Overview
- About 115,000 people gathered on Barcelona’s avenida María Cristina for the New Year show, as Catalonia’s 112 logged roughly 5,900 calls by early morning and firefighters handled more than 100 interventions.
- Mossos d'Esquadra detained 117 people across Catalonia for offenses including theft, gender or domestic violence, and injuries, while conducting alcohol and drug checks on drivers.
- Madrid’s Municipal Police managed 1,237 incidents overnight and SAMUR-Protección Civil carried out around 200 interventions, reporting no knife-injury cases and only isolated serious fire-related rescues.
- Asturias approved its 2026 budget of nearly €7 billion at year’s end, while Palencia’s PSOE mayor signaled a confidence vote tied to the municipal budget if negotiations fail to secure passage.
- Argentina entered 2026 with a Central Bank rule to update FX bands by inflation and a more targeted two-tier energy-subsidy scheme, as the Treasury faces around $4.225 billion in payments due January 9; President Javier Milei claimed in a New Year message that campaign promises were fulfilled and poverty has sharply fallen.