ENTERTAINMENT
Little Monsters go Gaga
Fans scrambled for tickets to a Lady Gaga concert scheduled for May in Taipei yesterday, with the lower-priced tickets selling like hotcakes. Sales began at 9am at the National Taiwan University Sports Center, where tickets from NT$1,800 (US$61) to NT$2,800 quickly sold out. The most expensive seats for the May 17 concert were priced at NT$12,800, breaking the NT$12,000 record set by US rock band the Eagles last year. One of the “Little Monsters” — as Lady Gaga fans are known — who paid NT$6,000 for a NT$5,800 ticket said he admired Gaga’s talent. The pop diva promised a full-scale gig during her first visit to Taiwan for a mini-concert in July last year. The concert will take place at the Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall.
WEATHER
Avoid outdoor activity: EPA
A sandstorm from China that arrived in northern Taiwan early yesterday is expected to weaken today and tomorrow, according to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). The dust was carried by a cold front moving in from China’s Xinjiang region. According to the EPA, the concentration of PM10 (fine particles in the air smaller than 10 micro-meters in size) peaked at 281 micrograms per cubic meter at 4am yesterday. Hourly measurements showed that concentrations in several sites in northern Taiwan as well as Yunlin County, Greater Tainan, Greater Kaohsiung and Pingtung County were still above 150 micrograms per cubic meter in the afternoon, which is rated as “poor” on the EPA’s air quality index. The public is urged to avoid outdoor activity today and to beware of exacerbating respiratory complaints in the elderly and children.
TOURISM
Visa waiver makes progress
The evaluation process for the nation’s inclusion in the US visa waiver program is moving in a positive direction, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman James Chang (章計平) said yesterday. The process for Taiwan, which was named a candidate country for the program last year, is going well, following a review visit by US Department of Homeland Security officials earlier this month, Chang added. His remark came after local media reported that the Taiwan Policy Act had been blocked by the US House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee. The act backs arms sales to Taiwan, visa-waiver qualification and its participation in international organizations. It has been passed by the US House Committee of Foreign Affairs and the Ways and Means Committee, Chang said.
INNOVATION
Taiwan wins 80 medals
The nation outshone 16 other countries at a global invention competition in Moscow on Friday, bagging the most medals, with 41 golds, 31 silvers and eight bronzes. It was a new high for Taiwan, which won 17 golds, 20 silvers and nine bronze medals last year at the Moscow International Salon of Inventions and Innovation Technologies. The Taiwanese delegation, comprising college professors, college deans, physicists and top students, also won a judges’ award and two special honors during the four-day event. Taiwan had the highest win rate among all participating countries, gaining prizes for 80 percent of its nearly 100 entries, Chinese Innovation and Invention Society chairman Wu Kuo-chun (吳國俊) said. By comparison, the average win rate among the other countries was about 50 percent, he added.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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