The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says it emerged in court that in criminal cases, the Attorney General Office not only conducts the prosecution but also pays for the defence when legal aid is sought. In another story, it says the planning authority has a backlog of more than 8,000 pending enforcement cases, some dating back to the early 1990s, on which no action has yet been taken.
The Malta Independent says that the second edition of Facebook’s 'Global Government Reuqests Report' confirms that the Maltese were the most likely to have their Facebook account accessed by their national authorities.
In-Nazzjon quotes the Nationalist Party’s spokesman for health saying that the mental health sector was too sensitive to end up being a political ball but decisions taken lately raised serious concerns.
L-Orizzont accuses former Finance Minister Tonio Fenech of forgetting he had planned to increase oil bunkering rates by €4 when he criticised the current minister of minimally increasing the rates by 35c.
International news
Kyiv Post quotes Ukraine’s Defence Ministry confirming six armoured vehicles were taken by pro-Russian militants in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.
Korean Herald says emergency teams have been working through the night looking for nearly 300 people, mostly high school students, still missing after a passenger ferry sank off the coast of South Korea. Six people are known to have died.
The father of one of the school children aboard the boat told a Reuters several people appear to have survived in an air pocket of a capsized ferry. He said his child had told him in a text message, “I am alive, there are students alive, please save us quickly.” More than 170 passengers have been rescued.
Voice of Nigeria says security forces are still searching for a hundred teenage girls abducted by suspected Islamist militants of the Boko Haram group. It is thought are being forced to trek through the forest.
As a robotic submarine dived into the southern Indian Ocean to look for lost Flight 370, angry Chinese relatives stormed out of a teleconference meeting in Beijing in protest against the Malaysian government for not addressing them in person. ABC reports the Bluefin 21 sub surfaced early for the second time in as many missions, this time after experiencing technical difficulties.
The New York Times says the diplomat who was president of the UN Security Council in April 1994 has apologised for the council’s refusal to recognise that genocide was taking place in Rwanda and for doing nothing to stop the slaughter of more than one million people.
Mail & Guardian reports the judge in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial has ruled that proceedings will adjourn for more than two weeks after tomorrow and resume on May 5.
Metro says American schools have declared war on leggings. According to some principals they are too provocative and can only be worn with a skirt or a long sweater.
A girl in Britain has become a mother aged 12 years and three months, establishing what The Sun says was a record for the country. The London girl became pregnant last summer, when he was 11 years old and in elementary school.
Ansa reports Italian police have raided the house of a 52-year-old man with a history of receiving stolen goods and were surprised to find, among his cache, a display case with a pair of gloves of St Pio of Pietrelcina.