Czech news in brief for May 26: Tuesday's top afternoon headlines

Good afternoon/evening. High temperatures and sunny weather persist as the city's parks, gardens and terraces fill up again. For the Expats.cz team, that also means post-work volleyball training for a friendly tournament in Prague next month. Stay tuned, but above all, stay cool and hydrated.

A district court in Teplice granted Dominik Feri's second appeal for conditional release from prison, setting a three-year probationary period for the former lawmaker who was serving a three-year sentence for rape and sexual assault. The judge ruled that Feri "has shown signs of improvement" and vowed to make amends, but his victims' attorney disagreed with his release, noting that past "victims are still worried and scared."

The wider context. Previously seen as a rising star in Czech politics and a vocal supporter of the #MeToo movement, 29-year-old Feri (well known by his Instagram handle choco_afro) saw his political career come to an abrupt end in 2021 when over a dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct, assault or rape. He was formally sentenced two years later.

Driving from Czechia to Croatia this year will bring an added cost in fuel of CZK 900-1,200, according to an analysis by XTB aiming to put an updated price tag on Czechs' holiday plans. Meanwhile, a family of four flying to Greece, Egypt or Turkey could pay an additional CZK 3,000-5,000 in plane tickets alone. The report also warns of slightly higher toll fees in other popular destinations like Austria, Croatia or Slovenia.

Changed holiday plans. Czech-based travel agencies were already highlighting weeks ago that many Czechs had started to change their holiday plans because of the war in the Middle East, abandoning far-away and exotic destinations in favor of more familiar Mediterranean hot spots or domestic tourism.

US fast-food giant KFC closed all of its 140 restaurants in Czechia for two hours this morning as the business continues to suffer the consequences from a hygiene scandal and communications blunders. KFC owner AmRest (which also owns Starbucks and Burger King) said they were restarting operations and introducing new internal digital systems to improve food safety procedures across Czech branches.

Spoiled meat. The reboot follows months of pressure on the Czech branch of the US fast-food chain, which has been facing a huge drop in sales after multiple reports and official inspections highlighted important deficiencies in food safety and basic hygiene rules.

Prague City Tourism (PCT) is launching a CZK 22 million-advertising campaign to promote the capital as "a city of literary stories" and as part of wider efforts to attract more culturally-oriented tourists. "There is great interest among travelers in literary tourism," said PCT vice-chairwoman Jana Adamcová, pointing to the recent success of Dan Brown's Prague-based novel, The Secret of All Secrets.

Bookish Prague. From Kafka and Kundera to Eco, Meyrink, le Carré, Roth or Nabokov, countless authors have used Prague as the backdrop for their stories. The city now wants to keep this literary legacy alive, and a special new website has already been launched as part of the campaign.