"Yesterday evening they notified us and we had to reorganize everything in a matter of minutes". Marta Torres, mother of two children aged 4 and 8 and a resident of Vila, started this Monday with an added headache: combining work with childcare after the suspension of classes in the Pityusic Islands due to storm Adam. Like her, many families have had to improvise alternatives to face a day without school. The decision to suspend school activity in Mallorca, Ibiza, and Formentera to prevent risks from intense rainfall has forced parents to seek solutions overnight, between schedule changes, teleworking, and family help. In many cases, the notice arrived when families already had their work week organized and did not have much room to modify their plans.

Jaume Carot (Tortosa, 1960) has been the rector of the UIB since 2021. At a time when the arrival of new private universities threatens to gain ground on the public offering, Carot must face the challenge of securing the necessary resources to consolidate research and expand studies. Catalan in the classrooms and the need to bring the university closer to society are other pending subjects. The threat of the commodification of higher education is real.

The Es Liceu teaching cooperative, the Association of Families of Students (AFA), and the neighbors have filed a joint complaint regarding the repeated burning of tires, plastics, and other materials on a property adjacent to the educational center in Palma. The educational community is warning of the risk that the fumes may pose to the health of the children and the center's staff, and asserts that they have been reporting the incidents for over two years without the situation being resolved.

When 70-year-old Catalina opens the door to her home, Esquitx is the first to greet any visitor. The little Maltese bichon does not stray far from its owner. It follows her all around the house, sits beside her when she watches television, and waits patiently every time she goes out to run an errand. "I'm going shopping," she tells him, and he already knows it's time to wait. For Catalina, however, Esquitx is much more than a pet. "He is my life companion. I love him madly," she asserts. The relationship between the two has strengthened over the years, to the point that the retiree cannot conceive of daily life without him, now that her children are adults and go their own ways. "I never feel alone. I always have him by my side and he gives me immense joy. Just seeing him changes my day," she explains.

Dogs and cats stopped being simple pets a long time ago. Today they are part of many families, occupy a central place in homes and, in numerous cases, become the main recipients of their owners' care and affection. The Balearic Islands are a good example of this. The Archipelago already registers 404,489 pets, including dogs, cats and other species, a figure that far exceeds the population under 18 years of age, which stands slightly above 200,000 people. That is to say, there are practically two pets for every minor.

The Balearic Islands are experiencing a paradoxical situation regarding the education and employment of young people. On one hand, 15% drop out of their studies prematurely; on the other, almost half of those who work (48.9%) are overqualified for the job they do, according to the Emancipation Observatory for the second semester of 2025. The data points to two difficulties: there are young people who stop their education early and others who, despite continuing to study, do not find a job suitable for their qualifications, a fact that generates frustration. These are different realities that, together, show the difficulties youth face in completing their education and finding a job that matches the studies they have undertaken.

Only 8% of young people between 16 and 29 years old in the Balearic Islands had been able to emancipate themselves during the second semester of 2025. The figure represents less than half that of the same period the previous year and places the youth emancipation rate of the Islands below the state average of 14.5%. This is according to the Emancipation Observatory corresponding to the second half of 2025, presented this Wednesday by Lucía Siles, representative of the Youth Council of Spain (CJE), and Pau Emili Muñoz, president of the Youth Council of the Balearic Islands (CJIB).

The slingers of the Balearic Islands will have to prove their aim once again, but this time on a game board. Foners: Herois de la Mediterrània is the new proposal from Roqueta Lúdica, a family cooperative game in Catalan that turns these historical figures into protagonists of a fantastic adventure to defend the coast against the arrival of different types of enemies.

Aging in the Balearic Islands is becoming increasingly difficult for many people, who see that their pension is not enough to pay the rent and that they have to wait months to access dependency aid. The rent for a 65-square-meter apartment costs 1,308 euros per month on average, an amount that is above the average pension in the Islands, which is 1,283.90 euros. Furthermore, 11,375 people are waiting to have their degree of dependency assessed and the processing of files takes up to 192 days. These are some of the data presented by CCOO in the Social Observatory For active aging, with which the union focuses on the economic difficulties and the shortcomings of public services that affect the elderly.

The family federations of Ibiza, Menorca, and Mallorca have demanded more resources from the Minister of Education and Universities, Antoni Vera, to guarantee educational inclusion and equity, in addition to progress in complementary services, the climate control of centers, and the real free nature of education. The entities, grouped in the COAPA Balears Confederation, have met with Vera and the Director General of Early Childhood, Innovation, and Educational Community, Neus Riera, to convey their proposals to them.

The housing crisis is now also affecting the Balearic Islands' ability to retain students who want to study Medicine there. The dean of the UIB Faculty of Medicine, Antoni Bennàsar, explained that two people have resigned this year from the place they had secured to begin their degree for a non-academic reason: "They didn't find housing and have gone elsewhere," he said. Bennàsar made this statement during the review of the 2026 MIR results and the ten years of the UIB Faculty of Medicine, at the Son Espases University Hospital. The dean explained that there have been several resignations from places, although in some cases the reason is simply that the students have secured a vacancy in their home community.

43.6% (24) of the 55 students from the UIB Faculty of Medicine who took the 2026 MIR exam placed within the top tier of the ranking, among the 27% with the best results out of the nearly 15,000 candidates who took the test, with seven graduates (12%) in the top 10%. The faculty highlighted these figures this Wednesday, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of Medicine studies at UIB. The dean, Antoni Bennàsar, remarked that results have improved progressively in recent graduating classes. The percentage of students placed in this top tier was 30% in the first class, rose to 40% subsequently, and last year it stood at 41.6%. "The level of the students is good," he defended.

The Department of Health defends the incorporation of general health psychologists into the public Primary Care network to respond to the increase in the demand for mental health care. The Director General of Mental Health, Carme Bosch, considers that these professionals have sufficient training to take on cases corresponding to the first level of care, while psychologists specializing in Clinical Psychology must attend to disorders of greater complexity. The Official College of Psychology of the Balearic Islands (COPIB) also endorses the incorporation of general health psychologists and demands, at the same time, an increase in PIR training places, because it considers the two paths to be compatible. Clinical psychologists, on the other hand, have expressed their discomfort to the Department regarding the incorporation of this profile into the public health system.

The Ministry of Health wants checking the state of mental health to be as routine as monitoring diet or eyesight. On the occasion of World Mental Health Day, which is celebrated this Saturday, October 10th, the Government has emphasized the importance of detecting emotional difficulties in time and bringing mental health resources closer to Primary Care. The Minister of Health, Manuela García, noted that when a person is asked how they are, they often automatically reply that they are fine, without stopping to think about their emotional state. "We want to recover the deep meaning of how we are, stop for a minute and listen to ourselves: saying 'I am not okay', recognizing that we are going through a difficult time," she pointed out.

The SIAU union denounces that the union elections for non-university teaching staff in the Balearic Islands have begun with “less transparency and guarantees” than four years ago. Today, the coordinating electoral boards for each island have been formally constituted, which marks the start of the electoral process, culminating in the vote on December 2nd. The electoral campaign will take place from November 16th to 30th.

Teachers in the Balearic Islands will head to the polls on December 2nd to elect their union representatives. The elections come at a particularly relevant time for the future of the education system, because the representatives who emerge from this process will be in charge of negotiating and implementing the new 2027-2031 educational framework agreement with the Ministry of Education and, subsequently, monitoring it and overseeing its application over the coming years. The electoral calendar is already set. The censuses will be published on October 22nd at 10:00 AM and teachers will have until October 27th at 10:00 AM to submit claims. The final census will be published on October 29th at 12:00 PM.

About a hundred 0-3 educators protested this Tuesday in front of the Parliament during the strike day called in the sector, which, according to the follow-up data provided at 11:00 AM —with 74% of centers reporting—, has a 21% turnout across the Balearic Islands. By island, the impact is 20.39% in Mallorca, 41.99% in Menorca, 9.95% in Ibiza, and 6.45% in Formentera. For their part, the unions report a higher impact of the strike: 60% in Mallorca, 80% in Menorca, 40% in Ibiza, and 60% in Formentera. The workers gathered in front of the Chamber while the plenary session was being held to demand improvements in their working conditions and in the care of children. The demonstrators displayed signs with messages such as '0-3 is for educating, not babysitting', 'Our agreement, our future', 'Canteen regulations', and 'Childhood cannot be cared for in a rush', among others.

The UIB student residence is increasingly overwhelmed. “There are more than 300 people on the waiting list. The pressure is getting worse every time. Housing is very complicated,” admits the Vice-Rector for Innovation and Digital Transformation at the UIB, Loren Carrasco. The residence has 101 places and practically all of them are occupied each academic year by students who already live there. This year, 85 students have renewed their place. The pressure on the facility has intensified in recent years: in the 2022-23 academic year there were 185 students on the waiting list, a figure that increased to 215 at the beginning of the 2024-25 academic year and now exceeds 300 people.

The President of the Government, Marga Prohens, has applauded the calling of early general elections on November 29th and has expressed her hope that the polls will put an end to a Spanish government that, as she has asserted, "has abandoned the Balearic Islands." "At last!", she wrote on her X account after the President of the state executive, Pedro Sánchez, announced the early election in an institutional declaration. "The countdown begins for change to reach Spain", she asserted.

At IES Son Cladera, the canteen started operating after the pandemic. The school had detected an increase in nutritional needs among families and requested to be able to launch the service. Now, about ten students stay for lunch every day. For some families, the director explains, the canteen is a support in the face of a complicated economic situation, but the price can also be an impediment. "It is hard for them to buy a prepared meal, but it is even harder to have to pay eight euros for the canteen," points out Manu Blanco.