Weekend headlines: Czech Minister of Education resigns in wake of corruption scandal

Czech Minister of Education Petr Gazdík has announced that he will resign in the wake of a corruption scandal that has rocked political party STAN and landed former Prague Deputy Mayor Petr Hlubuček in police custody. Gazdík said on Twitter that while he has not done anything wrong, he does not want to disrupt the Czech government amid its incoming EU presidency.

Gazdík has had contact with businessman Michal Redl, one of the men accused in the scandal who has reportedly been taken into custody alongside Hlubuček, though he has said his relationship with Redl had no impact on his decision-making. "However, my contacts with some people cast a shadow on STAN, too. I do not want to rock the government or coalition at the threshold of the EU presidency," he wrote on Twitter.

The Czech Republic reported its first "supertropical" day of 2022 as temperatures soared to over 35 degrees at five measuring stations across the country, according to the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute. A high of 35.7 degrees Celsius was meaured in Vanov, north Bohemia.

High temperatures will continue through Sunday, with an extreme risk of hot weather issued for Prague and surrounding areas from noon through 10:00 p.m. On Saturday, temperature records were set at 13 of the 160 measuring stations throughout the Czech Republic.

This year's Rock for People, one of the Czech Republic's largest music festivals, came to a close yesterday with a performance by American rockers Green Day. The band, led by frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, opened with their classic American Idiot and continued with hits like Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Basket Case, and Wake Me Up When September Ends before an estimated crowd of 35,000 people.

The Rock for People festival is now in its 26th year, with this year's festival being the first to be produced with a budget exceeding 100 million crowns. It has been held at a former military airport in Hradec Králové since 2007, with estimated crowds of around 20,000 people in past years.

Slovak Defence Minister Jaroslav Naď asked his Czech counterpart Jana Černochová for help in the temporary protection of the Slovak airspace during his visit to Prague to attend an Operation Anthropoid ceremony, Černochová stated in a press release. Naď said after meeting Cernochova this was an international defense project that would be also joined by Poland.

"I am very grateful that the Czech Republic and Poland has decided to assume responsibility for our airspace," Naď told journalists. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Bratislava started preparing to decommission its Russian-made MiG-29 combat aircrafts. Their replacements from the U.S., however, will take two years to arrive.

Czech kayakers dominated the K1 slalom race at the ICF Canoe-Kayak World Championships on Saturday, earning a total of four medals. Vít Přindiš won the men's race, while Olympic champion Jiří Prskavec finished third for a bronze. In the women's race, Tereza Fišerová and Amálie Hilgertová finished second and third for a silver and bronze, respectively.

"I am satisfied that I managed to reduce my time. I did not believe that I would win, because the competition was faster in the semifinals, but it worked out," said Přindiš, who finished ninth in the semifinals before taking home the gold. "I probably had a worse start than in the semifinals, but ultimately, in the end it was better. So I feel good about it."