The National Police has arrested a drug dealer in Maó for the death of a woman to whom he sold drugs. As reported by the force, the events occurred on April 9, when several patrols responded to a call from 091, indicating that a dead woman had been found in a dwelling in the municipality and that she might have suffered an adverse reaction to a narcotic substance.

A man accused of killing another man in Maó in the early hours of Christmas Day 2023 accepted an eight-year prison sentence for homicide on Monday, while a second individual accepted a six-month sentence for failing to stop the attack. The parties reached a plea agreement on Monday before the trial, which was scheduled to take place before a jury at the Provincial Court of the Balearic Islands. The first defendant was ultimately convicted of homicide, although the prosecution initially sought a 20-year sentence for murder. The man admitted to having an argument with the victim and punching him several times in the face, causing him to fall to the ground and lose consciousness. Under the agreement, the prosecution removed from its closing arguments the references that, after this initial assault, he continued to hit the victim in the head until he was in a coma. The victim died a few days later, on January 2, 2024. The man must also pay the deceased's family €280,000 in compensation. Regarding the second defendant, the initial request for a two-year prison sentence has been reduced to six months. This man also admitted to the charges against him and accepted the sentence. The mitigating circumstance of alcohol and drug use was taken into account in both cases. The events date back to the early hours of Christmas Day 2023 in Maó.

Ciutadella and Maó, the two largest municipalities in Menorca, are resisting the right-wing offensive that has swept through the other town halls and the island's own Consell (council), where the former Vox councilor plays a key role. A year and a half before the next elections, both municipalities maintain progressive majorities, a trend only partially shared with Es Mercadal, where the nationalist Joan Manel Palliser (Entesa de la Izquierda) governs with the strategic support of the local PP (People's Party), a support that is not questioned within the government itself. The formula is working, and not even the earthquake caused by the recent criminal conviction of the former PP leader, Tóbal Pons, has shaken it. Stripped of his first deputy mayor position, Pons remains part of the government, while the opposition PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) has already changed its spokesperson.

The Islands turned blue in 2023. The PP grew to almost one hundred councilors, becoming the most voted force in half of the towns of Mallorca And it gained control of the main institutions—the Government, the Island Council, and Palma—thanks to Vox. But not all of them: progressive parties held out in about fifteen municipalities on the island. The largest, Inca, Manacor, and Pollença, have become bastions of the opposition and a potential source of weakness for the Government. President Marga Prohens has opted for a strategy of open dialogue with these town councils, but she has also used this approach to weaken the left in the Parliament.

A rockfall from a section of the Muret coast has affected part of the Gin Xoriguer factory, located in the port of Maó. The incident occurred early this morning when the Menorca Fire Department received a call from 112 about the rockfall, which caused no injuries, according to emergency services sources. When the firefighters arrived at the scene, they confirmed that part of the cliff had collapsed, and that several rocks had fallen onto the building housing the factory. Specifically, the lower part of the building was affected, with some of the rockfall entering the premises. Firefighters and municipal technicians are assessing the necessary steps to secure the area, which has been cordoned off. They are also waiting for a company contracted by the City Council to arrive and carry out cleanup work. The Menorca Fire Department will return to the area next week to assess the situation.

A new attempt to remove Francoist symbols in the Balearic Islands. The Spanish government has approved the criteria that will define the new process. State catalogue of symbols and elements contrary to democratic memoryIn this context, MP Vicenç Vidal has confirmed that his party has already requested the inclusion of the Feixina monument in Palma and the monolith on the Explanada de Maó in Menorca, a proposal that the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory "views favorably, in principle." On November 18, the Ministry approved the Royal Decree to compile the catalog. This step opens the door to reviewing and potentially removing public monuments that commemorate or glorify the Francoist dictatorship, its institutions, or anniversaries linked to the Civil War and the coup d'état. The MP Vicenç Vidal –a member of the Ara Més-Sumar coalition– has announced that his party has formally requested the inclusion of two monuments from the Balearic Islands: the Feixina monolith and the Explanada de Maó monolith.

Like someone going out into the street to sing to their neighbors, Joan Manuel Serrat (Barcelona, ​​1943) moved all of Maó this Saturday. Three years after his official retirement from the stage, he returned to the Principal Theatre to lend his voice to the humanitarian missions of the Clarós Foundation and make it clear that his passion for singing will never leave him, no matter how many years pass.

The Menorca Island Council government does not intend to heed UNESCO's advice. Despite the pronouncement from the leading international body for heritage preservation, which recommends abandoning the Rafal Rubí viaduct and reaching a consensus on an at-grade road solution for this crossing of the main road between Mahón and Alaior, the team led by Adolfo Vilafranca announced this Friday that it will proceed with the project. The Councilors for Culture and Heritage, Joan Pons Torres, and for Mobility, Juan Manuel Delgado, appeared together to denounce the "political maneuver" by the Ministry of Culture and to make it clear that "we will not back down," since, "for us, the safety of the people of Menorca comes first." Both councilors accused the Ministry of "wanting to endanger Talayotic Menorca with the aim of harming the Island Council's governing team." Pons Torres emphasized that this is a "very serious act of disloyalty towards Menorca, towards all Menorcans, and above all, towards the Consell's staff." Specifically, the Popular Party criticizes the Ministry for sending external reports to UNESCO that lack the endorsement of the Consell Insular's technical staff and whose sole purpose is to obtain a negative report and harm the road improvement project in the Rafal Rubí section, promoted by the Popular Party government. Joan Pons, who is also the spokesperson for the governing team, criticized the lack of transparency and opacity that, in his view, the Ministry practices, since it has never informed the Council of all the documentation submitted to ICOMOS and UNESCO. The Popular Party councilor warned that "it would be very serious" if the reports favorable to the viaduct, issued by the institution's Highways Department technicians, had not also been sent to Paris. He also contradicted the Ministry, stating in its report that the support for the project from the Scientific Council of the Menorca Talayotic Agency was unclear, when—he commented—an absolute majority of its members voted in favor of the heritage impact assessment. Even so, some experts, such as the candidacy coordinator himself, Cipriano Marín, have resigned in recent months in disagreement with the island government. Eight years of paralysis

Likewise, the councilors suspect that the legal report concluding that the Rafal Rubí bridge cannot be demolished has not been submitted to UNESCO either. They argue that if a serious accident occurs and the viaduct is not yet finished, claims for damages could be made against the engineers and politicians involved. Therefore, they insisted, "the bridge will be finished. After eight years of paralysis, we will complete the main road renovation, acting with the utmost protection of the landscape and heritage." The UNESCO report, however, is clear. It warns that the current proposal will negatively impact the landscape of the navetas (prehistoric stone structures) and affect the integrity and authenticity of the landscape declared as having Outstanding Universal Value. The report even mentions other sections of the road with less traffic where far less impactful solutions have been implemented than the one planned for Rafal Rubí.

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Mahón's harbor is the largest natural harbor in the world after Pearl Harbor. Its nearly 6 km length and maximum depth of 30 meters attest to this. It lies at the foot of a city built atop a hill. From the cliffside promenade, there is a panoramic view of the surrounding area, from Colàrsega to Punta de Sant Felip.It is Mahón, a beautiful and elegant city"," affirms a most solemn hymn, written in 1904 on the occasion of the visit of King Alfonso XIII, which its inhabitants now sing with satisfaction at the beginning of the Gràcia festivities, the first week of September. And it makes perfect sense. Today, Maó is, for many, the most cosmopolitan city on the island of Menorca. We find the English heritage present, a result of its rule during much of the 18th century. But, a couple of millennia earlier, in Roman times, the Portus Magonis It was ground zero for an economic activity that spurred the city's development, Magonawhich finally received the status of municipality with the title of Flavium Magontanum MunicipalityHowever, Ciutadella had been the island's capital from the beginning. Everything changed in February 1722, by order of the renowned British governor Richard Kane. Under the pretext of disagreements with the mayor-general, he moved the courts, and therefore the capital, from Ciutadella to Mahón, a city he beautified and whose urban expansion he regulated. A century later, the port of Mahón hosted the first overseas US military base, from 1825 to 1845.

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Nearly 4,000 teachers, 1,533 of whom are assigned to Menorca, are forced to leave their island each year to teach. Temporary teachers must travel for a few years until they can secure a stable job and find a permanent position at a school close to home. This challenge has worsened in recent years with the housing crisis, forcing many professionals to take leave and work in private teaching or other sectors to avoid having to abruptly change their place of residence.

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A total of 183 horses are taking part in the Gràcia festival parade in Maó, which began this Sunday afternoon and is led by the city's mayor, the Socialist party member Héctor Pons.

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A local police officer in Mahón had a Palestinian flag removed from a crowded protest march yesterday, Sunday, with more than 500 people, just hours after the end of the festivities in Sant Climent.

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Menorca's public administrations have accumulated at least a dozen empty, unused buildings or those awaiting future conversion, some of which have been closed for more than 20 years, a period that has worsened their deterioration. Public projects to give them a second life take as long as construction projects to improve the provision of the services they are intended for, and the public suffers the consequences.

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The water in Maó is still not safe to drink a year after the crisis that erupted following the serious breakdown at the Malbúger plant. The latest analyses released by the opposition confirm this. In May, the networks of Malbúger, Turó, Sant Climent, and Grau-Cala Llonga still showed nitrate concentration levels above 50 milligrams per liter, the maximum limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for considering water drinkable.

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On June 24, the buoy that records the water temperature of Maó reached 29.3 °C, and this Monday the one in the Dragonera The temperature reached 30.55°C, record figures that, according to Miquel Gili, a meteorologist from the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), "have never been recorded in the month of June." The Mediterranean is currently at temperatures between five and six degrees higher than usual for this time of year. In fact, Gili explains that the Mediterranean is the "warmest" sea in the world.

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