The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press. The local media is dominated by the canonisation of two Popes.
Times of Malta carries a large picture of St Peter's Square during the canonisation ceremony. It also reports how Birdlife has accused the police of intimidating officials.
The Malta Independent says John XXIII and John Paul II were declared saints.
In-Nazzjon carries a picture of yesterday's canonisation ceremony. It also reports that the PN presented 52 candidates for elections in hamlets.
l-orizzont says yesterday's canonisation ceremony was historic.
The overseas press
Ansa reports an estimated 800,000 Catholics went wild in St Peter’s and other Roman squares as Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXII were proclaimed saints
Voice of Russia announces a Swedish member of the OSCE observer mission in Ukraine has been freed by pro-Russian separatists who took eight members of the monitoring team captive last Friday.
Manila Times says defence cooperation will be at the top of the agenda when the President Obama visits the Philippines later today on his last stop of his week-long Asian tour.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned that in the absence of a two-state solution, Israel risked becoming an apartheid state. The Daily Beast says Kerry reportedly made the remarks to the Trilateral Commission in a closed-door meeting, a recording of which the news site obtained.
The Jerusalem Post quotes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’s condemnation of the Holocaust was a sign he was in damage control mode following his pact with Hamas. Netanyahu said Abbas could not say the Holocaust was terrible, but at the same time embrace those who deny the Holocaust and seek to perpetrate destruction of the Jewish people – a reference to Hamas.
Afghan Times says the two remaining candidates in the presidential election in Afghanistan have both insisted they would contest a second round rather than make a deal. Preliminary results show former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah winning most votes but not the 50 per cent he needed to win outright. Former World Bank economist and Afghan Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani came second with 31.5 per cent.
China Times reports the Taiwan government will halt construction at the island’s fourth nuclear power plant as local opposition to atomic energy continues to mount.
The Los Angeles Times says US basketball players from the Los Angeles Clippers have staged a silent protest at the start of a game after a tape was released in which the team owner, Donald Sterling, was allegedly recording making racist remarks by asking a woman not to broadcast her association with black people nor bring them to games.
Britain’s Daily Star says that police are closing in on the prime suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance – thanks to a “unique” T-shirt. A detective has made a break-through just days before the seventh anniversary of the three-year-old going missing in Portugal. New witnesses claim the No 1 suspect, a serial child sex attacker who operated for years in the Praia de Luz area where Madeleine vanished, was wearing a beer logo shirt – a rare item not sold to the public. Maddy’s parents Gerry and Kate were last night said to be “heartened” by the revelations.