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An eighteen-month sentence for the theft of four bread rolls, two years in jail for the theft of a stick of salami and cheap box wine, or two years for the theft of boxer shorts that cost less than 200 crowns. Those are some of the sentences being meted out by judges dealing with crimes committed during the state of emergency declared in connection with the coronavirus crisis. Are they absurd? Judges claim that the punishment for crimes committed at a time when the society is at its most vulnerable must reflect the gravity of the circumstances.

The 2020 Prague Pride festival of LGBT culture, which got underway on Monday, is somewhat different than previous editions, with no city centre parade and fewer foreign visitors. But the organisers have still put together a packed programme for this year’s event, which boasts a record number of venues. Just before it all began, I asked Prague Pride spokesman Filip Milde about the theme this year, Pride Live.

The zoo in Pilsen has recently launched a breeding programme of the critically endangered maneless zebra. There are currently only around 40 of these animals in zoos around the world, most in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The aim of the breeding programme is to secure the survival of the species by building a viable captive population.

Under the name Las Saboritas, Ana Hernandez Blackstad and Alison Maciejewski have done over 300 Twitter reviews of Prague restaurants in recent years. Earlier in 2020 the pair’s activities were temporarily curtailed by the closure of all eateries and cafés during the lockdown – and when I met Hernandez Blackstad much of the conversation focused on how the coronavirus situation is impacting the city’s dining scene.

Directly across from Charles Bridge in Prague’s Old Town stands the Clementinum. The sprawling complex of baroque buildings houses the National Library of the Czech Republic and the oldest functioning meteorological station in Czechia. It has been a centre of learning, science, and a rich spiritual life since the Middle Ages. The Clementinum stands out thanks to one of the most beautiful baroque libraries in the world, the former main Jesuit church in Czechia, the beautiful Mirror Chapel, and the Astronomical Tower, which offers a rare view of the centre of Prague.

The celebrated Czech-born author and essayist Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being and other acclaimed books, has decided to donate his private library and archive to the Moravian Library in his native Brno. The extensive collection will be moved to the Czech Republic from his Paris flat in the autumn and after being catalogued will be available to the public. I discussed the news with literary scientist and director of Moravian Library in Brno Tomáš Kubíček and I first asked him how Milan Kundera’s decision came about.

On average more than 1,300 Czechs take their own lives each year. While the suicide rate has been dropping steadily since the 1970s, there are signs that the coronavirus crisis has led to a spike. Against that backdrop, the Government Council for Mental Health has approved a comprehensive suicide prevention plan.

In the early summer of 1899, just as the infamous Dreyfus Affair was reaching its climax in France, another case now emblematic of anti-Semitism and injustice enveloped the Czech lands and wider Austrian Empire. Leopold Hilsner, a simple-minded Jewish peddler and vagrant in his early twenties, stood accused of killing a teenage seamstress in an implied act of “blood libel”, the ritual murder of a Christian. Now, more than 120 years later, a Czech lawyer specialising in defending and “rehabilitating” unjustly persecuted people is pushing to reopen the case.

The number of people tested for Covid-19 in the Czech Republic looks set to increase. The minister of health says that up to 25,000 tests could be carried out daily, adding that this will prove useful when the country is also hit by regular winter illnesses.

The UN has warned that bees, butterflies and various insects that act as pollinators are disappearing from the globe at an alarming speed. Experts say over 40 percent of insect species around the world are threatened with extinction and warn that this could have a devastating impact on humankind.