The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says departures from the police force have hit a record high. It also reports that the Archbishop has welcomed the reforms of the Church marriage annulment process.
The Malta Independent says kidney failure and cardiac problems are being experienced by legal high users in Malta.
In-Nazzjon says so called excess workers at Gozo Hospital are still awaiting their fate. It also says minister Joe Mizzi inaugurated ‘half’ a new church parvis at Snglea.
MaltaToday says a Frenchman was arrested for calling the President ‘bitch’.
l-orizzont reports that a businessman before the election was given a second property as compensation for an expropriated shop.
The overseas press
Sputnik reports Pope Francis’ latest plea for Catholics to help Syrian refugees entering Europe has led to a number of commenters on white nationalist blogs to openly call for his assassination.
The New York Times says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged European leaders to stand against xenophobia, discrimination and violence towards refugees and migrants.
Meanwhile, Le Monde quotes the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, telling a news conference in Paris that Europe’s “deeply dysfunctional” asylum system and lack of organisation had led to the current refugee crisis on its soil.
And Tribune de Genève says UN special representative for migration Peter Sutherland said the migration crisis rocking Europe needed a “global response”. The call came as the UN’s refugee agency said it expected the number of asylum seekers fleeing across the Mediterranean to Europe to hit 400,000 this year and could be 450,000 or more in 2016.
A Hungarian N1TV camerawoman, who was filming refugees run over the border and into Hungary, was fired from her job for deliberately tripping a migrant who was holding a child as he fled police. Video footage showed her deliberately sticking her leg out as a man carrying a crying child ran by her. Other clips showed the camerawoman kicking refugees.
Le Soir reports NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has expressed concern after reports emerged that Russia could be transporting military aid to Syria. Stoltenberg’s comments came a few hours after Bulgaria closed its airspace to Russian military planes bound for Syria, saying it had reason to believe the “declared cargo was not the real one”. A high-ranking Moscow official warned of reprisals.
According to France 24, French fighter jets have been sent on a reconnaissance mission over Syria to gather intelligence on Islamic State targets. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said the “flights will determine what action can be taken”.
L’Echo announces the European Parliament has urged nine member states – Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – to “consider the possibility of offering” gay couples juridical institutions like “cohabitation, registered de facto unions and marriage”. The request was contained in a survey of LGBT basic rights approved by the EP.
The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express and The Sun pay tribute to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth who today becomes Britain’s longest-serving monarch. She will break the record previously held by her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, whose reign lasted for 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes – or around 63 years and 216 days. Princess Elizabeth came to the throne when she was only 25, on February 6, 1952, after the death of her father. An opinion poll conducted by YouGov has found she is the UK’s most popular monarch ever.
Las Vegas Tribune says the left engine on a British Airways jet caught fire while the plane was preparing to take off from Las Vegas to Gatwick, forcing its 159 passengers and 13 crew to escape on emergency slides. A plume of black smoke could be seen billowing into the sky, but fire-fighters quickly doused the Boeing 777-200 with fire retardant.
Fox News reports the Kentucky county clerk jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples has been released after five days behind bars, emerging to a tumultuous hero’s welcome from thousands of supporters waving large white crosses. As an Apostolic Christian, Davis says she believes a marriage can only be between a man and a woman.
Baltimore Sun says the parents of Freddie Gray reached a tentative $6.4 million settlement with the city of Baltimore, nearly six months after their 25-year-old son was critically injured in police custody, sparking days of protests and rioting. The deal appeared to be among the largest settlements in police death cases in recent years and happened just two days before a judge is set to hear arguments on whether to move the trials for six officers charged in Gray’s death from Baltimore.
A woman told a jury in England of her disbelief when she discovered that her boyfriend of two years was a female friend. Metro reports the complainant said she thought she was having sex with a man who was recovering from a brain tumour and did not want her to see his scars. But she claims she eventually discovered it was in fact her friend, who had persuaded her to wear a blindfold throughout their sexual encounters in which a prosthetic was used.