The Association of Municipalities Terras do Infante, ie Aljezur, Lagos and Vila do Bispo, plus Lagoa Council are going ahead with an injunction to halt the closure of the CTT post offices in Aljezur, Praia da Luz, Sagres and Carvoeiro.

Representatives from four municipalities met managers from CTT in Lisbon on January 14, and "concluded that the current process will lead to the destruction and degradation of a public service that will penalise the population, small and medium-sized enterprises, tourists and the foreign resident community."

A head-on collision between two cars on the EN122 at Castro Marim left two men dead this morning; one of them was the well-respected local journalist, Domingos Viegas from Jornal do Algarve.

The accident occurred on the road linking Castro Marim to Vila Real de Santo António. Viegas was 46-years-old and leave a wife and two children. The victim in the other car was 21-year-old Daniel Neves from Castro Marim.

The Minister of Education, Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, has announced that the nation’s schools budget is to receive a boost of €80 million from community funds and additional central government spending.

The Minister stressed that this new budget will allow 40 more schools to be refurbished, raising the total refurbishment spend to €735 million between 2016 and 2020.

"At the next Council of Ministers meeting, on Thursday, we will approve a contingency plan to ensure that all British residents in Portugal will be assured of peace, tranquility and security and will not be inconvenienced,” said Portugal’s prime minister, adding that the rights of Portuguese residents in the UK will be respected.

António Costa lamented the rejection by the British parliament of the UK's exit agreement from the European Union and said he hoped that the British government quickly would inform him of its next steps to avoid an uncontrolled exit on March 29th.

British MPs have defeated Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, with 433 voting against and 202 voting for. Over 100 Conservative MPs helped vote down the deal in an historical defeat.

The result of Tuesday evening's vote has led to a sharp increased in the political chaos that has characterised British politics in the past two years.

A 75-year-old man who was found unconscious and floating in Tavira's Gilão River, has died.

The victim, in a serious condition, was rushed to the Vila Real de Santo António Health Center, but did not respond to treatment.

Increasing a suspicion that energy company EDP looks good on paper but in fact is rooted in the management practices of its State-owned past, an audit has shown how and where hundreds of millions of euros have been squandered during the building of hydro-electric dams.

EY describes examples of poor management control in the construction of several dams, such as Baixo Sabor, Ribeiradio Ermida and Foz Tua, which entailed ‘deviations’ of hundreds of millions of euros.

Despite a slowdown in the number of nights spent in Portugal, guests are paying more for their holidays, so the total take by the hotel sector continues to increase.

National tourism has eased off significantly with no records being broken as at the end of 2018.