Czech news in brief for August 26: Wednesday's top morning headlines

The ruling coalition is moving to make deportation automatic for foreigners convicted of serious crimes, while Prague's decade-long hope for an Apple Store has quietly died. Add a stadium safety crackdown and a partial rescue of one of Zlín's fire-damaged Baťa buildings, and it's a busy Wednesday on the policy front. Good morning, here's your headline mix.

SPD leader and Chamber of Deputies Speaker Tomio Okamura says the coalition will submit a proposal requiring courts to expel foreign nationals convicted of crimes carrying at least a three-year sentence, removing the judicial discretion currently in place. Justice Minister Jeroným Tejc (ANO) reportedly already has a draft ready, and the coalition is separately pushing for stricter rape sentencing and prosecutorial guidance discouraging suspended sentences in those cases.

What to watch: The proposal hasn't been formally submitted yet and could shift before it reaches the floor.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš's years-old ambition to land Central and Eastern Europe's first Apple Store in Prague appears dead, with analysts saying the Czech market is too small and well-served by resellers to justify one, especially as Apple itself is currently laying off staff from its Siri and Vision Pro teams.

Reality check: No country in the region (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltics) has an Apple Store either.

Sport Minister Boris Šťastný says a proposal moving through a Chamber of Deputies working group would reclassify pyrotechnics use and face-covering at football matches from a misdemeanor to a criminal offense, alongside a facial-recognition-based registry of fans banned from stadiums. The measure could reach the legislative process in September.

Origin story: The push follows May's abandoned Slavia–Sparta derby, which ended in pitch invasions and a ten-million-crown fine for Slavia.

Cream, owner of the fire-gutted Building 34 on the former Baťa factory site, has paused demolition to explore preserving the structure's northeast corner, roughly 24 by 12 meters, 11 stories, as a physical reminder of the building's history. An expert panel is expected to rule within two weeks on whether the fragment is stable enough to save.

Deadline pressure: The full site, rubble included, still has to be cleared by Dec. 15, so the preservation window is narrow.

Reconstruction of the tram triangle between I. P. Pavlova and Vinohradská, including the Muzeum stop, is finishing months early, trams 11 and 13 are set to resume running between Tylovo náměstí and Vinohradská on Sept. 5, instead of the original March target.

Note it: The Muzeum stop keeps its name for now, but expect a rename once next summer's Wenceslas Square tram construction wraps.

Presidential premiere. President Pavel praised Czechoslovak WWII pilots at the Prague premiere of Lone Wolf, a film about RAF fighter ace Josef František. He called it remarkable how a small group of pilots achieved so much for both Britain and Czechoslovakia.

Rock on. Czech and German geologists have identified a brand-new mineral, kralikit, found on salt formations deep in the Ostrava-Karviná mine. It's so small it's invisible under a standard microscope; scientists needed a synchrotron to confirm it. It is named for geologist Jiří Králík.

Dumplings feel the squeeze. The Czech Trade Inspection Authority has opened an inspection into viral squishy "dumpling" toys after checks elsewhere in Europe found dangerous chemicals in some knockoff versions.