The Ciutadella City Council has demanded this Tuesday that Ports de les Illes Balears (Ports IB) assume its responsibility and immediately remove the residue of supposedly polluting sludge from the dredging of the port, which has been dumped in the colàrsega.

She is the third mayor of Ciutadella in this term and the fifth woman to occupy the mayor's office since the beginning of democracy. A protégé of current Member of Parliament Joana Gomila (Más por Menorca), with whom she entered the City Council in 2019, Maria Jesús Bagur (1979) takes on the challenge of completing the changes that will transform the city over the next decade.

The presiding judge of Court Number 2 of the Civil and Preliminary Investigation Section of the Ciutadella Court of First Instance has ordered the provisional detention without bail of the two individuals arrested in connection with the violent events in Cala en Blanes, which resulted in the death of a man. The suspects ran over two men in this Menorcan municipality. The magistrate is initially investigating them for the crimes of completed homicide, attempted homicide, and failure to render aid. The case remains under seal, and further investigative procedures are expected in the coming days. The events date back to last Thursday, when a vehicle intentionally ran over two men at the entrance to the residential complex. One of the injured, a 51-year-old man, suffered a severe traumatic brain injury and died the following day in the hospital after being admitted in critical condition. According to the police investigation, the hit-and-run may be related to a previous knife fight between several men that occurred the day before at a local hotel, an incident that also left others injured and has triggered an investigation to clarify the origin of the conflict.

The lead candidate for PSM-Més per Menorca, Maria Jesús Bagur (1979), was sworn in at 1:09 p.m. as the new mayor of Ciutadella. She is the third mayor in two and a half years and the fourth woman to hold the position among the 15 mayors the municipality has had since the beginning of democracy. Visibly moved, the former deputy mayor received the support of 11 of the 21 council members and, amidst applause from citizens and left-wing officials who filled the Can Saura plenary hall to capacity, received the mayoral staff from her predecessor, who had held the position for the past year and a half since the successful vote of no confidence on July 19, 2014, which ousted the People's Party (PP) from the municipal government. On a rainy and windy Saint John Bosco Day, a day of great significance for the city's Salesian community, the PSOE, PSM-Més per Menorca, and Ciutadella Endavant parties fulfilled their governance agreement and carried out the agreed-upon transfer of the mayoralty with the aim of continuing the transformation of Plaça del Born into a vibrant pedestrian space. In her address, the new mayor emphasized municipal politics as a vocation of service and stressed the importance of building partnerships with other administrations, especially the Consell Insular and the Balearic Government, to address the needs of the population. Maria Jesús Bagur wants to create a more sustainable and accessible Ciutadella where no one is left behind and where the elderly are cared for with respect and fairness. The renovation of the nursing home will, in fact, be one of the priorities of her term, along with the renovation of the Born cultural center and the construction of the new Music School, which she has been able to process in recent months through the Culture Department. She has also pledged to take steps to facilitate access to housing, aware that the land transferred to the Balearic Housing Institute (Ibavi) for new developments "is not enough," and has made a public appeal to combat political disaffection. Married and a mother of two, the new mayor is a businesswoman. She has been with the City Council since 2019, when she joined the team led by then-mayor Joana Gomila, who was present at the event. Also in attendance were the regional ministers and the other mayor from the Menorcan party, Joan Manel Palliser (Es Mercadal), who were the only ones who remained standing throughout her speech. Also in attendance were key figures from other parties, such as the PSOE, represented by State Deputy Pepe Mercadal, regional deputies Marc Pons and Pilar Carbonero, island councilors, and the mayor of Maó, Héctor Pons. More than fifty guests, mostly politicians, journalists, and family members, were the only ones able to attend the proceedings in person in the small plenary hall, as the historic Gothic Hall has been under construction for months. This meant that another hundred or so attendees had to watch it on the giant screen installed on the first floor of Can Saura. The event started twenty minutes late because, due to the storm, the Wi-Fi connection was down, and a live broadcast of the plenary session could not be guaranteed. It could also be followed live online. "A team of people, not parties."

The session was opened by the outgoing mayor, the Socialist Llorenç Ferrer, who emphasized the responsibility, the "immense privilege" he had felt, and the "teamwork" that had taken place. His leadership was acknowledged by all his fellow council members, especially the spokesperson for Ciutadella Endavant, Carla Gener, who praised his leadership "of people, not parties." In fact, at the end of the session, the eleven councilors who share management responsibilities embraced in a circle, like a football team, to demonstrate that, 30 months after their failed negotiations for the pact that gave the PP the government for the first year, they had finally closed ranks.

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Menorca is the Balearic island where Catalan is most widely spoken in the streets and where the most families choose it as the primary language of instruction in schools, but it is also where it is now most threatened by the government. The People's Party's (PP) strategic alliance with representatives expelled from Vox and the appointment of the former director of Sa Fundació, the organization that denies the unity of the Catalan language, as Minister of Culture have provoked a gradual struggle against standard Catalan. This is a decision that no one in Menorca had ever questioned, not even the People's Party.

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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.

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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.

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A woman died this Friday in a collision between two cars and a tractor on the Ciutadella road in Mahón, at kilometer 34, according to sources from SAMU 061 (the emergency medical service). The accident occurred around 9:00 p.m., when the accident center received the report. As a result of the collision with the tractor, two injured people were trapped in one of the vehicles. A woman died, and a man was seriously injured with multiple traumas. The man was freed by firefighters and subsequently transferred to the Mateu Orfila Hospital in Menorca. A 71-year-old woman from the other vehicle was also taken to the Juaneda Clinic with less serious injuries. The occupants of the tractor escaped the accident unharmed.

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The Balearic Government, with the support of Vox, has seized on the demands of the association of nautical clubs to perpetuate the concessions currently in place in three-quarters of the islands' ports, whose management is privatized. With the idea of updating the port law in force for twenty years and adapting it to state regulations, it proposes extending the indirect management of ports and marinas from the current 35 years to 50 or, in very exceptional cases, to 75 years. This change, which would allow the concessions, initially scheduled to expire in 2040, to be extended to 2055 or 2080, has raised concerns among the opposition, especially the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), which has questioned in Parliament "the personal interests that may be hidden" behind this proposal.

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The Balearic Islands will have more judges and courts in the medium term to deal with the constant increase in the number of cases, which in the last year has exceeded 200,000 for the first time. The increased decision-making capacity of the 143 judges and magistrates currently serving on the islands, at a rate of 1,332 cases per person, has gradually helped, as the 190,549 cases resolved in 2024 are still below the number of cases received by the courts.

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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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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 Popular Party councilor on the Ciutadella City Council, Nicolás Blanco, has resigned for professional reasons. He will soon begin his new role as a local police officer in Mahón. He will formalize his farewell as a politician at the next municipal plenary session. "They have shown me during these two years," during which he has alternated between government and opposition duties.

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