak of the Algendar ravine, has been closed for years.

In this itinerary, we explore the surroundings of Santa Eugènia to travel along part of its oldest road network and discover some of the most representative villages of the municipality, Les Coves and Les Olleries, for their history and heritage. Almost unpublished corners that can only be experienced and perceived on foot, with all five senses. If a few weeks ago we were in the northeastern part of the town to visit Les Alqueries, today we move to the almost opposite side, with the intention of traversing the paths and landscapes that make up a part of the most significant Taujà cultural landscape. We are located in the Pla de Mallorca region, between the municipalities of Sencelles, Algaida, Palma, Santa Maria del Camí, and Consell.

Catalan mountaineering has made history. Bru Busom, Marc Toralles and Rubén Sanmartín have been awarded a Piolet d’Or, the most prestigious international recognition in mountaineering, for the opening of The essence of commitment, a new route on the east face of Yerupajá (6,634 meters), in the Peruvian Andes. It is the first award of this category granted to a Spanish ascent, a milestone that vindicates the exploration, autonomy and commitment of this route.

The Palma Mountain Film Festival will celebrate its 17th edition from October 19th to 27th with nine days of cinema, adventures, and reflection on the landscapes and challenges of the mountains. The program includes the world premiere of Hatua, about Mix Manresa's expedition to Kilimanjaro with an adapted bicycle, the presentation of the ascent of Yerupajá by alpinists Marc Toralles and Bru Busom, and a look at the Serra de Tramuntana through the eyes of two Majorcan filmmakers.

Motorcycles flying at the Parc de la Mar in front of the Cathedral. Palma City Council has presented the third edition of the SoloFlow Freestyle Ciutat de Palma, which will take place on October 10th, starting at 8:00 PM, at the Velòdrom Illes Balears. During the presentation event, which took place at the Parc de la Mar, an exhibition was offered as a preview of the show.

On September 14, 1985, thousands of Catalans gathered at El Prat airport to welcome the expedition that was returning home after reaching the summit. For the first time, the Catalan flag had flown atop the highest mountain in the world, Everest. Two weeks earlier, Òscar Cadiach, Toni Sors, and Carles Vallès had made history, and Cadiach had been responsible for delivering the good news via a precarious radio connection: “Catalonia has reached the roof of the world”. Curiously, many people still believe that the words were "We have reached the summit", but that was not the case. The Tarragona native, who had climbed without the help of oxygen bottles, arrived with so much energy at the top of Everest that he had time to read the Sextine Ode to some intrepid Catalans that the poet Joan Brossa had dedicated to those brave men.

“A map is a technical tool, but it also shapes our perception of peoples and continents”. This is how Togo's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Robert Dussey, justified the resolution approved by the UN, which recommends using a different world map from now on.

It is not always necessary to carry out a major renovation to radically change a house and the life that can be lived there. In Fonolleres, a small village in the Empordà region, the Anna & Eugeni Bach studio started from a home built in the early 2000s and intervened with an almost classic strategy: preserving a good part of what already existed and adding what was missing to gain comfort and, above all, to adapt the house to the tastes and habits of its owner. The result, however, is far from conventional. With a few operations, the house has profoundly changed its way of being experienced.

I would not want in any way to put myself in the shoes of any of those authors who triumph with their first published book –I certainly do not dream of resurfacing like Carmen Laforet–, because the generated expectations are so high that it is very difficult not to fail. Even though the success that the writer Alana S. Portero (Madrid, 1978) obtained with her first novel, La mala costumbre, was more than justified, now the publication of her second, Cosamala, puts her in a complicated position. Will the author revalidate her triumph or will she fall?

In Frankenstein, the writer Mary Shelley wrote: “My courage and resolution are firm; my hopes, however, fluctuate”. Anyone with political aspirations could agree with this sentence; Catalans, without a doubt, would quickly join in. But I am not bringing it up because I have heard it said by any neighbor from, let's say, Tona, Vilafranca, or l’Ampolla, but because I found it in an excellent novel that speaks of lands very far from ours, and with a very different contextual situation. I am talking about Once Upon a Time in the East, a book by Xiaolu Guo published by Angle Editorial in collaboration with the Catalan International Institute for Peace (ICIP) within the collection Classics of Peace and Non-violence.

Com ser un dissident, del periodista nord-americà Gal Beckerman (1976), és un assaig en forma de manual d’instruccions sobre un tema –un concepte, un posicionament vital, una actitud davant el poder– que, d’entrada, no és gens fàcil de definir i de delimitar. De què parlem exactament quan parlem de dissidència, de dissidents? Des del moment que tant dissident és un creient cristià que durant l’Edat Mitjana trencava amb la jerarquia catòlica romana com un obrer alemany que es negava a deixar-se arrossegar per l’eufòria hitleriana o que un escriptor rus que escrivia poemes denunciant les barbaritats de Stalin, conclourem que la dissidència és una qüestió que té més a veure amb l’actitud i el comportament que no amb la ideologia i que es desplega més en el camp de la prepolítica que no pròpiament en el de la política.

Since we want to age well, we have assumed by osmosis that we must take supplements: magnesium in the morning, creatine and vitamin D in the afternoon, and melatonin at night to sleep better. And we take them because we have heard that they are good for aging healthily. Maybe our friends have told us, or we have read it on social media, but what we have forgotten is that if you eat healthily, which means vegetables and fruits, legumes, fish, meat, and nuts, you don't need any of them at all. "We know that 75% of the country's population has taken one during the last year," says the dietitian-nutritionist at the Alícia Foundation, Alba Coll, who gave a lecture at Món Sant Benet, organized by the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition. The figure is significant: 75%. It is clear, then, that supplementation is the latest trend in food, promoted and bombarded by a thousand and one channels that impact the population over fifty years old. And why is all this happening? Because the population aged 60 and over represents 15% of the global population, and therefore, 27% of global spending. The industry knows that this sector of the population represents a silver economy, as it is popularly called. And it will be even more so, because in 2050, the population over 60 will be even more numerous, according to data from the World Economic Forum.

All four of them appear there, at a stop halfway through the journey, with the fun attitude of a family vacation. These motorhome trips are also behind the Xerigots space that Gemma Urgell and her partner, Jordi Bertran, created in Vilafranca del Penedès. Now they have published Formatges (Rosa dels Vents), with recipes and advice, and also the explanation of their trade: that of a cheese refiner.

The prickly pear is an invasive plant. This is indicated by the catalogue of species created by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainability of the Government of Catalonia, which lists up to three different types: Opuntia maxima; Opuntia dillenii and Opuntia stricta. They come from Central America, especially, and have spread en masse throughout Catalonia. It is invasive because it competes with and displaces natural vegetation, which is why it does not have a good reputation. But since it is everywhere, it is cut and it sprouts again, a good remedy is to eat its fruits. However, it is true that it is one thing to say it and another to do it, because it is not easy at all.