■ CRIME
Man jailed for having pistol
A 23-year-old man was sentenced by the Taipei District Court to three years and three months in jail and fined NT$50,000 for the illegal possession of a pistol. The man, identified as Wu Lieh-chin (吳烈欽), was found by police on March 12 to have had a modified replica semi-automatic Beretta in his car during a random inspection in Taipei when he was stopped for illegally turning right at an intersection. Wu said he bought the gun for NT$70,000 from a man he called only by the nickname "A-tai" in April last year in Ximending.
■ EDUCATION
Kinmen swim camp begins
A month-long summer swimming camp for elementary school pupils in the fourth to sixth grades began yesterday in Kinmen County, with 767 schoolchildren taking part. Lee Tsai-hang (李再杭), director of the county government's Education Bureau, said the outlying island used to be a military zone in which residents were not allowed to swim in the sea or play on the beach. As a result, he said, many Kinmen residents do not know how to swim. Lee said the swimming lessons, to be taught simultaneously in five swimming pools in the county, are intended to let the schoolchildren learn a sport as well as personal survival techniques in water. He said the aim is for each student to be able to swim at least 25m unaided by the end of their 10-day training sessions.
■ MEDICINE
TBSF appeals for donors
The coming of the summer months has bought another appeal by the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation (TBSF) for donors to roll up their sleeves, and potential donors were reminded yesterday of the rules governing donor eligibility. Those who have traveled to areas where cholera is endemic are restricted from giving blood for a year, the foundation said. Those who lived in the UK for more than a total of three months between 1980 and 1996 or in Europe for more than five years after 1980 are restricted from giving blood indefinitely, it said. Those who are pregnant, have had a tooth extraction within three days or have had a tattoo within the past year are also ineligible to give blood. "More than 12 percent of willing donors have to be turned away," said Chang Ing-ell (陳英二), the chief executive officer of the TBSF.
■ ENTERTAINMENT
Cops crack down on youth
Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) has asked police in Taipei County to step up inspections of entertainment venues frequented by youths as part of a police project to prevent young people from hanging out at venues late at night during the summer vacation, a Taipei County Police Bureau spokesman said yesterday. Lee made the request after conducting an inspection tour of a bowling alley late on Wednesday night. The police launched the one-month campaign last Sunday with the goal of preventing the county's young people from engaging in scooter racing on the street, drug abuse and the sex trade, the spokesman said. The police will issue fines or revoke the licenses of any entertainment venue owners who fail to comply with the order, the spokesman said. In order to offer a safe entertainment environment for youths during the summer vacation, Lee said, the government will organize healthy recreational activities and step up its crackdown on the illegal venues that have a negative influence on the nation's young people.
■ TRANSPORTATION
High Speed Rail adds trains
Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) will increase the number of daily train runs for a third time on July 16, raising the number of one-way trains from 31 to 37 per day. Under the new schedule, the last southbound train will depart from Taipei at 9:18pm, stop at every station after Taichung, and arrive in Kaohsiung at 11:06pm. The last northbound train will depart from Kaohsiung at 9:30pm, travel non-
stop, and arrive in Taipei at 11:06pm. The THSR will extend its hours of operation to accommodate the arrival of the later trains, Bureau of High Speed Rail Deputy Director-General Hu Hsiang-lin (胡湘麟) said. There will be two additional southbound trains, including one stopping at every station between Taipei and Taichung, which will run from 10:06pm to 11:03pm, and a direct run from Taipei to Kaohsiung running from 7:42am to 9:18am. An additional northbound train will depart Taichung at 7am, stop at every station, and arrive in Taipei at 8am. Another additional northbound train will leave Kaohsiung at 7:06am and travel non-stop to Taipei to arrive at 8:42am -- 18 minutes earlier that the 404 train that stops at every station.
■ TECHNOLOGY
Triumphs showcased
An exhibition showcasing the nation's technological achievements is to be held in Taipei next month. The exhibition, hosted by the National Science Council and a number of academics, will be held at the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall from Aug. 3 to Sept. 23. Among other themes, the exhibition titled "Taiwan's Amazing Transformation in Science and Technology" will feature a section devoted to the nation's long struggle against parasites.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the