The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta reports that Brussels sees Malta's deficit getting worse.
The Malta Independent describes today's PN leadership election as D-Day for the party.
In-Nazzjon says the four PN leadership contenders conveyed a strong message of unity yesterday. It also says the Gozo Hospital superintendent has resigned.
l-orizzont says the situation at Gozo hospital under the PN government was close to a disaster.
The overseas press
British Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to “work really hard” to win back voters who abandoned the Conservatives for the anti-European Union UK Independence Party which made a series of stunning gains in the council elections. UKip leader Nigel Farage claimed a “sea change” in British politics as they gained 131 council seats – far more than predicted – while securing second place in the South Shields parliamentary by-election. The Daily Telegraph says Cameron immediately came under pressure from Tory right-wingers to firm up his commitment to a referendum on Britain’s EU membership in a bid to counter their appeal. A BBC projection gave Ukip a 23 per cent share of the national vote, just behind the Tories on 25 per cent with Labour ahead on 29 per cent. The Lib Dems trail in fourth place on 14 per cent.
The Irish Times reports the Catholic Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, has signalled a possible legal challenge to the proposed abortion legislation Bill unless it is changed. He told RTE Radio that enforcing the Bill across all hospitals in Ireland could lead to potential legal action against the reforms as it was “a denial of fundamental religious freedom”. The Catholic bishops had earlier branded the proposed changes to Ireland’s strict abortion regime as “dramatic and morally unacceptable”. The Church has said the deliberate decision to deprive a human being of life is always morally wrong.
Portugal's government is to reduce 30,000 public sector jobs as part of a sweeping package of spending cuts to satisfy international creditors. Diario Economico says that in a speech to the nation, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho also said that the full pension age would be raised to 66 years and civil servants would be expected to work 40 hours a week instead of 35. He said the measures were needed to keep the debt-hit eurozone member eligible for another slice of its much-needed €78-billion bailout.
The New York Post reports customs officials have been ordered to verify that every foreign student arriving in the US had a valid student visa. It's the first security change by the US government directly related to the Boston bombings. The order came one day after the Obama administration acknowledged that a student from Kazakhstan accused of hiding evidence for one of the Boston bombing suspects was allowed to return to the US in January without a valid student visa.
Al Jazeera says hundreds of Libyan pro-democracy advocates have come under attack by supporters of a law to exclude Gaddafi-era officials from top government jobs. Several hundred people were protesting against armed groups that have been laying siege to the justice and foreign ministries, when they were attacked by demonstrators calling for the adoption of the law to exclude Gaddafi-era officials from top government posts.
Radio Cairo reports Egyptian police fired tear gas to disperse opposition demonstrators hurling rocks and firebombs near Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday evening. The protesters, including members of the Black Bloc group, began demonstrating outside the offices of the prosecutor general and set fire to the entrance to the building. Egypt's prosecutor general had ordered the arrest of several members of the Black Bloc, a violent group opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. Three months ago, he also accused the group of terrorism.
Ansa reports that Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta and his deputy Angelino Alfano on Friday hailed Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge's statement that she was “proud to be black”, stressing they were proud to have Italy's first black minister in their new left-right government. They voiced “full solidarity” with Kyenge over racist attacks she had received since being sworn in last weekend.
Xinhua news agency reports police in China have arrested over 900 people for selling fake, spoiled, or adulterated meat over the past three months. Suspects sold meat that had been injected with water to increase its weight, or sold rat and fox meat as lamb. State media portrayed the arrests as part of a national crackdown that will now focus on dairy products.
A US woman whose nose was severely injured by an attacking dog says her husband bit the animal to make it stop assaulting her. Caren and Laine Henry told The Des Moines Register that a 50-lb Labrador cross ran out of a yard in rural Madrid, Iowa and attacked them while they were walking their pet beagle. Caren says the dog bit her abdomen and right thigh, scratched at her eyes, then clamped onto her nose, tearing it off. She says her husband was bit on an arm when he tried to help her. Henry “finally had to bite the dog in its nose, and it let loose.” The Register says the county doesn’t have a vicious-dog law.
Il Mattino announces Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris and his roadworks councillor Anna Donati have been placed under investigation in connection with accidents caused by a growing number of potholes in the southern Italian city. They face possible charges of lowering road safety and not doing their jobs as the law requires.