The Malta Police Union is dismayed and disappointed by the plea deal struck in the HSBC heist case.Darren Debono, known as it-Topo, sensationally pleaded guilty to his involvement in the 2010 heist on the eve of the beginning of the trial b...

The police will issue online hate speech charges against Fr David Muscat, the priest who said on Facebook that being gay is worse than being possessed by devil, MaltaToday reports.It is expected that he will be arraigned towards the end of January.Re...

Archbishop Charles Scicluna has issued a formal warning to controversial priest David Muscat, referred to in Canon Law as a penal precept, instructing the priest to cease making inflammatory and hurtful comments in public forums or face prohibition f...

The Planning Authority categorically denies claims of “collusion” made in public in relation to illegal works carried out on the former Barracuda Restaurant in St Julian’s. As a matter of fact, the PA said in a statement, although t...

GENEVA - The World Health Organization said Thursday that a record 9.5 million COVID-19 cases were tallied over the last week as the omicron variant of the coronavirus swept the planet, a 71% increase from the previous 7-day period that the U.N. heal...

Disgraced former minister Justyne Caruana is set to receive a €30,000 ‘golden handshake’ after she resigned in the wake of a damning standards report, according to reports. To make matters worse, this will be the second time in the s...

One of the first studies to track whether COVID-19 vaccination might affect women’s periods found a small and temporary change.Research published Wednesday tracked nearly 4,000 U.S. women through six menstrual cycles and on average, the next pe...

The police have arrested a Romanian man in connection with a theft in Santa Venera, which took place in 2015.In a statement, the police said that the arrest took place after an investigation which also involved Spain’s police force.Electronic e...

An investigation has been launched into what a controversial priest wrote about gay persons on Facebook, police sources have confirmed.Mosta priest Fr David Muscat has angered many after he wrote that if the person who is a suspect in the murder of a...

Two more Covid-19 patients have died as a result of the virus, health authorities announced on Thursday, while 1,144 cases were reported.Authorities said that a 56-year-old woman and a 67-year-old woman had died while Covid-19 positive, taking Malta&...

The PN and the NGO Repubblika have said that the Attorney General has an obligation to explain the decisions which it has taken in connection with the botched HSBC heist.The statements come after Darren Debono, known as it-Topo, sensationally pleaded...

MSC Cruises has said in a statement that the MSC Grandiosa will not enter Malta on Thursday after a “limited number” of positive Covid-19 cases were identified on board the ship.The company however denied reports that there were “hu...

On a tennis court, Novak Djokovic’s timing is perfect. But when he arrived in Australia to play the first Grand Slam of the year holding documents allowing him to enter the country without a COVID-19 vaccine, his timing hardly could have been w...

Mr Justice Giovanni Grixti has jailed Darren Debono known as it-Topo, after he pleaded guilty this morning to involvement in an unsuccessful 2010 attempted armed robbery at the HSBC headquarters.Debono’s lawyers and the Attorney General’s...

PN MP David Thake has filed a libel case against a One News editor and a One News journalist over a news article published under the title 'Thake iħallas biss wara li nkixef li ma ħallasx il-VAT' (Thake only pays after it is revealed that h...

The situation at Mater Dei Hospital pertaining to Covid-19 has been described as “stable”, with Public Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci saying in an interview that the majority of people are in hospital not due to Covid-19, but for o...

Jose Mourinho was left gesticulating in apparent disapproval after two grievous errors from his Roma players handed AC Milan a 3-1 win in Serie A on Thursday.First, striker Tammy Abraham stuck out his arm to block a shot that resulted in a penalty fo...

PN Whip Robert Cutajar has said that plans by the Lands Authority to lease out land in Mellieha for beekeeping has raised questions and doubts.The issue surrounds a lease by the Lands Authority of an agricultural site located outside the development ...

The AX Group plans to list one of its companies on the Malta Stock Exchange to help raise funds for two major projects, Group CEO Michael Warrington said during an interview.The Group recently underwent a reorganisation, consolidating its property as...

Steward Health Care Malta (SHCM) has increased its Covid-19 testing capacity in the laboratory of Gozo General Hospital (GGH), through the introduction of a second rapid PCR analyser. The introduction of extra rapid testing capacity enables admitted ...

The Italian government approved a measure Wednesday requiring people older than 50 to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, as the country struggles with nearly daily new records of fresh infections fueled by the omicron variant.Earlier in the day, ...

A cyclist was grievously injured after he was hit by a car in St Paul’s Bay on Wednesday evening, the police said.The accident happened in Mosta Road at 9pm.The cyclist, a man aged 37, was hit by a VW Passat driven by a 35-year-old man of Dingl...

The government has finally given a sliver of information about the presence of the omicron variant of Covid-19.In a tweet last Monday, Health Minister Chris Fearne said that two thirds of the Covid-19 cases which were sequenced by the health authorit...

The government should immediately say that it is extending the wage supplement scheme to counter the effects of Covid-19 until March, and not leave the private sector in the dark, PN deputy leader Robert Arrigo said Thursday.Addressing a press confer...

PL MP Oliver Scicluna has taken to Facebook to express his anger and offence at people offering him their vote in exchange for favours, saying that this is a practice and mentality which needs to stop.Scicluna, who has been an MP for almost a year no...

Darren Debono ‘it-Topo’ has pleaded guilty over his role in the failed 2010 HSBC heist ahead of Vince Muscat’s trial, which is set to begin on Thursday.MaltaToday reports that Debono pleaded guilty during an urgent sitting held on W...

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia saw another day of rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations on Thursday amid fears that changes to testing requirements could mask the full scale of the outbreak.The country reported 72,000 cases, up from 64,000 a day ...

922 cases of Covid-19 were reported by health authorities on Wednesday as two more patients passed away while positive for the virus.During the last 24 hours, a 65-year-old man and a 69-year-old woman died while they were positive for Covid-19, bring...

The family of a Polish woman who was murdered in Malta on Sunday only learnt about the case from the media. Relatives of Paulina Dembska also told Polish newspaper Fakt that they did not get the help of a psychologist.Dembska, 29, was found dead at S...

PN MP Hermann Schiavone has announced that he will be retiring from politics after the end of this legislature.In a social media post, Schiavone said he had discussed his decision with party leader Bernard Grech.He said he has come to the conclusion ...

National airline Air Malta has said that it will not be cancelling any of its routes, but that it will be decreasing the number of flights operating on some of them owing to a downturn in bookings.Air Malta is operating 16 routes this winter, and tho...

Novak Djokovic’s chance to play for a 10th Australian Open title was thrown into limbo Thursday when the country denied him entry and canceled his visa because he failed to meet the requirements for an exemption to COVID-19 vaccination rules.Th...

St Julian’s mayor Albert Buttigieg today condemned the Planning Authority’s delay in issuing a ‘stop notice’ on the works taking place at the Barracuda restaurant in Balluta Bay, despite the architect requesting a suspension o...

The National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE) has expressed its sorrow and outrage at the femicide of Paulina Dembska, saying that it is a wake-up call for all to address gender inequality in our society. The commission said that ...

Legal reforms are not enough to tackle problems related to violence, Minister for Equality, Research and Innovation Owen Bonnici said on Wednesday.In comments to The Malta Independent in the wake of the murder of a Polish woman, Pauline Dembska, last...

Squandering of money has become a serious problem in the country, as endless reports of power and tax abuse by officials have been consistent throughout the years, PN candidate Joseph Grech said in a press conference on Wednesday.The cliques and frie...

The leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party tested positive for the coronavirus and will miss the chance to grill Prime Minister Boris Johnson about the government's COVID-19 policies Wednesday as soaring infections strain the U.K. health system....

Surveys done on overall sales in restaurants over the Christmas period were lower than those of the year 2020, particularly with regards to Christmas Eve dinners, the secretary of the Association of Catering Establishments, Matthew Pace, told The Mal...

A vigil for murder victim Paulina Dembska was held in Sliema on Tuesday evening, where the victim's family asked the hundreds present to pray for their daughter.Dembska was found dead in Independence Garden in Sliema at around 6:20 am on 2 January.Th...

The NGO Repubblika has claimed to have information which that political pressure is being put on members of the police force to not arraign any Labour politician – past or present – on charges of corruption before the next general electio...

Robert Abela has done it again.Once more since he took over the reins of the country from Joseph Muscat, he has shown total disregard to the democratic process.It was announced on Monday that the Labour Party had approved the nomination of lawyer And...

French President Emmanuel Macron has provoked outcries in parliament and protests from election rivals by using a vulgarity to describe his strategy for pressuring vaccine refusers to get coronavirus jabs.Macron used the French word “emmerder,&...

A man was grievously injured when machinery toppled onto his foot while he was working in a quarry, the police said.The accident took place in Wied Filep, Naxxar, at 5pm on Tuesday, the police said.The 53-year-old Mgarr resident was taken to hospital...

Like many people, Alberto Pérez of Madrid used a home test to discover that his headache and cold-like symptoms were caused by COVID-19.Unable to contact his local health center, where calls went unanswered and online appointments were booked ...

GENEVA — A top World Health Organization official says low hospitalization and death rates in South Africa due to the omicron variant cannot be considered a template for how the variant will fare as it surges in other countries.Dr. Abdi Mahamud...

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday he hoped to “ride out" the pandemic without further restrictions, even as he warned that the country faces difficult days ahead as the highly transmissible omicron variant drives COVID-19 infection...

Tattoo parlors say their art will lose a lot of its vibrancy after European Union rules banning thousands of chemicals in their coloring ink kick in on Wednesday. The 27-nation bloc answers back that public health will be much better served with toug...

The murder of Polish national Paulina Dembska on Sunday morning has shocked the nation. This is what is known so far about the case. Dembska was found dead in Independence Garden in Sliema at around 6:20 am on 2 January. The suspect, 20-year-old Abne...

Tributes to the beloved children’s doctor Victor Calvagna, who today succumbed to injuries he sustained when he was hit by a car, have flooded in from across the board.Many prominent figures took to social media to offer their tributes to Calva...

A fundraising campaign that was set up through the fundraising page GoGetFunding for the family of murder victim Paulina Dembska has reached its goal amount.The campaign was set up by Agnieszka Anna Gramala, a friend of Dembska’s, to serve as f...

1,147 new cases of Covid-19 were reported by health authorities on Tuesday, while Malta registered its 480th death in relation to the virus as well.The number of cases reported is the fifth highest on record for Malta during the pandemic.Authorities ...

Beloved doctor Victor Calvagna has passed away, the foundation he was President of announced on social media on Tuesday.Calvagna, a well-known oncologist and president and founder of Puttinu Cares, was critically injured after being hit by a car...

Gender-motivated killings of women are an assault on universal human rights and seriously undermine human dignity, Andrew Azzopardi, the Dean of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, said."Preventing all forms of violence against women requires the engag...

The government is failing to acknowledge and take action over the high cost of living which is affecting several Maltese families, the elderly, and youths alike, PN deputy leader David Agius said.The PN is calling for a solution to this problem, noti...

An autopsy has confirmed that Sliema murder victim Paulina Dembska was raped and strangled, TVM has reported.  Dembska was found dead in Sliema’s Independence Garden early on Sunday morning. She had wounds to her chest and head. The police...

Claims that the suspect in the murder of a Polish woman assaulted a second person who managed to escape by running into a church are untrue, police sources have confirmed. A voice recording is currently doing the rounds on social media. In the clip, ...

Labour MP Jean-Claude Micallef has spoken against the “daggers” hitting the mother of the man who is under police investigation following the murder of a Polish woman in Sliema last Sunday.Writing on Facebook, Micallef said that everybody...

Unauthorised absence from work should be treated as unpaid leave, employers say as UHM tells workers to work from home if nobody can keep childrenThe Malta Employers’ Association has issued a directive to its members instructing them to treat a...

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister says preliminary data on the fourth vaccine dose shows that it safely brings about a five-fold increase in antibodies that battle the coronavirus.Naftali Bennett spoke Tuesday during a visit to the Sheb...

Why are so many vaccinated people getting COVID-19 lately?A couple of factors are at play, starting with the emergence of the highly contagious omicron variant.Omicron is more likely to infect people, even if it doesn't make them very sick, and its s...

The government aims to be “expeditious” in its approach to establish a new authority that will act as a regulator for the cannabis sector, but will at the same time respect the principles of good governance. This is what reforms minister ...

River of Love has distanced itself from the Abner Aquilina, the main suspect in the Dembska murder that occurred on Sunday.Police said on Monday in a statement that they had to stop their interrogation of the main suspect and refer him to Mount ...

Two thirds of the new Covid-19 cases which were sequenced by the health authorities in Malta were of the Omicron variant. This was revealed by Deputy Minister and Health Minister Chris Fearne in a tweet published on Monday. On the 23rd of December, t...

A woman who says she was sexually trafficked to Britain’s Prince Andrew by Jeffrey Epstein accepted $500,000 in 2009 to settle her lawsuit against the American millionaire and anyone else “who could have been included as a potential defen...

The number of active Covid-19 cases as well as the number of people in hospital with the virus has shot up again, figures released by the health authorities on Monday show.New cases registered total 812, but with only 240 patients recovering the numb...

Police had to stop interrogating Abner Aquilina in connection with the murder of Paulina Dembska after he began to claim that the devil had taken over his mind at the time of the attack.Aquilina – a 20-year-old from Zejtun – is the lead s...

The police issued 156 fines in connection with breaches of Covid regulations last week.The fines were issued by different police districts, the Malta Police Force said in a social media post.Officers performed 542 hours of foot patrols and 189 kilome...

Lawyer Andy Ellul will be co-opted to Parliament, replacing Silvio Grixti, who resigned in December, the Labour Party has announced.In a statement, the PL said Ellul’s nomination had been approved by the Labour Parliamentary Group and the party...

Ralf Rangnick is beginning to understand just how big a job he has taken on at Manchester United.His players are already becoming dispirited, too.Rangnick fell to his first loss as United manager after Joao Moutinho’s 82nd-minute strike earned ...

The suspect in the murder of Paulina Maria Dembska has been referred to Mount Carmel Hospital, police said in a statement on Monday morning.29-year-old Dembska, who is from Poland, was found murdered early on Sunday morning by passers-by at the Indep...

Malta’s new quarantine regulations, which amongst other things sees the reduction of the required isolation period for positive cases to 10 days as long as they have had a booster dose of the vaccine, come into force from today.In a statement, ...

Works on the Barracuda restaurant in Balluta bay started over the New Year’s weekend, despite the application for the project being currently ‘suspended at the request of the architect.’Photos and video taken on site show that worke...

The Malta Football Association has decided to suspend all football matches for two weeks owing to the Covid-19 situation being faced by many clubs on the island.The decision was taken on Monday after a request for the postponement was submitted by th...

SEOUL — South Korea says it has confirmed its first death related to the new omicron variant.The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Monday that the deceased was in their 90s and living at a nursing home in the southern cit...

2022 is set to be an eventful year in Malta, with a general election set to be held, a number of high-profile court cases set to continue, and the challenges brought about by Covid-19 needing to be tackled.The Malta Independent contacted NGOs, civil ...

The Criminal Court is to decree on a request by a former police officer who was shot at during the infamous 2010 HSBC hold up, requesting permission not to testify due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by the incident.The trial by jury of conv...

As the high numbers of COVID-19 infections persist each day, the Nationalist Party again stressed that the government should be more transparent in its decisions.The government cannot remain silent and leave the country in the dark, the PN said in a ...

Pandemics do eventually end, even if omicron is complicating the question of when this one will. But it won't be like flipping a light switch: The world will have to learn to coexist with a virus that's not going away.The ultra-co...

The laying of an undersea cable linking Malta, Marseille and Egypt has started at Golden Bay. This is is the start of the final phase of the PEACE project, an investment by GO of €25 million in a 3rd submarine cable which will directly conn...

Schoolchildren returned to classes Monday in parts of Europe, while the British government pledged to rush ventilation units and enough COVID-19 test kits to schools to ensure they, too, can reopen later this week despite soaring infection rates in t...

Two people have been hospitalised after a car crash early this morning in Pieta.Police said in a statement that at around 2:45am a traffic accident occurred on Triq ix-Xatt in Pieta between a Fiat 500 and a Toyota Corolla.The Fiat was being driven by...

The U.K. government has been making contingency plans in case hospitals, schools and other workplaces are hit by major staff shortages amid the country's record-breaking spike in coronavirus infections.Public sector workplaces have been preparing for...

There was an increase in adoption requests, but not in actual adoptions over the Christmas period, the Association for Abandoned Animals (AAA) told The Malta Independent. The association said that it makes sure that adoptions do not end up being trea...

The Covid-19 pandemic has turned all our lives upside down at some point or other, but some form of normality was achieved in 2021.The pandemic, however, seems to be here to stay, and this will be the backdrop for the year ahead.There are several thi...

A woman was found dead in the Independence Garden in Sliema, the police said on Sunday, and a murder investigation is underway.The 29-year-old Polish woman was found dead, face up on a ramp leading down to the garden beneath the fence just off of Tow...

The number of Covid patients in hospital has now jumped to over 100, standing at 110, seven of whom are in the ITU.This means that 11 more people are in Mater Dei Hospital with Covid-19 than there were on 1 January.Two more people have died while Cov...

Almost one out of every five Covid-19 tests are returning as positive results, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to tear through the country.In the past week, Malta’s positivity rate – meaning the percentage of tests carried out which re...

An 80-year-old woman from Hamrun has died after being hit by a car, the police said.The accident occurred at 5.30pm on Saturday on Triq Giovanni Barbara, Hamrun. She was hit by a car driven by a 46-year-old man from Santa Venera. She was taken to Mat...

The government aims to be “expeditious” in its approach to establish a new authority that will act as a regulator for the cannabis sector, but will at the same time respect the principles of good governance, reforms minister Owen Bonnici ...

We ended the year in the same predicament as we had started it.The Covid-19 pandemic is still raging, in Malta and in many other parts of the world. It is still the main topic of news bulletins. Some people have learnt to live with it more than other...

The Malta Independent on Sunday met with Antonio Pace, a 28-year-old former resident at the now closed Lourdes home in Ghajnsielem, Gozo. Antonio does not remember how he spent Christmas during his first years of life because of the trauma that he ha...

It would be a bit of an understatement to say that 2021 was an eventful year. The Covid-19 pandemic raged on while there was no shortage of drama in the country’s law courts either, with a number of high-profile cases hitting the headlines thro...

The only winner Sunday was Manchester City. And Romelu Lukaku certainly lost out.What a pulsating, entertaining encounter for Lukaku to miss — not out of his own choosing — as Chelsea recovered to draw 2-2 with Liverpool without...

Prime Minister Robert Abela continues to choose to remain complicit in a corrupt deal, the PN said in a statement.The PN said that the more details about the hospitals deal that emerge, "the more it confirms that the Vitals Global Healthcare deal was...

Israel’s prime minister is warning that the country will soon see tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases a day.Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He said that despite rolling out mo...

Basketball international referee Bernard Vassallo has reached the top levels in officiating basketball games all over Europe.But what is his favourite food? And what kind of books does he like to read?His favourite season is summer, but which footbal...

The New Year officially started yesterday, and many hope that 2022 will not be another 2021; that it will be different and better.Many will have made their New Year’s resolutions and pledged to be better persons this year … perhaps healt...

Seven-time Ballon d'Or winner Lionel Messi is among four players in the Paris Saint-Germain squad to have tested positive for the coronavirus ahead of the team's French Cup game on Monday night.PSG added that one staff member also had COVID-19 in a s...

Prince Andrew’s effort to immediately block the progression of a lawsuit by a woman who says he sexually assaulted her when she was 17 — on the grounds that she no longer lives in the U.S. — was rejected by a federal judge as oral a...