The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times leads with the evidence given yesterday by a Libyan man accused of killing his former Maltese partner Margaret Mifsud. It also features reactions – including one by Joseph Muscat - to comments on democracy made yesterday by Alex Sceberras Trigona.
The Malta Independent asks if time has come for reconsideration of the school uniforms issue.
In-Nazzjon leads with the comments made by Alex Sceberras Trigona.
l-orizzont gives prominence to the heroic actions of two policemen and a dog who saved an elderly couple in a fire in Bugibba. The dog later died.
The overseas press
The Herald reports that Libya’s interim government has handed power to the new General National Congress which was formed after last month’s general elections. The head of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, passed the reins to Mohammed Ali Salim, the oldest member of the legislative body at a late-night ceremony in Tripoli. Hundreds of people in Tahrir Square held candles symbolising reconciliation and celebrated into the early hours of this morning the first anniversary of the revolution. The interim government, made up of the opposition forces that toppled Col. Gaddafi from power, was then dissolved.
Bangkok Times says the trial has began in eastern China of the wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai. She is accused of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood by poisoning him. Analysts say the trial, which is expected to last just a day or two, is an attempt to draw a line under a scandal that has sent shockwaves through the Communist party and exposed deep rifts ahead of a power handover.
There has been a lull in fighting between Syrian government forces and rebels who have been battling for control of several districts in the country’s second city of Aleppo. Earlier, Syrian state media said the army had overrun a rebel stronghold in the Salah al-Din neighbourhood. Syrian state TV claimed the district was completely retaken but the rebels said they staged a counter-attack winning back some of the streets they had lost.
According to Radio Cairo, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has sacked the country’s intelligence chief and the governor of north Sinai – just days after an attack by militants that killed 16 border guards. He also dismissed the commander of the presidential guard as well as several other top security officials. Morsi has promised to re-impose full control of Sinai.
Meanwhile, Al Ahram quotes security officials in Egypt saying the military had carried out an assault on suspected militants in the Sinai peninsula following new attacks against check-points in the city of El-Arish, about 50 km of the border with Israel and the Gaza Strip. Officials say the airstrikes killed 20 militants. The airstrikes came hours after an attack.
Pravda says Russian prosecutors have revealed how a reclusive Islamic sect kept 27 children hidden underground, many of them for more than a decade. Health officials in the republic of Tatarstan say some of the children had never seen daylight.
The New York Times says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned the Security Council of a worsening humanitarian crisis in Mali and expressed concern over human rights abuses in the north of the country. He said the council should consider travel and financial sanctions on those who were engaged in terrorism in Mali, where Al-Qaeda-linked militants were enforcing a harsh form of Islamic law in the north.
USA Today reports that authorities now say the gunman who killed six worshippers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin last weekend, killed himself after being shot by the police. The FBI said that a policeman responding to the assault at the temple shot Michael Page in the stomach but that Page died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
ABC says a 16-year-old boy retained his title as America's fastest texter in a duel of the thumbs staged before yelling fans on New York's Times Square. Austin Weirschke took home $50,000 prize money for the second time in two years when he beat 10 other texting demons in feats of thumb speed, memory and fluency in texting shorthand. One round was performed with the contestants blindfolded and having 45 seconds to type the verse: "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are, up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky". But when asked to describe his victory, Weirschke must have wished he could text his reply: facing the microphone, he could only manage: "I don't really know what to say."