The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times like all the other newspapers, leads with the parcel bomb explosion which left a man fighting for his life in Qormi yesterday. It also highlights the traffic chaos caused by the bad weather in Europe.
The Malta Independent says residential utility tariffs in Malta are not the highest in the EU, although industrial rates are.
MaltaToday says Air Malta is expected to make losses of €25m.
In-Nazzjon says the Pope spoke positively on Malta in a letter to President Abela.
l-orizzont reports claims by the GWU that the government is undermining the MCESD by holding separate talks with employers' associations on the utility tariffs.
The international press:
EU environment ministers meeting in Brussels have scrambled to inject new momentum into climate talks. EU Observer reports the ministers debated how to find new allies following the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, emphasising the need for concrete, legally binding measures to combat global warming.
The Boston Herald reports a woman who called the Boston office of the Secret Service has been arrested and accused of threatening to "blow away" Michelle Obama on the family's Christmas trip to Hawaii. The woman, Kristy Lee Roshia, has a history of making rambling telephone calls to the Secret Service office in Boston.
Baltic Times says top Lithuanian politicians and national security officials have told a Vilnius government inquiry that the CIA had set up secret prisons in Lithuania to hold suspects in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Planes involved in transporting prisoners had entered Lithuanian airspace and landed in the capital on several occasions between 2002 and 2005.
Columbia Universal reports a kidnapped Colombian governor of southern Caqueta province has been found dead, with his throat slashed. Luis Francisco Cuellar, who had been seized from his house by suspected leftist rebels on Monday, was the most high profile politician abducted since President Alvaro Uribe came to power in 2002.
USA Today reports that a dog in suburban New York is the first in the US confirmed to be carrying the same strain of swine flu that is infecting humans. The 13-year-old mixed-breed male, which is recovering, tested for swine flu because its owner previously had the virus. Experts have said it appears the flu can spread from humans to animals but there is no evidence that humans can get it from pets.
El Pais says Spanish police and Scotland Yard have seized cocaine with a street value of €420 million from a ship off the coast of northern Spain. A number of arrests have been made, including members of the ship's crew. It is believed the vast majority of the drugs were destined for London.
Corriere dell'Umbria says Rudy Guede, one of the killers of British student Meredith Kercher, had his sentence reduced from 30 to 16 years by an appeal court today but it refused to quash the conviction. He had been found guilty of helping American Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito murder Miss Kercher in Italy two years ago. Knox and Sollecito were convicted this month of the killing in a shared student flat in Perugia. Knox and Sollecito are both appealing against their convictions.
O Globo says an American father at the centre of an international child custody battle will have to wait another day at the very least to learn whether his nine-year-old son can return with him to the US from Brazil.
According to Moscow Times, eight tigers and a lioness belonging to a Russian travelling circus died during a 20-hour truck journey across Siberia. Officers in Yakutia said the animals were dead when they arrived in the city of Yakutsk. An employee of the private Mechta circus said the animals suffocated because of poor ventilation on the heated truck.
The Guardian reports a man who was blinded in one eye in an ammonia attack 15 years ago has got his sight back after undergoing pioneering stem cell treatment. Russell Turnbull, who is now 38, was attacked on his way home as he intervened to break up the scuffle in Newcastle in 1994. He is one of eight patients with impaired vision who have been treated successfully with their own stem cells.
The Los Angeles Times says the number of men and women pursuing affairs plunged following claims of golfer Tiger Woods's infidelities, a dating website said today. Men looking for "discreet relationships" via benaughty.com dropped in number by 47.5 per cent days after the scandal unfolded. Dating trends of more than 25,000 users of the website also showed a 19.7 per cent fall in numbers of women looking to "play away from home".