**5,481 Departures: The Human Story Behind Malta’s Migrant Returns** The figure lands like a slap: 5,481 people escorted off the island since 2021. Enough to fill the City Theatre in Valletta twice over, enough to populate a village the size of Żebbuġ. Yet behind every number is a name someone once whispered on a Sliema…
# Mediterranean on the Frontline: How 16,500 European Heat Deaths Sound Alarm for Malta The Mediterranean’s record-breaking summer claimed 16,500 lives across Europe, with new research revealing the deadly human cost of climate change that hits dangerously close to Malta’s shores. Published Monday in Nature Medicine, the Barcelona Institute for Global Health study examined mortality…
Valletta’s 16th-century walls have seen many envoys come and go, but few arrivals feel as timely as that of Jean-Marc Pisani, the new Head of the European Commission’s Representation in Malta. The French diplomat touched down in mid-May, just as the islands were shaking off the last Covid restrictions and bracing for a summer that…
**MEP Warns Annual VRT Checks Would Unfairly Hit Maltese Motorists** Maltese drivers could soon find themselves shelling out more cash and queuing more often if Brussels pushes through plans to make vehicle roadworthiness tests an annual ordeal. Nationalist MEP Peter Agius has slammed the proposal, arguing it would “unfairly penalise” islanders who already grapple with…
**Royal Fanfare, Maltese Ears: What Trump’s Gold-Leaf London Welcome Means for the Rock in the Middle** By the time the Valletta bus depot clock struck 9 a.m., café TVs normally tuned to ONE’s soap replays had flicked to BBC World. Pensioners nursing ħobż biż-żejt watched a scarlet-clad Welsh Guards band strike up “Hail to the…
A patch of scrubland opposite Gozo’s most beloved pilgrimage site is being transformed into a fragrant, climate-resilient garden, signalling a quiet revolution in how the sister island protects its sacred landscapes. The Ta’ Pinu greening project—launched last month by the Ministry for Gozo, the local council of Għarb and nature NGO Żibel—will see 3,000 indigenous…
**Man Accused of Injuring and Robbing Partner in Domestic Violence Case That Shocks Sliema Community** A 34-year-old man from Sliema has been charged with grievously injuring his partner and stealing from her, in a case that has sent shockwaves through Malta’s traditionally tight-knit coastal community. The accused, whose name cannot be published due to ongoing…
**Maltese Collectors Hold Breath After €600,000 Paris Gold Heist Shakes Global Heritage Scene** Valletta’s narrow limestone streets may feel worlds away from the grand boulevards of Paris, but news that three masked thieves smashed display cases at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs on Monday and escaped with 60 kilos of priceless gold artefacts has sent…
**Roberta Metsola’s Kyiv Office: How Malta’s President of the European Parliament is Putting the Island on Ukraine’s Front Line** Valletta’s morning café chatter has a new topic: Roberta Metsola just told the world that the European Parliament will keep a permanent liaison office in Kyiv, and she did it with the same straight-talking energy she…
Malta’s Quiet Role in a Northern Ireland Rape Extradition Drama By Hot Malta Staff Valletta – When 34-year-old Belfast-born construction worker Darren McKenna was arrested last Tuesday outside a Paceville gym, few of the sunburnt revellers around him realised that Malta had just become the latest stage in a five-year trans-national manhunt. McKenna, wanted by…
# Insurers back PN call for broader measures against all forms of reckless driving Malta’s insurance industry has thrown its weight behind a Nationalist Party proposal to expand the definition of reckless driving, arguing that current laws are too narrow to tackle the island’s growing culture of traffic impunity. The Malta Insurance Association (MIA) told…
Sarah Bajada’s very Maltese apology – “sorry, I didn’t know” – has become the island’s latest cautionary tale after the influencer-turned-entrepreneur was pulled over in her pastel-pink Fiat 500 on the Sliema front, only to discover her road licence had expired in January and her insurance policy had lapsed two weeks earlier. The incident, captured…
