The Manacor City Council has approved changes to the water rates for water supplied by SAM, the municipal company responsible for its management. The new, more socially oriented system will offer discounts on bills for, for example, large families, single-parent families, families with a dependent person, or families with a victim of gender-based violence. Thus, the City Council is establishing a system of consumption blocks from now on, in order to implement progressive tariffs and "so that those who consume more pay more," explained the Councilor for the Environment and President of the Board of Directors of SAM, Sebastià Llodrà, who recalled that water prices have not been touched since the population changed.

The Directorate General for Benefits, Pharmacy, and Consumer Affairs has intensified its inspections of Carnival products in establishments across the Canary Islands this year to ensure that items aimed at families comply with safety standards and contain the necessary information for their proper use. As a result of this work, inspection teams have ordered the withdrawal of 559 products from the market, including accessories, makeup, costumes, and wigs. Specifically, 284 accessories, 140 makeup items, 73 costumes, 20 wigs, and 42 miscellaneous items were withdrawn after it was confirmed that they did not meet the required standards for sale.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) will drop to 2.2% in the Balearic Islands in February in year-on-year terms, two tenths per month of the year-on-year rate of the previous month, according to the definitive data published here by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

The General Directorate of Consumer Affairs has opened an investigation into the possibility of minors purchasing tickets to attend a bullfight in Muro, which would constitute a violation of the law regulating this type of event. This was reported on Thursday by the Franz Weber Foundation, which stated that the Directorate is studying the case after receiving a complaint regarding the online sale of tickets to minors. Last November, the international NGO sent a letter to the government indicating that the website offering tickets for the bullfight this Sunday, the 7th, in Muro allowed minors to purchase them without the prior requirement of parental or adult accompaniment. This situation would constitute a possible violation of the law regulating bullfights, which, since 2024, requires that any ticket for minors aged 0 to 16 be purchased with an adult. The company in charge of selling tickets now allows the process to be completed, even with fictitious data, and access discounted prices for children without an adult. This is compounded by a new warning from the FFW (Federation of Bullfighting Organizations). The regional regulations themselves prohibit the consumption of alcoholic beverages during bullfighting events, and the promoters of the bullfight have announced that they will distribute food during a break. This could be accompanied by alcohol, so animal rights activists will submit a new warning to Consum (the Spanish consumer protection agency) for their review. Furthermore, they regret that the Muro City Council has not taken any public action on the matter, given that it is a publicly owned property that has been leased to a foreign company, as it is based in Madrid, not even in the Balearic Islands, and has failed to take basic precautions regarding inspections and vineyards. The organization recalls that the concluding observations made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child include an explicit request: to keep minors away from the violence of bullfighting. In this regard, they point out that the government has failed to comply with this observation since 2024, and none of its departments seem interested in monitoring compliance with the regrettable legal reform, which, three decades later, allows minors to enter bullrings to view explicit violence against animals and people.

The Civil Guard and staff from the Government's Department of Health have seized 20 tons of spoiled fish and shellfish from a food distribution company in Palma. According to the Civil Guard, the inspection of the facilities where the food was stored took place last April, and the sanctioning process has concluded with fines totaling €90,000 for two very serious infractions. Agents from the Nature Protection Service (SEPRONA) of the Civil Guard and technicians from the Palma Region's Department of Public Health, who carried out the operation, verified that most of the stored products had expired, in some cases as far back as 2019. Furthermore, the cold chain, essential for the proper preservation of fish and shellfish, had been partially broken in these 20 tons of food, despite having been refrozen. The shipment was immediately impounded to prevent it from entering the market, and a disciplinary file was opened against the responsible distributor.

MF rented a car in Valencia for a long trip. Upon returning the vehicle, they charged her €200 on her credit card—and the company wanted it to be €500—for exceeding the mileage. "But no one had told us we couldn't do that," she says. On the other hand, Francisca (not her real name) explains that they wanted to charge her for not carrying her physical card, but if she took out vehicle insurance, they would let her pay with her mobile phone. "I didn't know I had to carry the physical card because they didn't inform me," she says. These are some of the victims of the abusive practices applied by some car rental companies, which are under social suspicion because the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) recently reported five companies for "lack of transparency and abusive clauses."

Palma's ice cream shops are offering an increasingly wide and exotic selection. They must satisfy the tastes of tourists without losing sight of trends emerging on social media. A clear example is the success of Dubai chocolate, a viral flavor that combines chocolate, pistachio paste, and kataifi (a crunchy thread pastry), which originated on TikTok. Several ice cream shops consulted by ARA Baleares confirm that this flavor has become one of their best-selling thanks to the impact of digital platforms. This chocolate originates in the United Arab Emirates, where Sarah Hamouda founded Fix Dessert in 2021, a company that makes chocolate bars combining ingredients. In the case of Dubai chocolate, she wanted a flavor that reminded her of the Arabic knafeh desserts. The title Tasting the Dubai chocolate, videos have gone viral in which users eat this ice cream for the first time. Users even share recipes for its preparation, which have accumulated millions of views. Its success has spread to supermarkets, where sales have also increased.

The Consumer Association, FACUA, has filed a complaint with the General Directorate of Benefits, Pharmacy and Consumption of the Government of Ibiza against a restaurant for including a twelve euro charge on the bill for providing a hook to hang bags on the table.