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

In Times of Malta, Enemalta’s former chief financial officer Pippo Pandolfino admits that handwritten papers shown in a damning audit report by the Auditor General as minutes were his, but claimed they were just his own working notes. In another story it says political leaders agreed that Malta’s 18-month mandatory detention should remain unchanged despite criticism by the European Court of Human Rights.

The Malta Independent says that Nationalist MP Chris Fearne is to propose a Private Member's Bill after the summer recess to ban female genital mutilation.

L-Orizzont says that the British government linked release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to an arms-export deal with Libya, according to an e-mail written by former British High Commissioner to Malta Vincent Dean when he was serving in Libya.

In-Nazzjon quotes PN leader Simon Busuttil saying that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had ruined Malta's reputation internationally with his push-back of irregular immigrant threats.

Ansa reports at least 36 people were killed and several more injured when a bus carrying pilgrims plunged more than 15 metres off an overpass in southern Italy. Eleven other people, including at least three children, were pulled alive from the stricken coach and taken to hospital, some with serious injuries. 

Reuters says several thousand supporters of Egypt's ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi are marching on a military facility in Cairo in defiance of an army warning to stay away, risking a new confrontation after dozens were shot dead at the weekend. 

Il Tempo quotes Italian Interior Minister Angelo Alfano calling for human traffickers who shuttle migrants across the sea to Italy to be stopped, after 31 boat people drowned off the coast of Libya during an attempted crossing. A dinghy carrying 53 migrants capsized on Friday evening, and witnesses said 31 of those who had been thrown off it, including nine women, drowned in the accident. 

Jakarta Post reports police have arrested four men suspected of involvement in last week's fatal asylum seeker boat sinking off Indonesia. The boat sank in rough seas off the coast of Java with more than 200 people on board, killing at least 15 people. 

O Globo says Pope Francis is on his way back to the Vatican after wrapping up his first overseas trip with one of the largest papal Masses in recent history and a final entreaty for Catholic youth and their ministers to get out and spread the faith. An estimated 3 million people poured onto Rio's Copacabana beach yesterday for the final Mass of Pope Francis' historic trip. 

Responding to a close Israeli Cabinet vote to release 104 Palestinian prisoners, US Secretary of State John F. Kerry has announced that both sides would meet in Washington to relaunch long-stalled direct peace talks. The Washington Times reports Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni was expected to begin preliminary discussions with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat as early as this evening. 

Libya Herald says explosions have rocked the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi in apparent attacks on judicial buildings, a day after more than 1,100 inmates escaped during a prison riot there. Thirteen people were slightly wounded. Earlier, officials said that about 100 inmates out of 1,117 who escaped during a riot in Kuafiya prison on the outskirts of Benghazi on Saturday had been recaptured.

Le Parisien reports that a staggering €40 million worth of diamonds and other jewels was stolen from the Carlton Intercontinental Hotel in Cannes, in one of Europe's biggest jewellery heists in recent years. 

Four out of five US adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives – a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream. Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press, said the reasons for the trend points were an increasingly-globalised US economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs.

An elderly couple from California, born the same day and married for 75 years, had shared everything and died just one day away from each other. On July 16, and Helen Brown died at 94 and on the morrow, July 17, her husband Les, who was also 94 years old, also died. According to the local newspaper, the Press-Telegram, Helen and Les were born December 31, 1918 and were married in 1937 at 19, after running away from home.