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The legendary Czech singer and pop icon Karel Gott passed away on Monday at his home in Prague surrounded by his family. As tributes to the singer pour in from at home and abroad, Czech leaders are planning a funeral with state honours and a national day of mourning.

An exhibition now running in Prague puts the spotlight on translated works by the Brno-born writer Milan Kundera. The French citizen, who turned 90 this year, was personally involved in the preparation of the show Milan Kundera (Not Lost) in Translations.

Czech Radio has received a unique sound recording of events surrounding the mysterious death of Jan Masaryk, the son of Czechoslovakia’s first president. The beloved foreign minister was found dead in the courtyard beneath his apartment window two weeks after the Communist coup of February 1948.

Cardinal Dominik Duka is facing a criminal investigation, after being accused of covering up a case of sexual abuse in the Dominican Order. The victim, who remains anonymous, told the news site seznam.cz earlier this week that he reported the abuse to Mr.Duka but the cardinal had failed to take action against it.

Karel Gott, the undisputed king of Czech pop music, has died at the age of 80. The singer succumbed to acute leukaemia with which he was diagnosed earlier this year. The singer, who turned 80 in July of this year, has had health problems in the past. In 2016 he successfully underwent chemotherapy due to an outbreak of cancer. In July, he had to cancel his performance at the Benátská Festival in Liberec, where he was planning to celebrate his birthday.

Czechs are living longer, but many do not live well in retirement – in terms of both their physical and financial well-being. With the population rapidly aging, the nation’s already low level of “life expectancy in health” is set to further decline. The Czech government has asked the OECD to help determine how best to make the pension system sustainable. Experts say changing seniors’ dietary and lifestyle habits is a key part of the solution.

Public service media in Central Europe reflect growing populism in the region but are not the cause of it. That’s the view of New York Times CEO Mark Thompson, who was recently in Prague. Thompson shared his views on the media landscape in this region with Czech Radio’s Lenka Kabrhelová – and also explained a move to end Czech language broadcasting while he was director-general of the BBC.

Chicago has been a major centre of Czech immigration to the United States since the 1850s. Today, the district of Pilsen which those settlers founded in the 19th century is decidedly Bohemian – in the sense of being offbeat and arty – but predominately Mexican. In celebration of the two cultures, students from the original Plzeň have installed street murals in its namesake sister city, depicting Czech history and culture – with a Latino flair.

The Regional Council of Central Bohemia has halted an infringement procedure against Prime Minister Andrej Babiš on the grounds of a complaint regarding a possible conflict of interest. The regional council has thus invalidated a decision by the Černošice Council, the municipality where the prime minister lives, which arrived at the opposite conclusion and fined the prime minister for the offense.

An in-depth survey commissioned by Czech Radio suggests that Czech society is divided into six social classes that differ in terms of resources and status. The study defines two types of upper middle class, the wealthy and emerging cosmopolitan, three types of lower middle class and an impoverished class. Czech Radio found a typical representative of each social class. Jaroslava Dušková, a cleaner on a disability pension, is a representative of the impoverished class.