TRANSPORTATION
TRA to upgrade app
An upgraded version of the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) mobile app would feature improved services, the agency said yesterday. The update would allow people to collect tickets by scanning a QR code, which they could also use to distribute tickets to a traveling group, said Peng Kun-yen (彭坤炎), head of the TRA’s Information Management Center. It would also allow people to order boxed meals one day before departure and have them delivered to their ticketed seat, Peng said. The updated app — to be released on Sunday — would provide services in Mandarin and English, he said. Benefits for TRA members using the booking system would be changed, giving them one point per NT$50 spent, he said.
WEATHER
Rain clears air pollution
Rainfall helped reduce pollutants in the air, improving the air quality, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday. Air quality in parts of northern and central Taiwan, as well as in Yilan, Hualien, Kinmen and Penghu counties, was fair, the agency said. However, the air quality index was “orange” — unhealthy for sensitive groups — in parts of Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties, it said.
SEISMICITY
Quake rocks northeast
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake rocked northeastern Taiwan at 10:54am yesterday, the Central Weather Bureau said. The quake’s hypocenter was about 53.3km east of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 127.5km, the Seismology Center said. Its intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Yilan County’s Sansing Township (三星), where it measured 3 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale.
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
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