CRIME
Pawnshop hit by bullets
A 17-year-old surnamed Liu (劉) yesterday turned himself in after shooting more than 50 bullets into a closed pawnshop in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城), the Tucheng Police Precinct said. Liu took a taxi to the pawnshop on Sichuan Road and at 8:52am shot in the store’s direction, leaving 65 bullet holes in the store’s steel shutters and nearby scooters, police said. He took the same taxi to the Banciao Precinct’s Daguan Police Station and turned himself in at about 8:55am, police said. Police cordoned off the area, and found a gun and two magazines at the site, they said. No one was injured, they said, adding that they are looking into potential motives.
Photo copied by Hsu Sheng-lun, Taipei Times
SOCIETY
Fire kills three people
A fire in a third-floor apartment in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) late on Wednesday killed three people and left one in critical condition, police said yesterday. Eight people, all from the same family, were pulled from the blaze by firefighters, who received a report of the incident on Danhai Road at 11:13pm. A 74-year-old woman, her four-year-old grandson and her 52-year-old son were pronounced dead at a hospital after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, police said. The woman’s 58-year-old daughter, who also had a cardiac arrest, was resuscitated, but was in a critical condition, police said. Three other grandchildren, aged 19, 24 and 30, and the deceased man’s 42-year-old wife sustained minor injuries, police said. Authorities said they were investigating the cause of the fire.
CUSTOMS
Vitamins seized at border
A shipment of multivitamin tablets imported by warehouse club Costco was seized at the border after being found to contain residues of a banned preservative, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Tuesday. A total of 1,478.86kg of Webber Naturals’ nutritional tablets for men supplied by Factors Group of Nutritional Companies Inc was confiscated after sample testing on Tuesday detected 0.01g/kg of ethyl p-hydroxybenzoate, traces of which are not permitted in vitamins. The nation allows a limited permissible level of ethyl p-hydroxybenzoate in bean curd skin, dried tofu, soy sauce and non-
carbonated drinks, the FDA said, adding that it has increased random tests of vitamin products from Canada to 20 to 50 percent of shipments from 2 to 10 percent. Other items rejected and destroyed or returned by customs include 2,000kg of basmati rice from India, 27,600kg of fresh pumpkin from China and 780kg of marshmallows from the Philippines, it said.
EDUCATION
Universities to merge
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan Tech) and Hwa Hsia University of Technology have agreed to merge, the two institutes said on Tuesday last week. It would be the nation’s first merger between a public and private university, they said in a statement. The plan awaits approval by the Ministry of Education. Hwa Hsia would not enroll students for the 2023-2024 academic year and would close after the 2025-2026 academic year. Students whose graduation is delayed would be eligible to continue their studies under a special program arranged by the ministry, the statement said. To protect the rights and interest of faculty and staff, Hwa Hsia would provide severance and retirement packages upon termination of employment, while Taiwan Tech would hire some of them for project teacher and staff positions over the next four to five years based on employment contracts, it said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
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