CRIME
Porn deepfaker sentenced
The creator of nonconsensual deepfake pornography featuring the likenesses of 119 people was handed a five-year custodial sentence by the High Court on Thursday. YouTuber Chu Yu-chen (朱玉宸) in July last year was found guilty of contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) for using peoples’ likenesses in pornographic videos, including Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Jie (黃捷), Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) and social media influencer Ili Cheng (鄭家純). Chu, along with his assistant Chuang Hsin-jui (莊炘睿), allegedly earned more than NT$13 million (US$422,971), court documents showed. Prosecutors appealed the New Taipei District Court’s decision to allow Chu, known on social media as Xiaoyu (小玉), to pay a fine, arguing that his sentence was too lenient. Thursday’s decision means Chu’s five-year sentence cannot be commuted to a fine, pending appeal. Chu might also need to serve 20 additional months if he is unable to pay a fine after the High Court imposed sentencing enhancements. The High Court increased Chuang’s sentence to four-and-a-half years from three years and eight months, commutable to a fine. Chuang’s sentence can also be appealed.
FOOD
FDA unveils pesticide data
Sixty-eight samples of fresh fruits and vegetables failed pesticide residue testing in September and October, while nearly 91 percent of goods were deemed acceptable, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Wednesday. Of the 754 tested domestic and imported agricultural products, 686 passed and 68 were deemed substandard, the agency said. FDA Deputy Director Lin Chin-fu (林金富) told reporters that the producers responsible for 11 of the substandard products were fined a combined NT$360,000 as stipulated by the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), while 37 domestic products were handed over to agricultural agencies, as the Agro-pesticides Management Act (農藥管理法) stipulates. The other 20 products were still being assessed, Lin said. Some of the products were from hotels and supermarkets, including chili from the Hotel Fleur de Chine in Nantou County, in which 0.7 parts per million of imidacloprid was detected, as well as organic burdock and grapefruit from Taoyuan’s Far Eastern A.Mart, which contained chlorpyrifos, a banned pesticide, the FDA said. In 2020, 90.2 percent of goods passed, 91.6 percent passed in 2021 and 92.2 percent passed last year, Lin said, adding that there was no significant change in this year’s data. However, the public should remain careful when buying seasonal produce, he added.
SOCIETY
Finger’s owner sought
Police in Taitung are trying to identify and contact a woman who apparently severed part of a finger in a motorcycle crash on Wednesday. Fongrong Neighborhood (豐榮) Chief Shih Hao-hsuan (施皓軒) said the incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon when a woman crashed her motorcycle on Hanyang N Road, and then got up and drove off. Bystanders who checked on her said that after she left, they found a severed finger on the ground, whereupon they contacted him, Shih wrote on Facebook. Shih said he immediately contacted the police and fire departments, which notified the Taitung Public Health Bureau to report the missing finger to area hospitals. None of the hospitals were treating anyone for a severed finger, he said, adding that authorities are keeping the digit cold and are in close contact with area hospitals.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
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