The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says a probe has been launched into the SkolaSajf fiasco. It also reports how road menace Maximilian Ciantar was arrested after threatening to run down a woman.
MaltaToday says Nazzareno Vassallo has been accused of perjury. He denies the claims.
The Malta Independent says no decision on the Dalli case is expected by a Luxembourg case before early next year.
In-Nazzjon reports how the Zabbar Mayor resigned after a damning report by the Governance Board.
l-orizzont highlights yesterday’s announcement that the kitchen of St Vincent de Paule Home will be demolished and replaced because it is in poor condition.
The overseas press
The Jerusalem Post reports Israel launched its largest offensive in the Gaza Strip in nearly two years, carrying out a blistering aerial assault on more than 150 sites across Gaza and killing 25 people in what officials called “an open-ended operation” aimed at ending weeks of heavy rocket fire.
An Israeli government source has told Haaretz that during a meeting at the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israel Defence Forces to prepare for a possible ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. The Prime Minister emphasised that Israel has tried to ease the tension in Gaza, but Hamas has instead increased its rain of rockets into the country.
Meanwhile, Al Ayyam quotes the militant Palestinian group Hamas saying “all Israelis” would be targeted after a deadly strike on a house in the southern city of Khan Yunis killed 11 people, among them two teenagers. AFP reported medics said 25 other people were wounded in the strike.
In a speech to Liberal Democrats in the European parliament, would-be European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker said that countries most affected by illegal immigration could not face the problem alone.
The Washington Times reports President Barack Obama appealed to Congress for $3.7 billion (€2.7 billion) in emergency spending to deal with the immigration crisis as unaccompanied children have been showing up by the thousands in a human drama that's causing a political storm in Washington and beyond.
Ansa says Pope Francis is expected to nominate a banker later today to head the Vatican's troubled, and sometimes scandal-hit bank, the Institute for Religious Works, which saw its net profit fall by €83.7 million in 2013 to €2.9 million. It said the drop was due to “extraordinary expenses, adjustments to the value of investment funds managed by third parties, and a drop in the price of gold”.
USA Today says Federal investigators are probing how vials of smallpox made their way into a storage room at a Food and Drug Administration lab near the US capital. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement the vials were labelled “variola” – another name for smallpox – and appear to date from the 1950s.
Italian geographers said they believe they may have found the oldest extant map of the world engraved on an ostrich egg, possibly by Leonardo da Vinci. The map, evidently dating to the start of the 16th century, contains the first representation of north America as two small islands, according to research published on The Portolan.
Los Angeles Times says a Utah woman killed six of her babies because she couldn’t raise the children while also supporting her drug and alcohol addictions.