The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta says the removal of the graffiti at City Gate will cost €4,000.
The Malta Independent quotes the MUMN saying teenagers are being exposed to abuse at Mt Carmel Hospital.
In-Nazzjon also leads with the MUMN fears of sexual abuse at Mr Carmel. It also says more questions have been raised over the closure of the Family Park in Marsascala.
l-orizzont quotes Transport Minister Joe Mizzi saying he would not accept a technical report from Mercedes because they were the manufacturer that supplied the bendy buses to Arriva.
The overseas press
The Times reveals a report by UN inspectors will suggest the Assad regime was responsible for last month's chemical attack in the Syrian capital. The report, due to be published on Monday, will include a wealth of evidence that a chemical nerve agent was used in the attack, according to sources. Such a finding will throw President Putin on to the back foot as Russia and the US wrangle over how to force President Assad to rid himself of his chemical arsenal.
Tribune de Genève reports decisive top-level talks on Syria between the US and Russia began in Geneva on Thursday amid signals from Damascus that it might join a key weapons-ban treaty prior to allowing international inspectors to locate and destroy arsenals. Before starting their discussions, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, pledged to closely cooperate in seeking to disarm Syria. But differences between the two diplomats were evident, with Lavrov saying military force against Syria was unnecessary and Kerry stressing that the threat of force was the only reason Assad has made pledges to give up his chemical-weapons arsenal.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has insisted that the US give up its “policy of threats” and halt arms shipments to rebels before his government turns over its chemical weapons. The paper asserts Assad's comments, in his first public statement on the Russian proposal that Syria hand over its chemical weapons to an international monitors, underlined the distance between Syria and its backers in Moscow on one side and the US and its allies on the other.
Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have attacked the US consulate in the western city of Herat. The Taliban told the BBC a suicide bomber had detonated explosives outside the building before dawn on Friday. Other fighters then opened fire on the consulate. Several Afghan police are reported to have been killed and injured in the gun battle. It is the latest in a series of attacks ahead of the withdrawal of foreign combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.
According to Deutsche Welle, European lawmakers in Strasbourg have voted with a large majority to allow the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt to become a centralised supervisory authority with oversight over major eurozone banks. The so-called single supervisory mechanism is the first of three steps towards the bloc's planned banking union, which is a key policy for resolving the 17-nation eurozone's three-year-old debt crisis.
Ansa reports Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has said that during the country’s semestral presidency of the European Union, his government would ensure that it would be more efficient – especially in terms of handling immigration, the issues of energy and cooperation to achieve “a better Europe”. Letta was speaking after attending a trilateral summit with Croatia and Slovenia.
CNN says flash flooding unleashed by torrential downpours in Colorado has killed at least three people and forced thousands to flee to higher ground as rising water toppled buildings and stranded motorists in their cars. The unusually heavy late-summer rains drenched Colorado's biggest urban centres, stretching 130 miles along the eastern slopes of the Rockies from Fort Collins near the Wyoming border south through Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs.
Meanwhile, USA Today reports a fire started at a frozen custard stand in New Jersey’s Seaside Park spread to other boardwalk businesses, including FunTown Pier, destroyed much of an iconic boardwalk just rebuilt after Superstorm Sandy. An estimated 20 businesses were completely destroyed.
AFP says a two-day meeting of high street clothing brands and pressure groups aimed at reaching a compensation deal for victims of two Bangladesh factory disasters ended in failure after only around a third of the firms invited had even turned up – with key names including Walmart, Benetton and Mango staying away. The Geneva talks came after a building housing garment factories collapsed in Bangladesh last April, killing more than 1,100 people.
San Jose Mercury News announces the death of Ray Dolby, who pioneered noise-reducing and surround-sound audio technologies which are fundamental to the music and film industries. He was 80. Over the years Dolby and his company won 10 Oscars and 13 Emmy Awards for its groundbreaking achievements.
Variety says the world of Harry Potter will return to the big screen with a new movie based on JK Rowling's “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”. The film will be released by Warner Bros. The book is a basic text for students at Hogwarts, and was written by Rowling under the pseudonym Newt Scamander.
Nicole Kidman was knocked over yesterday when a photographer hit her with his bike on a New York City sidewalk. TMZ says the 46-year-old actress is pressing charges against freelance paparazzo Carl Wu, who rode into her as she was returning to the Carlyle Hotel from the Calvin Klein show at New York Fashion Week. A witness told Us Weekly Kidman looked hurt, but there wasn't any blood. She put her shoes back on and ran into the Carlyle. Police only said they would write a ticket for Wu, who a witness said tried to put on the brakes but couldn't before slamming into Kidman, and would not arrest him for a criminal offence.