Calima haze blankets Spain's skies
A mass of dust in suspension is blanketing much of the Iberian Peninsula, leaving brown skies and muddy rain in various regions of the country.
The haze, known as calima in Spanish, arrived on Monday and is expected to persist across much of Spain for the next few days.
READ ALSO: What is calima and is it bad for you?
Almost the entire Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands will be affected by the haze, with the highest concentrations in areas of the western half such as Extremadura, Andalusia, Castile and León and Spain’s northern coast.
Tuesday saw mud rain in places like Granada, Seville and Madrid
From Wednesday onwards, the haze will tend to dissipate but still affect areas in the north and east of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the Balearic Islands.
Madrid rejects housing more unaccompanied minors
Madrid’s conservative regional government has announced that it will stop accepting unaccompanied minors from other regions.
This was announced by Madrid’s Regional Minister for Social Affairs Ana Dávila in a letter to Spain’s Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres.
Dávila rejects the new transfers of unaccompanied minors without legal coverage, as the central government's deadlines have expired, and warns that she will take legal action if the ruling Socialists try to prolong the period for relocation of so-called menas to the Spanish capital.
The national government's idea is to centralise the transfer of minors in the event that a region exceeds its maximum occupancy quota, something that has already happened in the Canary Islands, but also in Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s two autonomous cities in North Africa.
PP-governed regions have previously accepted the Sánchez government's request to house unaccompanied minors, but Madrid's populist regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso is now going against the tide.
READ MORE: Why a row is brewing over the care of migrant minors in Spain
Pope’s visit to Spain to cost €15 million
Pope Leo XIV's visit to Spain from June 6th to 12th will cost at least €15 million, one of the coordinators of the pontiff's trip stated during a press conference on Tuesday, adding that they don't have a finalised budget yet.
However, their estimate is that the economic impact of the Pope's visit will exceed €100 million.
El Papa will visit Madrid, Barcelona, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
As they explained, there are several models for financing a papal visit. One is state-funded, as in the case of Portugal, the United States, Canada, and Australia, whose governments have subsidized the visits. Then there is the so-called "civic platform," financed by the faithful, foundations, and so on.
READ MORE: What we know about Pope Leo's planned visit to Spain in 2026
Spanish government aims to enshrine abortion rights in Constitution
The Spanish Cabinet on Tuesday approved the draft reform of Article 43 of the Spanish Constitution to safeguard the right to abortion.
The next step will be to get it approved by the Spanish Parliament.
"Public authorities shall guarantee the exercise of the right of women to the voluntary termination of pregnancy under conditions of real and effective equality with all the benefits and services necessary for said exercise," reads the proposed text.
"We are protecting women's right to voluntarily terminate their pregnancy in its service dimension because the service dimension of the right in public health, in the basic portfolio of public health services, is what is at risk," Spanish Equality Ana Redondo said.
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