**Breaking Through Boundaries: The Art Detained by Customs** When local artist Sarah Mallia opened her package at MaltaPost’s Qormi sorting office last month, she expected to find the vibrant ceramic sculptures she’d commissioned from a Tunisian artisan. Instead, she was greeted by customs officials who confiscated the pieces, claiming they “didn’t align with import regulations”…
**What Your Neck Size Reveals About Your Health: A Maltese Wake-Up Call** As Maltese men proudly button up their Sunday shirts and women fasten delicate necklaces passed down through generations, few realize that a simple measurement could reveal crucial health insights. Your neck size, that seemingly innocuous number, has become Malta’s latest health conversation starter—and…
Six decades after his death on 18 May 1965, Mgr Mikiel Azzopardi’s name still rings out across Valletta’s tight-knit alleys and rural village squares alike. To many Maltese he is simply “il-Monk”, the priest who swapped liturgical vestments for workers’ overalls and convinced a sceptical colonial administration that charity alone would never lift Malta’s poor….
AI and Malta’s future – how the islands can surf the silicon wave without wiping out By [Hot Malta Staff] Smart traffic lights that speak Maltese, ferry timetables that rewrite themselves when the sirocco whips up the waves, a digital twin of Valletta that lets planners test pedestrian schemes before a single limestone block is…
**A Law Older Than the Republic: Malta’s 19th-Century Weapon Against the Homeless** Valletta’s sun-drenched bastions mask a quieter battle. At 5 a.m., while tourists queue for pastizzi and commuters elbow onto bendy-buses, a handful of rough-sleepers are woken by wardens and told to “move on”. If they refuse, they risk arrest—not under any modern social-policy…
‘I’m in nobody’s pocket’ – Alex Borg The maverick Maltese snooker ace who refuses to be a puppet in anyone’s theatre By Hot Malta Staff Valletta – Walk into the Qawra Snooker Club on any given Tuesday night and the first thing you’ll hear is the clack of resin balls. The second is Alex Borg’s…
Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross: How Malta’s Bells, Processions and Pastizzi-Scented Pews Marked September 14 By 6 a.m. on Sunday, the narrow streets of Żejtun were already humming. Elderly women in black lace veils balanced trays of ħobż biż-żejt and kinnie on doorsteps, while altar boys in crimson cassocks rehearsed their swing of…
Valletta’s Republic Street was already sticky with September heat when the first “beżżul” rang out. By 11:00 a.m. the traditional wooden bell—il-bieżel—hung from the Auberge de Castille balcony had been struck thirteen times, its dull thud echoing down the limestone canyon and officially opening Il-Beżżul Bieżel, the capital’s newest neighbourhood festival. Tourists fumbled for phones;…
Żepp’s Wake-Up Call: How One Man’s September 14 Pledge Rocked the Islands By Hot Malta Staff | September 15, 2025 Żepp’s name has always been shorthand for “everyman” in Malta—the guy who can fix your muffler, quote the Gospels, and whistle a ħanżira tune before you’ve finished your first espresso. But by sunset yesterday, September…
Letters to the editor – September 14, 2025 From the stone balconies of Valletta to the fishing nets of Marsaxlokk, Maltese ink still matters By 7 a.m. on the third Sunday of September, the Times of Malta kiosk on Republic Street is already a miniature parliament. Retired teachers in linen shirts, bakers still dusted with…
**Pharmacies open today – September 14, 2025: Your Sunday lifeline across Malta and Gozo** It’s a sleepy Sunday morning in September, the kind where the sun already feels like a warm shawl across the limestone balconies of Valletta. Church bells have just finished their 8 a.m. cascade and the scent of freshly-baked ftira is drifting…
Floriana’s Granaries shimmered under a honey-gold September dawn as cannon-fire from the Saluting Battery echoed across Valletta’s bastions. By 07:00 CEST on 14 September 2025, Malta had already digested the first wave of national announcements—some expected, others slipped in quietly while the country was still rubbing sleep from its eyes. From bus lanes to beatifications,…
