In Spain, summer officially starts on San Juan, June 24, and not much happens until October or so. This is why there's not much news from around here, which is a good thing.

Former economics minister Rodrigo Rato is going to resign as head of the IMF as of September. The March 11 bombings trial ends on Monday, but the sentence won't be handed down until October. The verdict, of course, is going to be guilty. The Spanish cops arrested a man and a woman in Cadiz for trying to collect a ransom for the missing English girl in Portugal; it looks like the arrestees have nothing to do with the kidnapping. The King and Queen are in China, and the Chinese kindly offered to rent a pair of pandas to the Madrid Zoo. (The renting is fair enough, since it's my understanding that the money goes to protect panda habitats.) Housing prices are rising a lot more slowly than they were a couple of years ago. But they're still rising. Two Spanish players, Rudy Fernandez and Marc Gasol, were chosen in the NBA draft, but I'm not sure either is really NBA quality. Barça signed Eric Abidal, and is now trying to get a center-back; if they can't get Chivu from Roma, they want Gabi Milito from Zaragoza or Andrade from Deportivo. For some reason the Spanish press is covering the Paris Hilton whooptedoo. Why anyone would care, I don't know, especially on this side of the Atlantic. We have enough idiot pseudocelebrities over here already.