Czech news in brief for August 17: Monday's top morning headlines

October's municipal and Senate elections are shaping up as the first real test for three opposition party chairmen, while a new tunnel bus route promises to cut a slow cross-city commute down to 15 minutes. Storms are moving back into the forecast after last week's heat, and Brno spent the weekend in folk costume for the first time in generations. Good morning, here's your headline mix.

The Babiš government meets Monday for the first time since its summer break, with drought and water retention topping the agenda. The National Coalition Against Drought is pushing measures including new interception ditches, subsidies for landowners who build them, and a fall law specifying twenty planned reservoirs, backed by CZK 4 billion for water networks, ponds and irrigation projects.

Also on the table: Ministers will discuss shifting public guardianship duties away from small municipalities that host institutions for the disabled, and health minister Adam Vojtěch will update on digitizing medical request forms, with mandatory electronic records planned from 2029.

A tram and a garbage truck collided early Monday morning on Prague's Moskevská Street, closing traffic in both directions with no timeline yet for reopening. No one was injured, but police estimate damage at several hundred thousand crowns and say alcohol was not a factor.

Getting around it: Passengers on the affected tram line need to switch to alternative bus service until the street reopens; police are still investigating fault.

Showers and thunderstorms are forecast across most of Czechia this week, with possible hail and torrential rain, though temperatures won't push past 30 degrees the way they did last week. Tuesday will be the coolest day, with highs below 20 in parts of Bohemia, before temperatures climb back toward the high 20s from Wednesday on.

Plan ahead: The weekend turns cloudy to partly cloudy with only scattered showers, but rain picks up again toward Sunday and into next week.

Sweden topped the European Commission's annual innovation ranking, followed by Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland; the Czech Republic held at 19th of 27, one of several Eastern European countries now performing below 2019 levels. Analysts point to low labor productivity, scarce venture capital and thin state support, though the country scored well on manufacturing tech and business digitalization.

The bright spot: Cloud adoption among Czech businesses is up almost 120 percent since 2019, largely thanks to National Recovery Plan funding earmarked for digital transformation.

Bus line 145 starts running through the Blanka tunnel complex Saturday, connecting Sídliště Čimice and Kobylisy directly to Dejvická without the usual transfer between metro lines C and A. The Kobylisy-to-Hradčanská leg should take 13 to 15 minutes, versus roughly 30 minutes today.

Getting there: Buses run every six minutes at morning peak, stretching to 20 minutes overnight; line 152 picks up the old 145 route to Čimice, and line 218 now runs all day, every day, out to Na Pískách.

Trash talk. Prague's Wenceslas Square generates about a ton of trash a day, and a third of it is beverage cups and bottles. City Hall blames a mix of tourists, restaurants and short-term rental guests, with trdelníky remnants a surprisingly common offender.

Coldplay's Czech connection. Coldplay collaborator Míla Fürstová is bringing her biggest Czech exhibition yet to the Municipal House next October, including never-before-seen sketches from her Abbey Road sessions. The show, titled Wings of Whisper, will span nearly thirty years of work, and some pieces will be for sale.

Folk revival. Brno's 23 city districts marched their newly restored folk costumes through the city center this weekend for the first-ever citywide feast. A participatory-budget project funded the revival with over ten million crowns, and the tradition wraps Sunday with a mass at the Basilica of the Assumption.