The Puls parents march again, because the system stays silent

Dressed in black, the parents of those killed in the "Puls" fire once more took to the street for the "March of the Angels", asking for the one thing the institutions have withheld for months: an answer, and someone to answer for it. When families have to keep a case alive themselves so it does not quietly vanish into hearings and adjournments, that is less a sign of their endurance than an admission that the trial is stuck in place. The question hanging over everything stays the same - who signed off, who looked away, and when will anyone be held to account.

Bulgaria, once again, as a stage for a domestic showdown

Instead of an answer, the day brought yet another political slanging match. VMRO-DPMNE went hard at Venko Filipche, claiming he stays silent on Bulgarian provocations and that a diplomatic note from Sofia compromised the security of President Mickoski. As usual, each side offers its own version, and the citizen caught between two rhetorics can barely tell where concern for the state ends and pre-election calculation begins. The question that rarely gets answered is simple: what actually happened.

Roads and schoolyards as the scene of violence

While politics busies itself with notes, reality collected its due. Near Oreovec a truck flew off the road and a 58-year-old driver from Bitola was killed - another number on a stretch that has long demanded an answer. In Struga, grown men beat two children in a school yard, in the very place where children should be safest, and in several homes police detained three people for beating children and making threats with an axe. Three different stories, one shared thread - protection arrives only after the harm is already done.

Queues, mosquitoes and wolves: the state on autopilot

At the Bogorodica border crossing the wait stretched to four hours to enter from Greece - the same summer jam that repeats every year, at the same crossing, with no official explanation as to why nobody opens more counters. Skopje, meanwhile, is being sprayed against mosquitoes from the air this weekend, with a notice for residents to close their windows in the morning. And from the zoo, white wolves dug a hole under the fence and killed kangaroos - the zoo says nothing, and that silence opens a more serious question than the escape itself.

Economy: cheap power, German layoffs, firewood for winter

The energy regulator is preparing a new tariff model under which cheap electricity might also apply on Saturdays - sounds good, but a careful citizen reads the whole bill, not just the headline. Further afield, the German car giants are announcing up to 100,000 job cuts under pressure from Chinese competition, and the chain reaches the Balkans too. At home, four in ten households still heat with wood - the clearest measure of how real the "energy transition" is for the ordinary wallet.

A world at war and under rubble

Abroad, the day was heavier. The US bombed Iran for a second day running, Tehran struck back at bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, and Trump publicly announced he would not be reasonable - when the president of a superpower renounces reason as an option, it is no longer a threat but a forecast. At the same time, in coastal Venezuela a magnitude 7.5 earthquake took more than 1,400 lives, with thousands trapped under rubble and rescuers racing the 72-hour window. And in the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian drones are setting Russian refineries ablaze while Moscow claims it destroyed two MiG-29s - figures that, as always in war, come from one side only.

The lighter part of the day

To close, something that does not hurt. At the World Cup, England and Bellingham are thundering, while Uruguay fell in disgrace, as Igor Aleksovski carries the Macedonian name to Elbasan. In the NBA, Brunson stepped out of the shadow and became champion, and Macedonia gains a centre with a passport ahead of EuroBasket. And finally, a reminder that age is just a number - Mel Brooks has turned 100 and still isn't thinking about retirement, with one secret to staying young: curiosity.

If today has anything in common in its heavier half, it is absence. Institutions that stay silent while parents march, schoolyards without protection, a border without counters, a zoo without an answer - all lead to the same question Metla asks every day: when will the system answer on its own, without someone having to force it.