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Spanish freelance journalist Jaime Velazquez says Spain's housing protests, which drew around 500,000 people onto the streets of Madrid and other cities after parliament rejected the government's emergency housing decrees on Friday, are the largest mobilisation since the 2011 Indignados movement, which broke the country's two-party political dominance.
Velazquez says protesters show no sign of backing down, putting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in a difficult position: he could present a more ambitious housing decree as early as Tuesday to try to rebuild a parliamentary majority, or call a snap election.
Some Socialist Party and cabinet members reportedly favour an early vote now, framed around housing, rather than waiting months for an election that could instead be dominated by corruption allegations surrounding the party or the recent arrival of 80,000 migrants in Ceuta. Velazquez notes Sanchez is a political survivor whose next move remains unpredictable.
Tyre degradation was the order of the day in free practice 1 and free practice 2, with the teams and drivers still getting used to the highly abrasive surface.
Red Bull looks most comfortable, with Max Verstappen topping FP1, while the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli languishing in the midfield after the day's running. With Mercedes major upgrade package this weekend, everyone was expecting more, as Jake Boxall-Legge explains...
#f1#formula1
Max Verstappen has become the first non Mercedes driver to take pole in 2026, at a track where Mercedes themselves brought their biggest upgrade package of the year so far, so what went wrong for them? Jake Boxall-Legge explains.
Joining Max on the front row is Lewis Hamilton, some 3 tenths down, with the Ferrari driver getting better and better throughout the sessions.
Jake also looks forward to the race tomorrow, with strategy on the massively high degradation surface playing a key role.
#f1#formula1
The Pentagon is bringing together a select group of NATO allies while Britain, France and the Baltic states have been left out.
Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby has held talks with Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland, describing the participants as allies that are increasing defence spending, have sufficient military scale and are prepared to make practical decisions. Another meeting is planned in Poland.
So what is Washington trying to achieve? Why exclude two of Europe's nuclear powers and the Baltic states? And could closer cooperation with a smaller group eventually affect US military planning, weapons or forces in Europe?
Jim Townsend, Adjunct Senior Fellow in the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security and a former Pentagon official, joins The Day to examine Elbridge Colby's strategy and what it could mean for NATO.
#dwcurrentaffairs
A bill moving through Washington would ban any carmaker more than 15% Chinese-owned from selling cars in America. Not just Chinese brands — any carmaker. And one of its sponsors has named two British brands that could be caught: Aston Martin and Lotus. Not because of anything they built. Because of one man.
His name is Li Shufu. Most people in Britain have never heard of him. He owns Volvo. He controls Lotus. He owns the company that builds the London black cab. He holds a sixth of Aston Martin. And in 2018 he bought almost a tenth of Mercedes-Benz — around €7.3bn worth — in secret, and nobody knew until the morning he announced it.
German law requires disclosure at 3%, 5% and 10%. Li declared at none of them. According to Reuters, banks including Morgan Stanley helped structure the stake in a way that avoided early disclosure. Germany's regulator later ruled he should have declared earlier. The Financial Times asked the question everyone was thinking: was the Chinese state behind it?
This video covers who he actually is — a farming family in Zhejiang, photographing tourists, melting down scrap appliances, fridge parts, then building cars in 1998 before the state had licensed him to — and the five completely different ways he took famous car companies:
Bought outright from a desperate seller (Volvo, $1.8bn from Ford, less than a third of what Ford paid). Bought out of administration (the London black cab, around £11m in 2013, with the Coventry factory and the designs). Bought the parent company (Lotus, via Proton in 2017). Built in silence (Mercedes). And crept up share by share (Aston Martin, 7.6% to 17%, with a board seat — and the standstill agreement capping it has now expired).
Plus Polestar, Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Proton, Renault Korea, Farizon, Smart — and satellites, phones and flying cars beyond that.
Covered honestly too: Volvo roughly doubled its sales under him, around £500m went into the black cab, Lotus was dying before he arrived, and nobody forced any of those British and European owners to sell.
Does it bother you who owns the car you drive, as long as it's a good car? Or is there a line — and where is it?
geely, li shufu, volvo geely, lotus geely, aston martin geely stake, mercedes shareholder, london black cab levc, connected vehicle security act, chinese ownership car brands, polestar us ban, zeekr, lynk and co, proton, smart brand, chinese cars uk, british car industry, car industry ownership, daimler stake 2018, uk car news
For many Spaniards, finding an affordable place to live has become increasingly difficult, with soaring rents, housing shortages and growing fears of eviction. Now, parliament has rejected key government measures aimed at tackling the crisis, exposing the fragility of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's minority government. So is this just a setback on housing policy, or a sign of deeper political trouble ahead?
#dwcurrentaffairs00:00 Spain’s parliament rejects housing crisis measures
00:36 DW correspondent Nicole Ris reports from Madrid
00: 55 Why the housing decree was rejected despite public pressure
03:36 Conclusions to be drawn about the stability of Spain’s government
25 de ene de 2023 · Between 2020 and 2022, around 420,000 new households were created in Spain. During the same period, the number of new homes started barely reached 300,000, the
