# Watch: Blame game erupts after fireworks set buses ablaze in Naxxar **Naxxar residents awoke to scenes of charred metal and acrid smoke on Sunday morning after two Arriva buses caught fire during the village feast celebrations, igniting a furious debate over Malta’s fireworks culture and public safety protocols.** The incident, captured in dramatic mobile…
**Screwdriver Threat Shines Harsh Light on Malta’s Hidden Domestic Violence Crisis** A 42-year-old man has been charged with holding a screwdriver to his partner’s neck and threatening to kill her after she refused to have sex with him, a Valletta court heard on Tuesday. The accused, whose name cannot be published by order of the…
German Maestro Christoph von Dohnányi Dies at 95: The Conductor Who Once Whispered to Malta’s Waves By [Author Name], Hot Malta Culture Desk Valletta’s limestone balconies stood a shade quieter on Wednesday as news reached the island that Christoph von Dohnányi—the German conductor whose baton once teased a Mediterranean breeze during Malta’s 2005 Valletta International…
Valletta wakes up to shockwaves from the Gulf: Israeli airstrikes on Doha that reportedly eliminated Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh have rattled Malta’s tight-knit Arab diaspora, triggered emergency consular checks and reignited debate on the island’s role as a neutral bridge between Europe and the Middle East. The pre-dawn explosions, which Qatari authorities blame on…
**Cacopardo’s Electoral Surprise: A Tale of Two Parties and One Very Confused Database** Arnold Cacopardo couldn’t believe his eyes when the envelope arrived. Seventeen years after publicly burning his Nationalist Party membership card in protest, the former PN executive committee member had been invited to vote in the party’s upcoming leadership election. “I thought it…
Cacopardo ‘not surprised’ by PN voters dispute, says he was told he could vote By Hot Malta Staff Sliema’s coffee shops were still humming with post-election cappuccino post-mortems when Arnold Cassola dropped the bombshell: “Hundreds of non-members appear on the PN electoral list.” Within minutes, the phone rang in Carmel Cacopardo’s Valletta apartment. “Did you…
**Italian Students Investigated Over Alleged Gang Rape in Malta: A Dark Cloud Over the Summer Island** Valletta – A picturesque summer in Malta has taken a grim turn as police investigate two Italian university students over the alleged gang rape of a British tourist in Paceville, Malta’s neon-soaked nightlife capital. The incident, which occurred in…
Valletta’s Republic Street was briefly louder than the usual midday café chatter on Thursday, as a dozen young architects and activists unfurled a hand-painted banner that read “Homes Not Holding Companies” and chanted “MDA, let us build!” Passers-by stopped sipping their kinnie, tourists lowered their cameras, and pensioners on the City Gate benches leaned forward…
Valletta – A 34-year-old Maltese national has been handed a six-month effective jail term after admitting he used a forged French passport to try to slip out of Malta undetected, reigniting debate on how far islanders will go to sidestep Schengen visa rules and reach the continent. Magistrate Natasha Sciberras heard how Kurt Micallef, unemployed…
George Degiorgio, the self-styled “kingfish” of Malta’s 2017 car-bomb underworld, has slipped back into the national conversation from behind the grey walls of Corradino Correctional Facility. In a handwritten plea sent to President Myriam Spiteri Debono last week, the convicted killer of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is offering to trade names—”prominent people” he claims are…
**Watch: Fireworks linked to blaze that destroys buses but enthusiasts blame owner** A dawn inferno that gutted three tourist coaches in Qormi on Sunday has reignited Malta’s perennial fireworks debate, after amateur video showed a rocket streaking into the depot seconds before flames erupted. While investigators remain cautious, the footage—shared thousands of times by Monday…
Valletta’s cafés were buzzing this morning with talk of a scandal that feels oceans away yet curiously close to home: the U.S. House Oversight Committee’s late-night release of a 1993 birthday note that Donald Trump allegedly scribbled to financier-turned-convicted-sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein. “Happy birthday, Jeff,” the single sentence reads, scrawled across Trump Tower letterhead and accompanied…
