Despite reporting more teetotalers Czechs still among EU's heaviest drinkers

Czechia saw fewer people who drink alcohol daily between 2020 and 2021 and the average amount of consumed alcohol per capita dropped as well, a report on tobacco and alcohol consumption in Czechia in 2021 released by the National Institute of Public Health (SZU) today found. One in six Czechs over 15 reportedly drink every other day or more frequently, the report says, adding there has been an increasing number of teetotallers.

The report found that 15.4 percent of the people approached by the study say they drink daily or every other day, 4.4 percentage points fewer than in 2020, while 17.7 percent said they do not drink at all. In 2020, 16 percent of the interviewed gave the same answer. The average yearly consumption of pure alcohol dropped, probably due to the anti-epidemic closures. Leaving out teetotallers, Czechs consumed eight liters of pure alcohol per capita in 2020 and 6.9 liters in 2021.

The harmful level of 60 grams of ethanol for men and 40 grams for women a day was exceeded by 10.6 percent of male and 4.1 percent of female respondents. One in four Czechs smoke, and more people use e-cigarettes and other alternatives. The report is based on the data collected from 1,788 people.

To send money to a foreign account, it will not be necessary to know the recipient's account number from next year, their phone number will suffice. The Czech Banking Association (CBA), which is cooperating with the Czech National Bank (CNB) on a project of a new so-called contact payment service, which will simplify the sending of money between people, informed ČTK about this today. 

The government will reduce the excise tax on fuel by CZK 50 from Wednesday. Because of the continuing price hikes, people could fill up their tanks for about the same money as two weeks ago, reports ČT24. However, other factors will influence whether petrol and diesel prices will actually fall and how this will be reflected in transport prices. It is not certain yet whether the price tags will change on June 1 since gas stations have purchased stocks with an unreduced excise tax and are likely to sell them.

The Pirates party, a member of the Czech coalition government, introduced 14 candidates for the local election and seven for the Senate election set for autumn today. Mayor Zdeněk Hřib will defend his post in Prague. The main priorities of the announced candidates are, for example, the protection of the rule of law, the promotion of smart economic trends, independent and cheap energy, the control of policies and fair management, pension reform, and the protection of the environment and the health of citizens. 

Pirates also launched their campaign for the autumn Senate election today. They will enter the local election with the slogan "Courage Means Doing What Is Correct." More details about the program can be found here.

On Saturday evening, the Prague police began to search for 12-year-old Julia Blaživská. The girl, who has Ukrainian nationality and residence reported in Dejvice, Prague, stopped communicating with her mother and classmates via social networks.

According to the police, she's with friends and her life is not in danger. The girl is about 180 centimeters tall with straight brown hair. Anyone with information leading to her whereabouts should call 158. 

A Cubist portrait of former president Václav Havel was installed on the wall of a house in Brno on Saturday as part of the City Gallery within a project to enliven the "Brno Bronx" neighborhood through murals. The design was made by Adam Stech. It depicts Havel, a well-known playwright, dissident, and Czechoslovak and Czech president, as a young man with a cigarette in his mouth and informal clothes. With the Špilberk castle in the background, the portrait has created one of the dominant views of Brno.

The beginning of June will bring tropical temperatures and storms. On Monday, temperatures will be between 15 and 19 degrees. The forecast promises warming from Tuesday, with temperatures above 20 degrees climbing in the afternoon throughout the Czech Republic. In the second half of the week, summer weather will prevail with occasional thunderstorms and showers, with up to 30 degrees expected on Friday.

Meanwhile, an extremely hot and dry summer awaits Europe, announced WHO. The cause is climate change. Although the weather over Europe is rather cold now, meteorologists from the WHO have already issued recommendations on how to prevent health problems in hot weather.

For the first time in ten years, the Czech Republic's national hockey team leaves the annual IIHF World Championships with a medal. Despite trailing after two periods, the Czech team decisively defeated the United States 8-4 this afternoon in the bronze medal game at Tampere's Nokia Arena.

David Pastrňák scored a hat trick in the third period, leading the Czech team to an incredible six goals in the final twenty minutes to ensure victory. Later tonight, Canada and Finland will play in the IIHF gold medal game, which the Czech Republic hasn't appeared in since winning the annual tournament in 2010.

Bohumil Kubišta's 1911 painting Old Prague Motif sold for 123.6 million crowns, including a 20 percent auction surcharge, during an auction at Prague's Galerie Kodl today. The reserve price for the painting, or the minimum bid the seller would have accepted, was 25 million crowns.

The sale set a new record for a Czech auction. The previous high was set in 2020, when František Kupka's Divertimento II sold for 90.24 million crowns. The previous high sum paid for a Kubišta painting was in 2013, when the artist's Still-Life was sold for 18.49 million crowns. Only 14 Kubišta paintings have been auctioned over the past 20 years.

The Constitutional Court in Bratislava will once again hear a dispute between former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and Slovakia's Memory Institute over whether Babiš was a communist secret police (StB) collaborator codenamed Bureš. Babiš was cleared of StB collaboration by a regional court in 2015 before the Constitutional Court overruled that decision in 2018.

From June 14, the case will return to the courts as the Constitutional Court has decided that previous decisions violated Babiš's right to judicial protection and the right to a fair trial. Slovakia's Memory Institute is a state agency that oversees former StB files, and has long listed Babiš as an StB collaborator. The ongoing dispute has now gone on for 10 years.

The Czech Republic's national hockey team will face off against the United States at 2:20 this afternoon in the bronze medal game of this year's IIHF World Championships. The Czech team took a rough 6-1 defeat at the hands of Canada in yesterday's semifinal game, while Finland topped the US 4-3. Canada and Finland will face off at 7:20 this evening in the gold medal game.

This will be the sixth bronze medal game for the Czech team in the past 12 years, a span in which they haven't won a semifinal game to advance to the final. The Czech team won bronze in 2011 and 2012 before losing the bronze medal game in 2014, 2015, and 2019. The United States has won four bronze medals in that span.

Prague's City Health Station has traced two cases of monkeypox to returning travelers coming back from the Canary Islands, the station announced this weekend. Of the five confirmed monkeypox cases in the Czech Republic, all are located in Prague and all have recently returned from abroad. Among the other cases, two came from Belgium and the third from Portugal.

All Prague cases are considered mild. "Regarding the symptoms, there was a high temperature in all positive cases, sometimes associated with chills and fatigue," a spokesperson for the City Health Station stated. Other symptoms reported include headaches, muscle aches, and gastrointestinal issues.

The Run for Memory of Nations, an annual long-distance run organized by non-profit organization Post Bellum intended to honor victims of 20th century events in the Czech lands, took place yesterday across areas in South Bohemia. The route runners took this followed locations people traveled in efforts to escape the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, organizer Tomáš Trantina told journalists.

"Neither the times nor the results matter," Trantina said of the run. "The event serves as a reminder of what was going on in communist Czechoslovakia, and to be happy that we are able to live in freedom. Runners set off on either five-kilometer or ten-kilometer routes near Nové Hrady, South Bohemia, following areas where there was an inaccessible border zone in the past.

Prague's Jewish Museum has returned two portraits depicting Jan Rudolf Osers and Ewald Osers painted by Max Soldinger to Lenka Warner, a descendant of the Osers family. The paintings were stolen by Nazi officers from their home during WWII before later making their way to the Jewish Museum.

Eswad Osers, who passed away in 2011, emigrated to Britain at the age of 21 in 1938 and became a noted poet and translator of Czech works into English. In 1997, he was given a Medal of Merit by Czech President Václav Havel. His younger brother Jan Rudolf, Lenka Warner's father, remained in Czechoslovakia and was deported to the Mizoch Ghetto in 1942. He managed to escape, however, and survived the war. Their mother was also deported from Prague in 1942, and was most likely killed at the Sobibor extermination camp.

The Czech Republic's national hockey team faces off against Canada at 5:20 p.m. tonight in Tampere, Finland in semifinal action at this year's IIHF World Championships. The winner of this game will advance to the gold medal game tomorrow night, challenging the winner of a game between the United States and Finland. The two losers of tonight's games will play for a bronze medal tomorrow.

The top two teams in this year's tournament made an early exit, with Canada topping second-seeded Sweden and top-seeded Switzerland losing to the United States. The Czech team has not scored a medal in the IIHF World Championships since 2012, though they played in the bronze medal game in 2014, 2015, and 2019. The Czech team last won the IIHF World Championships in 2010.

The Czech Republic is preparing to introduce a contribution to energy prices that should help mitigate soaring costs this autumn, according to an interview with Minister of Industry and Trade Jozef Síkela in Právo. The conditions have yet to be finalized, but the contribution could result in a discount on energy prices of up to 20 percent for the end consumer.

"This measure should, on the one hand, enable a large number of households and people in the middle class to save in times of rising energy prices," Síkela told Právo. "At the same time, we want this tariff to motivate households to save energy. We see this as very important for the future in terms reducing dependence on energy from Russia.

A new political party seeking to run in Prague elections this autumn aims to defend the rights of automobile drivers in the Czech capital. Called Motorists (Motoristé), the new party is a project from Petr Macinka of the Václav Klaus Institute along with representatives from local automotive associations.

Macinka identified the "long-term hostile attitude of Prague leadership towards drivers and motorists" as the reason for creating the new party, adding that motorists must be given the right over pedestrians and cyclists in the Czech capital. "We do not have the ambition to create solutions for solving education or health care problems that other politicians are arguing about. We are exclusively interested in the interests of motorists who have been bullied by the Prague leadership for a long time."

An Indian man accused of murdering a US model in 2003 has been extradited from the Czech Republic to India, reports the Hindustan Times. American Leona Swiderski was reportedly brought to India by her fiancé Pragnesh Desai, who then allegedly hired Vipul Patel to murder her to collect on an insurance plan.

Patel was detained in Prague last November based on an arrest warrant issued by Interpol. This week, an Indian police team traveled to the Czech capital to bring him back to India to face charges. He will go to court alongside Desai on Tuesday, according to a member of the police team who collected him in Prague.

The attack on Nazi Deputy Reichsprotector Reinhard Heydrich was not only an important event in Czech history but also a key event in the history of Europe and the world, President Miloš Zeman said during a ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the event at Prague's National Museum on Friday.

Heydrich, one of the highest-ranking Nazi officials at the time, was fatally wounded by Czech paratroopers trained in Britain. Zeman said the assassination was worth the victims that resulted from immediate Nazi reprisals in Czechoslovakia, because it prevented led to fewer victims in the long-term. Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová, who also attended the ceremony, said the attack on Heydrich was one of the most significant sabotage operations during WWII.

Strong winds have halted the operation of the cable car to the top of Sněžka mountain, the Czech Republic's highest peak, this morning. The lower portion of the cable car was still in operation; passengers could ride from Pec pod Sněžkou to Růžová hora before disembarking and walking the remaining 2.5 kilometers to the top of the mountain.

According to the official website, the cable car at Sněžka is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. depending on weather conditions, and is only operated within wind speeds under 60 kilometers per hour. This morning atop Sněžka, winds measured 80 kilometers per hour after overnight highs of up to 100 kilometers per hour.