The Tai-Ex opened down 86-points this morning from yesterday's close, at

20,126 on turnover of 5.7-billion N-T.

The market staged a technical rebound on Wednesday after tumbling during the

previous session.

The main board moved back above the 20,000-point mark.

Investors were interested in large cap tech stocks.

However, the main board still failed to recoup all of the losses seen on

Tuesday.

Market sentiment remained affected by uncertainty over when the U-S Federal

Reserve could start to cut interest rates.

Transport Minister Wang Kwo-tsai says estimates show that funding to repair

tourism-related facilities and infrastructure in Hualien following the April

3 earthquake stands at more than 3-billion N-T.

According to Wang, three rounds of stimulus initiatives for the county's

tourism sector have been proposed by the Tourism Administration.

The first focuses mainly on essential (必需的) disaster relief.

The second phase of the plan covers funding for people whose homes were

damaged or destroyed.

And the third and final initiative will seek to subsidize individual and

group tours to Hualien after facilities and infrastructure have been fully

repaired.

Four-time N-B-A all-star DeMarcus Cousins is back in Taiwan to finish out his

renewed contract with the T1 League's Taiwan Beer Leopards.

Cousins initially played a four-game contract with the Leopards in January.

But the Taoyuan-based team announced in mid-March that he's officially

renewed his contract.

Cousins will play in all three of the remaining regular season games and will

finish the postseason games with the team.

He'll be making his return this weekend.

That's when the Leopards play the Taipei Mars on both Saturday and Sunday at

the Taoyuan Arena.

The Leopards are currently sitting in second place in the standings (積分榜)

behind the league leading New Taipei C-T-B-C D-E-A.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his country will be the one to

decide whether and how to respond to Iran’s major air assault over the

weekend.

Netanyahu's remarks on Wednesday appeared to brush off (漠視，不理睬) calls

for restraint from close allies, including the visiting foreign ministers of

Germany and Britain.

Israel has vowed to respond to Iran’s unprecedented attack without saying

when or how.

That's left the region bracing for further escalation after months of unrest

linked to the ongoing war in Gaza.

Iran's president warned Israel against responding.

Violence meanwhile has continued to surge along Israel's border with Lebanon.

A rocket attack on an Israeli town by Iran-backed Hezbollah wounded at least

14 people.

Lawmakers in the United States have voted to end impeachment proceedings

(法律行動，訴訟程序) against Director of Homeland Security Alejandro

Mayorkas, before they could even go to trial.

Democrat Party Senators dismissed the two articles of impeachment against

Secretary Mayorkas.

The articleswere brought by Republicans who argue his department is failing

to stem record flows of migrants entering the country from Mexico.

Benji Hyer reports.

That was the I.C.R.T. news,

Check in again tomorrow for our simplified version of the news, uploaded

every day in the afternoon.

Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm _____.

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