Malta Hotel

Fears that Malta’s hospitals could be hit by a double surge of both COVID-19 and influenza cases this winter have receded, with Charmaine Gauci confirming the number of flu cases has been very low this year. Interviewed on L-Erbgħa Fost il-Ġimgħa last night, the Superintendent of Public Health said measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have also worked to prevent the spread of the flu.

Labour and Nationalist politicians have defended their party’s TV stations in the wake of Lovin Malta’s impending, crowdfunded court case. ONE Television’s Executive Chairman Jason Micallef criticised the case, saying he’s ready to fight for his station’s “fundamental right” to continue broadcasting. “One was born to remain, and no Lovin Malta and their fellow puppets who call themselves paladins of freedom of expression will stop us,” he wrote on Facebook.

Pope Francis has accepted the Conventual Franciscans Order’s request to dismiss Donald Bellizzi, the Maltese priest convicted of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy, iNews Malta reported. Last November, Bellizzi, a former Burmarrad Franciscan, was sentenced to three years in prison after forcing a minor to masturbate him. Bellizzi’s offences first began in 2010, when he would invite youths interested in becoming priests on retreats to the Franciscan convent in Burmarrad.