Appliances crackled back to life and light bulbs again blazed across most of the Northeast following the worst blackout in US history.
The lingering effects of Thursday's dramatic power outage stretched into yesterday as millions struggled with both the mundane -- resetting VCR clocks -- to the life-threatening -- boiling tap water to ensure potability.
Some customers in the Cleveland area, upstate New York and New York City received the unkindest cut of all: Their power was restored and then promptly turned off due to rolling blackouts needed to conserve electricity.
Officials in Michigan warned that the whir of air conditioners and the glow of televisions might not return until the end of the weekend as the cause of the massive outage remained a mystery.
About 50 members of the National Guard helped distribute 28,770 liters of drinking water in Cleveland. Residents of Cleveland and Detroit, battling low pressure, were told to boil water.
Canada and the US formed a joint task force on Friday to investigate what caused the blackout -- which knocked out service in parts of eight states and Canada in just nine seconds -- and how to prevent it from happening again.
In Connecticut, residents heard an emergency plea from the governor to cut back on power use after a state transmission line that feeds the southwest part of the state failed early on Friday.
The call for conservation echoed across blacked-out states. "If you don't turn them off, they will go off," said Long Island Power Authority Chairman Richard Kessel.
Chris Bowen, 47, of Syracuse, New York, said he and his family would try to heed the plea.
"We'll probably leave the air conditioner off tonight when we go to sleep. We played cards by candlelight last night and it was fun. Maybe we'll do that again."
US President George W. Bush, during a tour of a California national park, said part of the problem was "an antiquated system" to distribute electricity nationally. "It's a wake-up call," he said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary