The following are the top stories in the national press today.

After Times of Malta reported last week that all members of former home affairs minister Manuel Mallia’s private secretariat were still in government employ, it today says political appointees assigned to a minister’s private secretariat were first retained on the government payroll when Godfrey Farrugia resigned as health minister two years ago.

L-Orizzont says the police are still not considering Martin Cachia's car bomb death on Saturday morning as a murder since it was probable he was transporting the bomb.

The Malta Independent says that a freedom of information query it filed asking how much the Prime Minister had been paid for the use of his personal car since the March 2013 election received a partisan response about the car usage of former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and his ministers.

In-Nazzjon leads with a report on the Nationalist Party’s Idea Ambjent convention, which came to an end yesterday.