Domestic violence case dropped at victim’s request – the terse courtroom sentence echoed across Valletta’s historic halls last Thursday, but on the stone steps outside, the silence felt heavier than any verdict. For the third time this year, a Maltese woman has formally withdrawn charges against a partner who, police records show, had fractured her…
**Valletta Court Grants Bail to Man Accused of Domestic Violence, Sparking Community Outcry** A 34-year-old man from Żejtun has been granted bail after being accused of domestic violence against his partner, reigniting heated debates across Malta about the effectiveness of the island’s domestic violence legislation and the safety of survivors who come forward. The accused,…
Two gleaming, nine-metre electric buses slid silently onto Republic Street this morning, their turquoise-and-yellow livery catching the early spring sun like a pair of oversized ħarīsa sweets. In a country where the morning commute is still soundtracked by the diesel growl of 30-year-old Bedfords, the unveiling felt less like a press event and more like…
Sliema cat-killer blames violent upbringing, court hears – but island’s feline faithful aren’t buying it A 34-year-old Sliema man who admitted to trapping and bludgeoning three cats told magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech yesterday that a childhood “filled with fists instead of affection” had taught him to treat animals as “moving targets”. The confession, delivered in…
**APS Bank’s €45 Million Rights Issue: A Quiet Revolution in Malta’s Financial Heart** Valletta’s Republic Street was still yawning itself awake on Tuesday when APS Bank dropped the kind of news that makes the city’s limestone walls hum: a €45 million rights issue, the largest in its 105-year history, aimed at reinforcing its capital buffers…
US TikTok Deal Edges Closer: What a Ban-or-Sale Could Mean for Malta’s 300,000-Strong User Base By Hot Malta Staff Valletta – When US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Sunday that Washington is “very close” to a final agreement forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance to sell or face a nationwide ban, the headline…
# Silk and Water: How Jiangnan’s Ancient Grace is Being Unpacked in Malta This Weekend Valletta’s Mediterranean Conference Centre will feel more like the banks of the Grand Canal of Suzhou this weekend when the China Cultural Centre hosts “Jiangnan Days”, a two-day deep-dive into the canal-threaded region that gave the world silk, ink-wash painting…
**Magnitude 5.2 tremor felt across Malta: ‘The ground moved like a boat deck’** Malta jolted awake at 06:04 this morning as a magnitude 5.2 earthquake centred 80 km south-west of Żurrieq sent chandeliers swinging, dogs barking and a wave of WhatsApp voice notes ricocheting across the islands. The quake, the strongest felt here since the…
**Three Irregular Migrants Deported from Malta, Ministry Says** In the early hours of Tuesday morning, three irregular migrants were escorted onto a military-chartered aircraft at Malta International Airport, marking the island’s first deportation of 2024. The Ministry for Home Affairs, Security, Reforms & Equality confirmed the removal in a two-line statement that gave no detail…
Valletta’s evening news bulletins will carry a Belfast dateline this week as the landmark trial of a former British paratrooper—accused over the 1972 “Bloody Sunday” killings—opens in Northern Ireland. For many Maltese who remember their own country’s brush with British military justice during the 1950s dockyard protests, the proceedings feel less like distant history and…
Watch: Heaviest piece of Msida flyover is installed By Hot Malta staff A hush fell over the Msida yacht marina at 05:47 this morning as the last slab of caramel-coloured concrete—78 metres long, 4.2 metres high and weighing more than a Boeing 747—inched into place like a giant Lego brick. By 06:12 the deed was…
**Ten ODZ Villas Proposed Opposite Planned Large Xemxija Project** Xemxija Bay, the sleepy inlet whose honey-coloured ramparts have sheltered Roman grain stores, 17th-century fish farms and Sunday-morning bathers in equal measure, is bracing for a second development wave. Barely six months after the government issued a call for proposals to turn the neighbouring Mistra Valley…
