Spain

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Millions crowd Spanish cities to see country’s first total solar eclipse in over a century

MEDINACELI, Spain (AP) — Millions of people crowded cloudless cities and towns in Spain on Wednesday in search of the best views of a total solar eclipse, when the alignment of the sun, moon and Earth briefly plunged parts of the planet into darkness.

https://apnews.com/article/solar-eclipse-spain-europe-iceland-sun-4748323b3df8272d546683cc1dbc1d15?

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Spanish Museum Heist

A group of men raided the so-called Treasure of Villena from a museum in eastern Spain yesterday. The four-minute heist deprives Europe of its most extensive prehistoric treasure, a roughly 3,000-year-old collection valued at over $2M. The robbery took place between 5:20 am and 5:24 am local time, with thieves luring police to a sports center at the town’s outskirts minutes before the raid. In that time, they took all but seven of the collection’s 66 artifacts—bracelets, bowls, bottles, and other pieces made of gold, silver, mixed metals, and amber (see photos). The robbery is the latest in a series of museum heists culminating in a Europol warning last week. Villena's Bronze Age collection was discovered in 1963, when archaeologist José María Soler found the pieces in the town's dry riverbed (watch an archival newsreel; click "settings" for English captions). While the inclusion of two iron pieces stumped researchers for decades, a 2023 study found the metals originated from a meteor.