LINSANITY
First e-book on Lin released
The first e-book on NBA player Jeremy Lin’s (林書豪) sudden rise to fame was released yesterday by an online bookstore in Taiwan, and features how the point guard has taken the sports world by storm. The Improbable Rise of Jeremy Lin reveals the journey of the Taiwanese-American player from his school years to the top professional basketball league in the US. The e-book, issued by BOOKS11.com, was completed by US novelist and sportswriter Alan Goldsher in just 72 hours. The book not only describes Lin’s performance on court, but also purports to offer readers “a sneak peek” on the 23-year-old’s life. Unlike most high-school students, Lin put more energy into his studies and basketball than girls, according to Goldsher. The book also points out how much effort the New York Knicks player has put into reaching the success he enjoys today.
DIPLOMACY
No visa-waiver decision yet
The decision whether to include Taiwan in the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) will not be made this week during a visit by a delegation from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday. “No decisions regarding Taiwan’s VWP designation will be made during the visit, but the information the delegation obtains will be important to the secretary’s decision,” AIT spokesman Christopher Kavanagh said. A DHS delegation will visit Taiwan this week to review its security measures and passport system. Since obtaining VWP-candidacy status in December last year, Taiwan has been eager to complete the process and become the 37th country in the program, which grants passport holders of included nations visa-free stays of up to 90 days in the US. The upcoming visit is a necessary step in the process of evaluating Taiwan for possible designation into the program, Kavanagh said.
WEATHER
Rain, cold on their way
Eastern and northern Taiwan are expected to see intermittent rain throughout the week, with temperatures likely to drop in those areas in the coming days. The Central Weather Bureau said a frontal system is expected to hit the country today, followed by northeasterly winds tomorrow and on Friday. A cold front from China moving in from Saturday to Monday would bring rain and progressively colder weather. The mercury dropped by 4o to 5oC in northern and eastern Taiwan during the day yesterday and could continue to fall until Monday, the bureau said. Temperatures yesterday were 15o-24oC in northern areas, 16o-27oC in central areas, 18o-28oC in southern areas and 15o-27oC in the eastern part of the country, the bureau said, adding that temperatures would be lowest on Sunday and Monday.
CRIME
Local student dies in US
A 29-year-old Indiana University student from Taiwan died at his home in the US on Friday, Taiwan’s representative office in Chicago said on Monday. The student, identified as Chi Ping Chuang, was found dead by his roommate in their residence at Campus View Apartments in Bloomington, Indiana, at about 5pm on Friday. An official from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago said the office has contacted police and the university, and was helping Chuang’s family make arrangements to travel to the US. “There is at this time nothing to suggest the cause of death, but nothing to indicate foul play,” the university’s police chief, Keith Cash, said in a statement. Chuang was a masters degree student in kinesiology and exercise science.
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