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Czech tennis player Barbora Strýcová has failed to reach the final of the Wimbledon tournament. The 33-year-old Czech was defeated by the seven-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams 6-1 6-2 in less than an hour.

Strýcová is still playing in the doubles alongside Hsieh Su-Wei. The Chinese Taipei-Czech pair is set to face No.1 seeds Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic for a spot in the finals.

Three Czech MEPs are among the newly elected chairs and vice-chairs of the European Parliament’s 22 committees and subcommittees for the next two and a half years. Luděk Niedermayer of the conservative TOP 09 party has been elected first vice-chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. His colleague from the Civic Democratic Party Jan Zahradil has become first vice-chair of the Committee on International Trade, and Martina Dlabajová of the ANO party will take the post of vice-chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control.

Last week, two Czech MEPs, Dita Charanzová of the ANO party and Marcel Kolaja of the Pirate Party, were elected vice-presidents of the European Parliament.

The digitally restored version of Ecstasy, a 1933 film by Czechoslovak director Gustav Machatý, is due to be screened at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The film, featuring Hedy Lamarr in her first major role, was first screened at the festival in 1934.

The world premiere of the film’s digitally restored version will take place on August 27, on the eve of the festival’s opening. Ecstasy was highly controversial in its time because of nude scenes with the Austrian-born star and its portrayal of sexual intercourse and the female orgasm.

Six people, including two Czechs, have been killed and dozens of others injured in a fierce storm that swept across northern Greece late on Wednesday. Gale-force winds and hailstorm hit the Halkidiki region near the city of Thessaloniki, snapping trees and tearing off roofs.

The elderly Czech couple died when their caravan overturned and ripped open. Their son and grandson were taken to the hospital with injuries. A state of emergency was declared in the region with more than 100 rescue workers deployed.

Friday is expected to be overcast with occasional rain and daytime highs ranging between 19 and 23 degrees Celsius.

The 17th annual Masters of Rock festival, the biggest rock and metal event in the Czech Republic, gets underway in Vizovice in south Moravia on Thursday evening. Among the headliners of this year’s edition will be the British heavy rock band Uriah Heep, which returns to the festival after 12 years. The organizers expect over 20,000 visitors from all over the world.

A passenger airplane operated by Czech budget airline Smartwings was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after take-off at Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt Airport on Thursday when its landing gear was damaged, a company spokesperson told the Czech News Agency.

The Boeing 737-400 plane, which was heading to Hurghada in Egypt with 151 passengers and nine crew members on board, returned to Budapest and landed safely.

The Czech Foreign Ministry has received a diplomatic note from Afghanistan concerning the death of three Czech soldiers in the country a year ago, the news site iRozhlas reported on Thursday. The three Czech service members were killed by a suicide bomber while conducting a joint foot patrol with U.S. and local soldiers in eastern Afghanistan in August.

The foreign ministry’s spokeswoman Zuzana Štíchová says the details of the note cannot be unveiled for reasons of confidentiality. According to iRozhlas, it is related to a retaliation attack by Czech and US soldiers on accomplices of the suicide bomber.

The Supreme Court will consider an appeal over the licensing rights to the famous cartoon character Krteček, or the Little Mole, Czech Television reports.

The High Court in Prague had ruled in March that the granddaughter of Krteček’s creator, the late Zdeněk Miler, can no longer grant licenses to produce Little Mole collectibles.

Judges said that a contract Miler signed with her shortly before his death in 2011 was invalid and upheld an appeal by Milena Fischerová, who five years earlier had been authorised to administer Miler’s work.

Following her grandfather’s death, Karolína Milerová established the Little Mole Company, which competes against Fischerová. Meanwhile, other descendants of Miler’s are taking legal action to secure a share from the profits.

The semiannual Best Film Fest gets underway at Prague arthouse cinemas Atlas, Lucerna, Evald and MAT on Thursday.

The eclectic program, now in its 16th year, features the top international and Czech films of the past year from a wide range of genres. The festival runs until 17 July.

Screening will be Oscar-winners such as Bohemian Rhapsody, the road movie Green Book, and the documentary Free Solo about a rock climber who attempts to conquer the famed El Capitan's 900-metre vertical rock face at Yosemite National Park.

The biopic drama genre will feature Pain and Fame about Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, played by Antonio Banderas, who won Best Actor at Cannes.

Among the Czech movies in the Best Film Fest are the tragicomedy On the Roof with Alois Švehlík and Terrorist with Iva Janžurová.