New children's ward, a death on the E-70, and two openings on the 17th

The renovated children's ward at MBAL Shumen will be opened with a consecration service at 13:00 on 17 August, on the fourth floor of the surgical block. More than 65 rooms have been rebuilt, among them 24 single rooms with 42 beds, each en suite, alongside consulting rooms, milk kitchens and a treatment room in each wing.

The work cost about €386,600, met by the municipalities that hold shares in the hospital and by donors, among them the aluminium producer Alkomet at roughly €81,800, with about €61,400 from the hospital's own funds. Every shareholding municipality contributed except Varbitsa.

Five paediatricians, four trainees, ten nurses and a carer will staff it. The ward currently holds 24 children from the Shumen, Targovishte, Razgrad and Silistra regions, among them young patients from the United States, Turkey and the Netherlands who are visiting relatives or on holiday. The health guide covers how Bulgarian hospital care works.

A 67-year-old man from Shumen died in a head-on collision that closed the E-70 between Razgrad and the village of Ushintsi at about 15:20 on 12 August. His Jeep Grand Cherokee, travelling towards Razgrad, crossed into the oncoming lane and struck a Mercedes Actros articulated lorry registered in Stara Zagora.

The lorry caught fire and the driver of the jeep died at the scene. The lorry driver, a 62-year-old man from the village of Enina in Stara Zagora region, was admitted to the surgical ward at Razgrad hospital with concussion, and his alcohol and drug tests came back negative. Pre-trial proceedings have been opened.

Anton Stankov, who served as Minister of Justice, Keeper of the State Seal and chair of the Supreme Judicial Council from 24 July 2001 to 16 August 2005, has died. Born in 1966, he began his judicial career at the Shumen District Court, sitting as a district judge from 1991 to 1994, before moving to the Sofia District Court and then the Sofia City Court, where he was a judge, deputy chair and head of the criminal division.

He taught criminal procedure at Sofia University, chaired the commission coordinating anti-corruption work from 2002 to 2005, returned to the Sofia City Court as a judge from 2005 to 2007, arbitrated at the Bulgarian Industrial Association from 2008 and was managing partner of a Sofia law firm until 2022.

President Iliana Iotova said he 'will forever be remembered as one of the most prominent advocates of the rule of law'. Justice Minister Nikolay Naydenov offered his condolences to Stankov's family, relatives, friends and colleagues.

The Shumen painter Tony Raychev opens his second solo exhibition in the gallery space of the Stiliyan Chilingirov Regional Library at 17:30 on Monday 17 August. It is titled 'My World' and runs until 29 August.

Raychev was born in 1943 in the village of Kyulevcha, studied at the School of Artistic Crafts and the National School of Fine Arts in Sofia, took further courses in Veliko Tarnovo and Plovdiv, and has belonged to the Society of Shumen Artists since 1968. He is recognised as a master of landscape. His previous show at the same library, at the end of 2025, left 28 mixed-technique panels behind, now part of its collection of donated art.

An 83-year-old man was detained in the village of Venets after making threats against a 51-year-old woman at a private house. The incident was recorded at about 21:30 on 12 August. He was held for up to 24 hours, and pre-trial proceedings have been opened under the Criminal Code.

Officers from the Shumen district police station and an emergency medical team assisted a woman who collapsed outside a pharmacy on bul. 'Slavyanski' in Shumen, doing what was needed until the ambulance crew arrived. The regional police directorate used the case to ask people not to walk past someone in difficulty.