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Motorists insist that their candidate for environment minister, Filip Turek, is legally blameless and remains the party’s nominee for the government. Boris Šťastný, the head of the Motorists’ parliamentary group, said this today on the CNN Prima News programme Partie Terezie Tománkové. The party is not aware of any legal reasons for Turek not to be appointed.

Czech-born playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, renowned for blending brilliant language and theatrical inventiveness, has passed away at 88. Over his career, he earned three Olivier Awards, five Tony Awards, and an extraordinary ten Evening Standard Theatre Awards. These honors spanned works ranging from his 1966 breakout Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to The Real Thing in 1982 and the 1993 modern classic Arcadia. He also received special recognition in 2011 for his translations of Russian drama, especially Chekhov, and in 2014 was celebrated as Britain’s greatest living playwright.

Patients who stayed in acute-care hospital beds even though another type of care would have been more appropriate cost the healthcare system more than 1.29 billion crowns extra last year, according to estimates by the Institute of Health Information and Statistics (ÚZIS). There were more than 168,000 of them, with an average age of 71. However, cheaper follow-up and long-term care beds are lacking. Nearly 1,900 more would be needed. This follows from materials of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics (ÚZIS) presented at a conference of the Association of Czech and Moravian Hospitals (AČMN).

In the afternoon in Prague, thousands of people filled Old Town Square to see the first light animation of the Christmas tree. It started at 4:30 p.m. and lasted several minutes. It was accompanied by the song “Vánoce na míru” by Ewa Farna, performed on the square by a children’s choir.