SOCIETY
Smoking ban announced
Taichung is to ban smoking on covered walkways outside about 1,400 convenience stores and coffee shops beginning next month, after similar measures were implemented in Taipei, New Taipei City and Kaohsiung this year. Stores covered by the ban include 7-Eleven, FamilyMart, Hi-Life, OK Mart, Simple Mart, Starbucks, 85°C Bakery Cafe and Louisa Coffee, the city’s Health Bureau said yesterday. Anyone caught smoking in the covered walkways in front of these shops would be fined NT$2,000 to NT$10,000 in accordance with the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防治法), the bureau said. The measure aims to limit the exposure of pedestrians and store visitors to secondhand smoke, it said.
SOCIETY
Students given permit option
From tomorrow, foreign students in Taiwan are to have the option of using electronic work permits, the Workforce Development Agency said. The agency said that while international students have been able to apply for work permits online since February, the new measure would give them the choice of using either card or electronic permits. Previously, students received only card permits even if they applied for them online. Students who choose the electronic version would be able to access their permits through the agency’s EZ Work Permit Web site by entering their account information and a verification code, the agency said. When selecting a “review on mobile device” tab, the permit holder’s phone would display their personal information when held horizontally, and a QR code that could be used by employers as a means of electronic verification when held vertically, the agency said.
ASTRONOMY
Meteor shower to peak
Astronomy buffs in Taiwan would soon have a chance to spot shooting stars as the annual Quadrantid meteor shower nears its peak, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said yesterday. The best time to observe the Quadrantids would be from 11pm on Saturday into the early hours of Sunday, when an average of 120 meteors per hour could flash through the sky in the north. With no interference from the moon, the view of the Quadrantids could be very promising, the museum said, particularly because the meteor shower is known for producing bolides — extremely bright shooting stars. The fireballs should be easy to spot with the naked eye as long as skywatchers head to mountainous or suburban areas where there is less light and air pollution. The Central Weather Bureau has forecast mainly clear skies across the island during the celestial event, except for areas in eastern parts of the country and outlying islands.
ENTERTAINMENT
Chou Tzu-yu tops ranking
Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the Taiwanese member of South Korean girl group Twice, was named the “most beautiful face of 2019” in a ranking released on Friday by US film review site TC Candler. The 20-year old Tainan native was the only Taiwanese who made it onto this year’s list, which has been presented annually since 1990. It was her fifth consecutive appearance on the prestigious global list, having placed 13th in 2015, eighth in 2016, third in 2017 and second last year. This year, Israeli model Yael Shelbia was No. 2 on the list, followed by Thai singer and model Lalisa Manoban, French model Thylane Blondeau and English actress Naomi Scott.
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:
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
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