WEATHER
Storm nears Taiwan
Tropical Storm Talim has formed in the South China Sea yesterday, said the Central Weather Bureau (CWB). While the storm is not on course to affect Taiwan directly, its outer cloud system could cause intermittent rainfall in Keelung, eastern and southern Taiwan, and mountainous areas across the country today, it said. Taiwan could experience thunderstorms and severe weather conditions, including thunders, strong winds, and momentary torrential rains around noon until Wednesday next week, said Daniel Wu (吳德榮), a former CWB Weather Forecast Center director who is now an adjunct associate professor of atmospheric sciences at National Central University.
TRANSPORTATION
MRT station opens
An 800-meter extension of the Taoyuan Airport MRT that runs into the heart of Jhongli District (中壢) in Taoyuan is set to start commercial operations by the end of this month, Railway Bureau says. The section connecting the Huanbei Station (A21) and the new station to its south, the Laojie River Station (A22), has passed all the necessary tests and received an operating permit from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications earlier this month, the bureau said. Taoyuan Metro Co is to decide on a launch date for the section, it said. The new station is part of a NT$17.3 billion (US$559 million) extension project that started in 2020 to add two stops to the existing 51.03km line.
CRIME
Dog poisoner sentenced
A man in Taitung County has been sentenced to two months in prison and fined NT $270,000 (US$8739) for killing a stray dog with poison. The verdict, released on Wednesday by the Taitung District Court, found the man, surnamed Chang (張), deliberately fed a stray dog the pesticide methomyl on Oct. 15 last year. A nearby person, surnamed Wu (吳), reported to the police that after the dog was fed by Chang, it began twitching and died immediately. Chang initially denied feeding the dog poison and told the police that he did not know the food he had given the animal contained methomyl. He later admitted to poisoning the dog, but said he did so to relieve the animal’s suffering as it was sick and malnourished, the court said. Based on a nearby surveillance footage, the dog appeared to be in good condition and was even wagging its tail at Chang before it was poisoned, the court said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its