When Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon on July 20, 1969, he uttered a phrase full of epic that would mark an era: “That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” As the past is romanticized and idealized through nostalgia, we believe today that the mission's objective to the satellite was knowledge or the conquest of space. But it was born out of pure rivalry with the Soviet Union. It was simply a geopolitical positioning within the space race.

I'd like to think there was a time when Parliament served a purpose beyond applauding one's own and booing the opposition. A place where the government was held accountable and the opposition held it accountable. If that time ever existed, it's long gone. Today, parliamentary debate is, above all, an exchange of speeches designed for the gallery.

Pep Martorell is a physicist, holds a PhD in Computer Science, and is a partner at the management firm Invivo Partners, where he helps develop artificial intelligence (AI) projects. As an expert in the field, he will participate this Thursday, March 12, in the "Companies with a Human Face" symposium in Palma, to discuss the trends that will shape AI in the next decade.

We've been told about World War III so many times that when it finally arrives, we won't believe it. Just as we never imagined a politician like Donald Trump could exist, an egomaniac who has undermined the role of a leader in a democratic state, decency, and any sense of the ridiculous. Having become a caricature and a mirror for far-right populists, he threatens the world order, driven by his megalomania. If you stir up hornets' nests in Ukraine, Venezuela, Gaza, Greenland, and Iran, sooner or later one of them will sting us all.

Lolita arrived at Marta Gallego's veterinary clinic in Inca three years ago. Malnourished, with shattered joints from living crammed into a cage, blind in one eye and with very little vision in the other. The initial diagnosis was untreated leishmaniasis and polyarthritis. A man had rescued the Chihuahua from a sack in a dumpster. He thought it was a litter of kittens. "I called the police and reported the owner. He had thrown it in the manure, chip and all," Gallego recalls. When she went to trial, she asked the judge to consider the animal's situation in the sentence. "She just told me, 'Nothing is planned here.' I thought, how could that be, since it was the subject of the trial?" Marta remained silent. No one has reimbursed her for the more than 3,000 euros spent on Lolita, officially in the name of her abuser, who was sentenced to three months in prison. With no prior convictions, he is not required to serve time.

The declassification of documents regarding the 23-F coup attempt served as an excuse for PP leaders to rush to demand the return of the former king to Spain. "It would be a collective failure as a country if Juan Carlos I were to end his days in exile," said the Prime Minister, Marga Prohens, shortly after Feijóo made the same statement. The revealed secrets of the coup have yielded little more than a few minor details and have confirmed what we already knew. The PP's attempt to exploit the head of state's correct actions—his duty—45 years ago to glorify him is a demagogic attempt to ignore why he chose to go to Abu Dhabi. Voluntarily. He didn't do it solely to save the Crown or his son's reign, but for the security of living in a country where he wouldn't have to pay a single euro in taxes.

Carmen showered with cold water all winter. She didn't have the money to buy a new water heater. At 54, she lost her job as a tourist information assistant when the Menorca Island Council privatized the service. She collected unemployment benefits and never found another job. Then she survived on a subsidy of 400 euros, which wasn't even enough to cover her rent. She gave tutoring lessons for five euros, structured as a part-time job. "I earned an extra 300 euros. I spent eight years fighting eviction," she confesses.

After the surprising double victory of the correct ones The 47 and The infiltratorThe 40th edition of the Goya Awards will take place without any mystery. Sundays It will prevail over the rest because it is the best film among the nominees. Director Alauda Ruiz de Azúa uses teenager Ainara's announcement of becoming a cloistered nun to dissect the underlying family dynamics that trigger her decision. The father is a widower more concerned with upholding the conventions of marriage than with meeting his daughters' emotional needs. He faces opposition from his sister, convinced that her niece is wasting her life.

Just fifteen years ago, translators weren't worried that tools like Google Translate could replace them. "It was so bad there was nothing to fear," recalls Jean-François Cuennet, a professional with over three decades of experience. "Now I do believe that machines can affect my profession," he confesses. The novelty isn't so much the technology itself as the quality of the translations: less visible errors, more fluid texts, and a level of professional rigor that is now essential. As Antoni Oliver, an expert in machine and computer-assisted translation and a professor at the UOC (Open University of Catalonia), points out, "since the 1950s, the idea that machine translation will eventually replace translators has been repeated." Every major technological advance has been accompanied by the same prediction, but now, Oliver warns, there's a difference: "The improvement is such that the error is less perceptible." This makes the expert's human experience indispensable, searching for nuances in a law, in medical research, and, of course, in literary translation.

A pair of sparrows approach the tables of some tourists, pecking at small birds. In the same square in the center of Palma, a group of pigeons pecks among the cracks in the pavement, and a turtledove hides among the leaves of a large ficus tree. The scene is so commonplace that it becomes invisible. The widespread idea is that the city drives away wildlife. But one only needs to stop for a few minutes to realize that the urban environment is full of birds, many more than are obvious. They don't disappear. They transform.

The Balearic PP I like best is the uninhibited one, the one true to itself. The most fun was during Matas's time, when the streets smelled of Álvarez Gómez and we lived summers that sounded like Julio Iglesias songs. Now, with Vox displaying insolent arrogance, Prohens's PP is even woke At times. It fades. But when the Valencian Community's gold medals arrive, its chest swells, and it never disappoints. After practicing genuflections with Queen Sofía and awarding one of its own last year, this year grants it to Jaume AngladaThis is the PP I expect: the one that makes dramatic gestures, the one that thrives on emotional narratives, the one that would greet the award winner by forming hearts with their hands after heartfelt applause. Always consistent. Always pink.

In Youssef's bar, four glasses of steaming tea sit on the counter. Customers take them while he returns to the kitchen to finish a late afternoon snack. Along Manacor's train avenue, there are many other businesses like his, coexisting with local shops. A few days ago, the president of the Balearic Parliament and leader of Vox in the Balearic Islands, Gabriel Le Senne, filmed videos nearby chatting with local residents to denounce the "Islamization," the presence of "Moorish barbershops and businesses," and streets that "look like Morocco." The discourse wasn't new, but it was more precise: the attack on the immigration It's not abstract but directed at Islam and, by extension, at Moroccans.

Having passed the halfway point of the legislative term, those in power seem more focused on securing their victory than on addressing citizens' problems. To be charitable, we won't speculate on percentages. Marga Prohens's People's Party (PP) has concluded that overcrowding will never be their kryptonite, their Achilles' heel, and has abandoned any significant measures to combat the saturation. The protests came quickly, the noise hasn't subsided, and the tourist season will begin as usual. In the end, the Consell de Mallorca (Mallorca Council) also doesn't seem likely to limit car access and will continue monitoring illegal tourist rentals with ridiculously limited resources. Without any major consequences. Except for negative ones for those who end up living on the streets while speculators enrich themselves illegally.

When Romina received her degree in digital communication in Argentina, she went out into the street in costume with her friends and they threw "eggs and a mix of things" at her to celebrate what they call "the received"for the achievement. She imagines, repeatedly, that such a scene is repeated; a fantasy of reliving it the day that obtain legal residency in Spain. She is 32 years old. She arrived in Palma almost three years ago, fleeing instability and a lack of opportunities in her country. Since landing, nothing has been as she imagined. "You always come with illusions that mask reality. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but not that it would be this difficult. They don't recommend anyone come without papers. It's living 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with constant uncertainty and frustration," she admits.

Iñaki Urdangarin has returned to the public eye and, despite being divorced from Princess Cristina, he still follows in the footsteps of his former father-in-law. Both commission agents, estranged from the Crown and socially ostracized (one paid with imprisonment; the other did not), have reappeared with an identical strategy: the publication of inconsequential biographies to whitewash their image and a complete lack of self-criticism. The former brother-in-law of King Felipe VI now insists that his sentence was "disproportionate" and conveniently forgets that it was upheld by the Supreme Court: 5 years and 8 months for proven crimes of continuous malfeasance and embezzlement, influence peddling, fraud against the Administration, and two tax offenses. Urdangarin's selective amnesia makes him forget that he paid ghost employees through Nóos, that he billed the Government hundreds of thousands of euros for consultancies that turned out to be nonexistent, and that he went from denying any oversight by the Royal Household to claiming he wouldn't take a single step without its supervision. Back then, what he and his partner were doing was still called consulting, and today, coachingIn fact, this is the future of work that is being forged. Courage is needed to hire their services. Whatever comes.

Diego is 34 years old and works as a photographer. He earns around €1,300 in 12 payments and, after eight years with the company, is still on an assistant contract. "I've gotten used to precariousness," he says. His salary allows him to cover his bills, but it doesn't leave him any room for error. Any unexpected expense—a special assessment, a repair, or equipment failure—forces him to take out a loan or ask his mother for help. It's not a temporary situation, but a stable way of life.

Catalina's (a pseudonym) hands move across the table as if it were a piano. Sometimes her fingers drum; other times they hang still in the air, searching for keys that don't exist. "It helps me calm down," she says before beginning her story, which follows. She learned to play the instrument when she was a child. Since then, mentally tracing staircases or imagining music helps her to organize her inner turmoil. Even now, as she awaits a trial she never thought she would have to face.