HOUSING
Hundreds to be demolished
The New Taipei City Government plans to start tearing down 205 illegal rooftop dwellings on Friday in the wake of a fatal fire last month, Public Works Department chief Chu Ti-chih (朱愓之) said. The fire on Nov. 22 killed nine people in a four-story building in Jhonghe District (中和), which had an illegally constructed fifth floor that was partitioned into 13 rooms. The city has been tearing down illegally constructed additions to buildings even before the fire occurred, Illegal Construction Demolition Corps deputy head Chen Chia-hsing (陳嘉興) said. To stop unscrupulous landlords from building illegal structures and partitioning them to make a profit from renting them out, the city had launched a special investigation in 2015, which has so far uncovered 930 structures, of which 725 have been torn down, he said. The demolition corps would start dismantling illegal dwellings even if there are people living in them, Chen said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Actor wins Singapore award
Taiwanese actor Tsai Chen-nan (蔡振南) won the best actor in a leading role award at the 22nd Asian Television Awards in Singapore on Friday last week. Tsai took home the award for his portrayal in the mini-series She’s Family (媽媽不見了) of an old male chauvinist who has diabetes and urinary incontinence, and cannot take care of himself. Tsai’s character must rely on his daughter to take care of him after his wife, played by Yang Kui-mei (楊貴媚), walks out on the family. Yang won the best supporting actress award for her role in the mini-series. In total, Taiwanese collected five awards, including best cinematography for Far and Away (外鄉女), best original screenplay for Life Plan A and B (荼蘼), and best terrestrial channel of the year for Formosa Television.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
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