News

A large number of runners in Saturday's Prague Half Marathon fainted, collapsed, or suffered other health problems due to the unusually hot April weather and the length of the race, the Czech News Agency reported. Temperatures in Prague had already exceeded 20 degrees Celsius by midday on Saturday. Paramedics treated dozens of people and some had to be taken to hospital. The emergency services were operating in crisis mode for about two hours, meaning rules around filling out documentation and other administrative tasks were relaxed to allow medical professionals to work faster and to make patient care more efficient.

Dangerous populist and extremist factions are gaining support and trying to get into power in Czechia, and it is the Mayors and Independents (STAN) party's job not to allow this to happen, Interior Minister and head of the party Vít Rakušan said in his opening speech at the STAN party assembly in Olomouc on Saturday. Mr. Rakušan emphasised the importance of showing the electorate the concrete results of what the government had achieved over the last two years, despite the crises of the war in Ukraine and the influx of refugees to Czechia, in order to show people that simple solutions don't work and that such promises by populists are empty. He added that the political situation in neighbouring countries serves as a warning for how quickly change can come.

Russia has made “thousands” of attempts to interfere with European rail networks aiming to destabilize the EU and sabotage critical infrastructure, Czech Transport Minister Martin Kupka told the Financial Times. He said Moscow was using various means to weaken European rail networks including attempts to hack signaling and ticket systems.

The EU Agency for Cybersecurity published a warning about Russian threats to transport in March of last year, reporting major cyber attacks by “pro-Russia hacker groups” on railway companies in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Estonia. The Czech cyber security agency, NUKIB, has also warned of rising cyber attacks in recent years, particularly in the areas of energy and transportation.

The number of children and adolescents overdosing on over-the-counter drugs and alcohol has increased in the last two years, according to information released by the General University Hospital in Prague. Aside from suicide attempts, the most frequent cause of drug or alcohol overdosing is peer pressure on social media. Girls are more likely to overdose than boys. The most frequently abused drugs in the under-15 age bracket are paracetamol, antidepressants and ibuprofen.