AP, FORT LAUDERDALE, FloridaA Chinese national on Wednesday trespassed at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and was arrested when she refused to leave, police said, the second time this year a Chinese woman has been charged with illicitly entering the Florida resort. Police were called and arrested her, Ogrodnick said, adding that it was determined that she had an expired visa. The Trumps are expected to arrive at Mar-a-Lago by the weekend and spend the holidays there. In both of those cases, Trump and his family were staying at the resort, but none were ever threatened. The Secret Service does not decide who is invited or welcome at the resort; that responsibility belongs to the club.

AP, WASHINGTONUS President Donald Trump was on Wednesday night impeached by the US House of Representatives, becoming only the third US chief executive to be formally charged under the US constitution’s ultimate remedy for high crimes and misdemeanors. The House then approved a second charge, that he obstructed the US Congress in its investigation. The articles of impeachment, the political equivalent of an indictment, now go to the US Senate for trial. The trial is expected to begin next month in the Senate, where a vote of two-thirds is necessary for conviction. House Democrats could not name impeachment managers — House prosecutors who make the case for Trump’s conviction and removal from office — until they know more about how the Senate would conduct a trial, Pelosi said.

AFP, BUXTON, AustraliaA state of emergency was declared in Australia’s most populated region yesterday, as a record heat wave fanned unprecedented bushfires. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the seven-day state of emergency was due to “catastrophic weather conditions.”Temperatures are expected to near 50°C in South Australia and peak at 45°C in the western suburbs of Sydney, while turbulent winds of up to 100km are expected to fan bushfires burning ever-closer to the city. New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said five 100-person “strike teams” were on standby to deploy to the most dangerous fires. More than 70 fires are raging across Queensland to the north of New South Wales. Bushfires are also burning in Western Australia and South Australia.

By Ann Maxon / Staff reporterKaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) plan to reinstate the Special Investigation Division (SID) to probe the Kaohsiung City Government’s debt is unnecessary and “embarrassing,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday. That Han would propose reinstating the SID just to look over the city’s debt is “embarrassing,” he said. The Kaohsiung City Government must consider its finances and take steps to resolve its debt issues, he said. Han, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, said at a platform presentation on Wednesday that he would reinstate the SID if elected president on Jan. 11. Before its dissolution in 2016, the SID was responsible for investigating corruption and financial crimes by high-level officials such as the president, vice president and ministers.

In August, the school’s board of directors declared a salary cut, which led to the dismissal of two board members: Wang Chao-ching (王昭卿), who doubled as the school’s dean, and Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), the deputy minister of the interior. Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) told reporters yesterday that he and K-12 Education Administration Director-General Peng Fu-yuan (彭富源) agreed to dispatch a task force to the school as soon as possible. The ministry sent a K-12 Education Administration official to the school after receiving Tai’s confirmation yesterday morning. The school only has NT$10 million on hand, which is not enough to cover personnel costs for one month, Tai said. “We hope the K-12 Education Administration will try to understand the school’s situation from all angles,” Tai said.

Domestic demand would contribute 2.17 percentage points to GDP growth, while external trade would account for only 0.27 percentage points, it said. China, which has kept its GDP growth above 6 percent this year, might see growth drop below this mark next year for the first time since 1991, Chen said, citing estimates by international research bodies. Similarly, the US is forecast to see GDP growth of 2.06 percent next year, decelerating from an estimated 2.31 percent this year, CIER said. Economic slowdown is also expected to hit the eurozone, which is forecast to see GDP growth of 1.1 percent next year, compared with an estimated 1.42 percent this year, CIER said. That said, the institute raised its growth forecast for Taiwan from 2.33 percent to 2.54 percent for this year, citing stronger external demand and private investment.

“KMT politicians are resorting to insulting women to bolster their campaigns. Therefore, we ask all women and victims of discrimination to reject the KMT in the upcoming elections,” she said. DPP Women Affairs Department director Tsai Wan-fen (蔡宛芬) said that people should take a harder line on the matter, because KMT politicians have not apologized, but rather have hidden behind excuses for their derogatory comments. “People should not cast ballots for the KMT, a party of male chauvinist pigs,” she said. Politicians need to realize that their comments are not only hurting women, but also setting the worst sort of example for Taiwan,” Evelyn Tsai said.

Leaders of the powerful Ampatuan family dynasty orchestrated the killings on Nov. 23, 2009, in a remote part of the conflict-plagued south of the Philippines in a bid to quash an election challenge from a rival clan. A Manila court yesterday found 43 people guilty as principals or accessories to 57 of the murders. As principal suspects, Ampatuan Jr and 27 others — including seven of his relatives — were each sentenced to at least 30 years in jail without parole. However, two clan leaders and more than 50 other police officers and alleged members of the Ampatuan militia were acquitted. The murders had cast a spotlight on the Philippines’ notorious culture of impunity, in which powerful and wealthy figures often operate above the law.

By Natasha Li / Staff reporterThe Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has approved four companies’ applications to invest more than NT$1.8 billion (US$59.6 million) as part of its program encouraging overseas Taiwanese businesses to invest back home. Vacuum flask maker Sun-Upper Metal Industry Co (昶典工業) is to invest NT$300 million to expand its production facility in Yunlin County to meet customers’ demands, the ministry said. The company also plans to set up its headquarters and a production plant at the Taichung Export Processing Zone (臺中加工出口區), which would create 25 job opportunities, the ministry said. The aerospace components manufacturer is to invest NT$70 million to expand its spray paint and chemicals production lines to meet increasing orders, it said. To date, the ministry has approved 283 companies’ applications to join its three programs to stimulate investment, with the companies pledging NT$835.1 billion in total.

It expects revenue of as much as US$4.8 billion in the fiscal second quarter, Micron said in a statement. “We are optimistic that Micron’s fiscal second quarter will be the cyclical bottom for our financial performance,” Micron chief executive officer Sanjay Mehrotra said in the statement. Under Mehrotra, Micron has pursued different markets for its chips to reduce wild swings in the balance of supply and demand. At its lowest ebb in that year, the company burned through US$1.3 billion in cash in a quarter, Mehrotra said. Resuming that relationship would take time and Micron does not anticipate “a material impact on our revenue for the next couple of quarters,” the company said in the statement.

“Lacquerware requires dedication and experience, and Taiwan is lucky to have a master craftsman such as Mr Wang,” Su said. The government aims to promote the local lacquerware industry, allowing Taiwanese and visitors alike appreciate local artisan’s handicrafts, Su said. Su said he would instruct the Council of Agriculture to explore the possibility of growing local species of lacquer trees to shore up the local lacquer supply, instead of relying on imports. Wang and his sons have been influential in the local lacquerware industry. While lacquerware techniques largely came from Japan, local artisans had access to local Chinese lacquer trees and were not dependent on imports until increased labor costs and cheaper Vietnam imports shifted the market from local to overseas supplies, Wang said.

Staff writer, with CNATaiwan and Vietnam have signed a new version of a bilateral investment agreement (BIA) to provide better protection for Taiwanese investors in the Southeast Asian nation, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. The BIA was signed on Wednesday by Representative to Vietnam Richard Shih (石瑞琦) and Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei Director Nguyen Anh Dung. The new pact has an investor-to-state dispute settlement mechanism to facilitate negotiations between Taiwanese investors and the Vietnamese government. If the disputes cannot be resolved in six months, they would be able to resort to international arbitration. When Taiwanese investors encounter investment obstacles, the Taiwanese government would also be able to negotiate with its Vietnamese counterpart for assistance in removing the hurdles, the ministry said.

It was established during the DPP administration of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and abolished by Tsai’s administration. Han made the SID proposal to gain political ground, exploiting accusations of corruption by the DPP and the Tsai administration. Enter Deputy Minister of Justice Tsai Pi-chung (蔡碧仲). The next day, Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) hauled him into his office and asked him to remove the Facebook post. This dates back to late 2003, when then-minister of justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) announced his intention to join Chen Shui-bian on the campaign trail, causing an uproar.

By Noah Buchan / Staff reporterFundamentalist Christian groups are trying to frame discrimination against others as a human rights issue, an effort that forms part of a growing push to roll back LGBT rights. And it’s a global movement that finds Taiwan at its center. Rainbow crossers are an oppressed people group.”The term “rainbow crosser” is used by fundamentalist Christian groups to refer to a person who says they have changed their sexuality from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual, or reverse their trans identification. Domen attributes his changed sexuality to years of counseling, strongly suggesting that rainbow crossers are people who have undergone some form of conversion therapy, a practice common among these groups. According to a 2015 report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, there is a growing number of these kinds of “treatments” and “therapies” — conversion therapy, sexual orientation change efforts, reorientation therapy, reparative therapy and gay cure therapy — that have “been found to be unethical, unscientific and ineffective and, in some instances, tantamount to torture.”“LGBT youth are widely subjected to harmful conversion ‘therapies’ in clinics or camps,” the report said.

APAs Boeing Co prepares to shutter much of a huge factory near Seattle that builds the grounded 737 MAX jet, the economic hit is reverberating across the US in places such as Wichita, Kansas; Stamford, Connecticut; and Cincinnati, Ohio. With 13,500 workers, Spirit is the largest employer in Kansas’ biggest city. Even though MAX production had slowed earlier in the year, Spirit and other suppliers continued to crank out parts, putting many of them in storage. CFM International SA, a joint venture between General Electric Co and France’s Safran SA, which makes the MAX engines, also faces uncertainty. Stamford-based Hexcel Corp, which makes composite materials used on the 737 MAX frame and engines was already reporting lower sales after Boeing slowed the rate of MAX production.