■NATURE
Pigeon follows teacher
A teacher has been followed every day by a pigeon that she rescued six months ago, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported yesterday. Pan Hsueh-hua (潘雪華), dean of the Chutian Primary School in Pingtung County, took home and cared for an injured pigeon she found on her school campus six months ago. Thinking the pigeon had an owner, Pan released the bird a week later. But a few weeks after that, the pigeon flew back to Pan’s home and made itself a nest in the garage, the Liberty Times reported. Ever since, the pigeon has followed Pan on her daily drive to school and her drive home, a distance of 6km. When Pan is at home, the pigeon follows her around. Pan said she is touched by the pigeon’s friendliness, but says she will let things take their own course. “If the pigeon wants to fly away, I won’t stop it,” she was quoted as saying.
■JUSTICE
Prosecutor indicted
Taipei prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for a former colleague they indicted on Thursday for allegedly taking bribes totaling NT$6.2 million (US$204,620) in 2002 and 2003 while investigating two criminal cases. If the Taipei District Court hands down a life sentence as requested, it will be the harshest punishment for an offense by a prosecutor in the country’s judicial history. The indictment said Ko Chin-chu (柯金柱), 60, is accused of receiving NT$5.5 million in 2002 from Hong-En Hospital through a lawyer friend while he was investigating the hospital’s involvement in health insurance fraud. The hospital allegedly paid the bribe in return for his promise not to prosecute its executives. In 2003, Ko is accused of again working with his lawyer friend, Lu Ching-nan (盧慶南), to solicit NT$700,000 from Chung Hua Hospital while investigating allegations that questioned the legality of the hospital’s operations, in exchange for a promise that none of the defendants would be indicted.
■HEALTH
Students catch measles
The Department of Health (DOH) reported yesterday a cluster infection of German measles among Chinese-Malaysian students studying at a central Taiwan university. Chou Chih-hao (周志浩), deputy director of the DOH’s Centers for Disease Control, said that seven students were confirmed to have contracted German measles. Chou said the matter first came to light when two male Chinese-Malaysian students at the university sought treatment at the same clinic on April 3 and April 4, respectively, after developing a cough, runny nose and rash. As the two students were from abroad and had similar symptoms, the doctors treating them alerted the DOH on April 6. One Taiwanese student has also come down with the illness. The DOH suspects that the cluster infection originated overseas.
■TRANSPORTATION
No turning back
Freeway authorities warned motorists they will face a steep fine if they back up in the electronic toll collection (ETC) lane after discovering they have driven to the wrong toll booth. Motorists not equipped to use the ETC toll lane will be fined NT$3,000 to NT$6,000 (US$99 to US$198) if they drive through the toll booth and then back up, hoping to correct their mistake, or if they change lanes as they approach the automatic toll booth, the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau said in a statement on Friday. Under the statute governing road traffic, drivers are fined NT$600 to NT$1,200 if they mistakenly drive through an ETC toll booth but then continue on their way.
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
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
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,