SOCIETY
Tornado claims recognized
Insurance claims for property damage caused by tornadoes will be recognized, Nan Shan Life Insurance Co said yesterday, after a rare tornado-like funnel swirled though the streets of Sindian District (新店), New Taipei City (新北市), on Thursday afternoon, tipping over several vehicles. “Apart from claims for damage caused by man-made factors such as wars and nuclear disasters, we will also accept insurance claims for tornado damage,” Nan Shan Life spokeswoman Amanda Chou said. “It will be categorized as a natural disaster like a typhoon, so our clients who have accident or property insurance are eligible to file claims for any personal or property damage from tornados.” The Central Weather Bureau said the tornado, which lasted just a few minutes, could have been triggered by an active convection current accompanying a frontal system.
HEALTH
Peanut products destroyed
A brand of peanut products from Indonesia was found to contain a very high level of aflatoxin during a recent inspection, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday. The level detected was 144.21 parts per billion (ppb), or nine times the legal limit of 15ppb, said Tsai Shu-chen (蔡淑貞), head of the agency’s food section. Aflatoxin is a toxin produced by certain types of mold and it can cause liver damage in humans. Tsai said it was the first time in six months that Indonesian peanuts had failed a border inspection. All the products in the shipment were destroyed, she said. The manufacturer’s products will face stricter inspections in the future, she said.
SOCIETY
Minors to receive subsidies
Minors from low-income families will be eligible for full subsidization of their health insurance premiums starting in July 1, Ministry of the Interior officials said yesterday. About 150,000 minors are expected to benefit from the program, which will cost the government about NT$1 billion (US$34.72 million). An amendment to the Social Assistance Act (社會救助法) passed in February changed how the official poverty line is defined and who can access public assistance. The bulk of those newly eligible to receive aid — about 588,000 minors — will be from near-poor households, defined those in which the average income per member does not exceed 1.5 times the minimum cost of living. The minimum cost of living ranges from NT$10,244 to
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching