A group of Tai Po fire survivors have petitioned their housing estate’s administrator to hold a general meeting with homeowners to discuss long-term resettlement and related financial matters after collecting 247 handwritten signatures.

The petition organisers issued a media statement on Tuesday, saying that they had delivered the petition and the handwritten signatures to Hop On Management on April 29.

Hop On Management – a subsidiary of real estate giant Chinachem Group – was appointed by the government in early January to act as administrator of the incorporated owners of Wang Fuk Court after a tribunal dissolved the owners’ board of the Tai Po residential estate.

Displaced homeowners, who are scattered across Hong Kong following the deadly fire, have since urged Hop On to call a general meeting, but to no avail.

Jason Kong, one of the petition organisers, told HKFP on Tuesday that a Hop On staff member received the petition in person on April 29.

The staff member gave Kong an acknowledgement slip, which said the company had received the documents but also read: “Content not verified.”

Kong also said that within a couple of weeks, the organisers had gathered 247 signatures from Wang Fuk Court homeowners and representatives of those killed in the November inferno.

Each signatory not only signed their name but also gave their address at Wang Fuk Court and their contact number, he added.

“The responsibility of further verifying those signatures lies with Hop On,” Kong said in Cantonese, “We’ve collected signatures from around 12 per cent of all households [at Wang Fuk Court] – more than enough to call a general meeting.”

Hong Kong’s Building Management Ordinance stipulates that a management committee must convene a general meeting at the written request of at least five per cent of owners.

Wang Fuk Court has a total of 1,984 units, and 247 signatories exceed the required threshold.

HKFP has reached out to Hop On for comment.

The Tai Po fire broke out on November 26, claiming 168 lives and burning the homes of thousands. The blaze is Hong Kong’s deadliest since 1948.

March petition

Kong and other fire survivors launched a similar petition online in March, signed by more than 400 homeowners and representatives of those killed in the fire.

However, Hop On rejected the demand. In an email sent to Kong on April 5, Hop On said the petition did not meet the statutory requirement and that it would not hold a formal owners’ meeting at that stage.

“Following a detailed review and consultation with legal counsel, we note that… you had gathered owners’ concerns via an online form, but provided no further information,” Hop On said in the email, which was seen by HKFP.

Four days later, the Home Affairs Department said it received complaints from several Wang Fuk Court residents, who alleged that the petition did not verify the identities of the signatories.

“Individual flat owners said the so-called petition lacked authentication mechanisms and may involve people impersonating owners and forging signatures. Personal information collected is also at risk of being abused or misused without authorisation,” the department said.

The department also said it had referred the matter to law enforcement agencies for investigation.

Kong said that this time, he and other organisers spent a couple of weeks personally collecting ink signatures from homeowners.

“Once we found out some information was missing, such as a home address, we contacted the signatory again to fill out the information,” Kong said.

Many Wang Fuk Court homeowners hope to discuss long-term resettlement options in the long-awaited meeting, as well as the government’s arrangements for fire survivors returning home to pack personal belongings, he said.

They also want to discuss financial matters related to Wang Fuk Court, such as insurance claims, Kong added.

Around 11,000 subdivided units have been registered under a grace period system that will give landlords three years to ensure their properties meet new government requirements for the city’s infamous substandard housing.

Victor Tai, the under secretary for housing, said on Tuesday in a briefing session with selected media outlets that as of Tuesday, around 3,000 flats – totaling 11,000 subdivided units – had been registered, NowTV reported.

Under the Basic Housing Units Ordinance, which came into effect in March, subdivided units are required to meet government-set living standards. These include a floor space of at least 86 square feet, a ceiling height of 2.3 metres, as well as a window and an individual toilet.

Units that pass those requirements will be known as “basic housing units.”

From now until February 2027, the government is allowing landlords to apply for a three-year grace period to give them time to get their subdivided units up to standard.

Operators whose subdivided units already meet requirements have been able to apply for recognition as basic housing units since March 1. Tai said that so far, four applications have been made.

Renovations

The Housing Bureau said it had converted two subdivided units in Kowloon City into examples of basic housing units to guide subdivided unit operators on how to upgrade their flats.

Tai said the fee for renovating a substandard shoebox unit to meet requirements ranges from HK$25,000 to HK$50,000, while the cost for renovating an entire flat comprising several subdivided units is between HK$140,000 and HK$160,000, according to the Housing Bureau.

He said that for a three-unit model flat, the work involved removing the toilet of one of the units so that the space for another unit could be expanded, and then re-installing a new toilet.

In addition, installed toilet exhaust fans and routing drainage pipes to the outdoors were also fitted.

When asked by local media whether operators of subdivided units might transfer such costs to tenants, therefore increasing their rent, Tai said that would be up to the landlords.

The official said that just like with running any business, there are costs involved in operating subdivided units, but that he believed landlords could earn back those costs within a few months of converting the homes into basic housing units.

Subdivided unit operators are required to hire a registered surveyor or architect to certify that the flats meet the government’s requirements.

Earlier in March, the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors estimated that operators will have to spend at least HK$15,000 to have a flat with up to four subdivided units certified.

Germany’s industrial decline is taking a painful toll on communities that have long relied on local manufacturing titans for jobs, prosperity and a sense of a secure future.

Among the places affected by the downturn is Ludwigshafen, a company town of chemical giant BASF, which has shed thousands of jobs while shifting its focus to China.

“The mood is obviously not good,” Sinischa Horvat, chairman of BASF’s works council, which represents staff interests, told AFP during a visit to the city of about 175,000 people.

“The entire market is currently so weak. When you watch the news, you hardly hear any positive messages.”

BASF is among Germany’s manufacturing heavyweights in sectors ranging from autos to steel and factory equipment that have been cutting back in their domestic markets.

They are battling surging energy costs, fierce competition from China, and weak demand at a time when Europe’s biggest economy is mired in a long stagnation.

Some 2,500 jobs have been axed since 2022 in Ludwigshafen, which is dominated by sprawling chemical plants that stretch along the river Rhine, and more cuts are set to come.

A recent decision to sell off thousands of company-owned apartments, many occupied by current and former workers, has added to unease.

“The sale of these apartments sends a signal to the city and to the people who live here and, in some cases, work at BASF — BASF is scaling back its operations,” Patrick Thiel, who lives in one of the apartments and works at the firm, told AFP.

“There is growing concern that this won’t stop at the apartments but will also affect the main plant,” added the 29-year-old, who also ran as a candidate in recent local polls for far-left party Die Linke.

China push

Horvat said having BASF staff in the properties helped created a “symbiosis” between company and community.

“This has fostered an understanding of chemistry and shaped the relationship with BASF in the city,” he said.

BASF — a supplier of base inputs to the agricultural, automotive and pharmaceutical sectors — says the proceeds will go to bolstering its core businesses, but acknowledged that the sale had “raised uncertainties”.

A company spokeswoman however insisted that it would handle the sale responsibly, adding: “No one has to fear losing their home.”

“We will continue to see ourselves as an integral part of the local community in the future,” she said.

Underlining its commitment to Ludwigshafen, where the group has over 30,000 employees — around a third of its global workforce —  BASF has agreed to hold off on compulsory redundancies there until at least 2028 and continue investing.

But as it cuts back at home, the world’s biggest chemical firm is investing heavily overseas, last month inaugurating a vast 8.7 billion euro (US$10 billion) complex in China, its biggest ever single investment project.

It insists that building up its presence in China, the world’s biggest chemical market, is crucial.

Job losses

BASF is far from the only German company suffering.

Last year industrial companies cut 124,000 jobs, around double the figure in 2024, with hefty losses in particular found in the struggling auto sector, a study by consultancy EY showed.

Germany’s manufacturing sector shrunk to a share of 19.5 percent of the country’s economy in 2025, according to official figures — its lowest level for many years.

“The loss of industrial jobs in Germany has accelerated in the past two years,” Marcel Fratzscher, president of the DIW economic institute, told AFP.

“Companies that used to be the pride of Germany are suffering.”

Areas that have already suffered industrial job losses see greater social problems and offer fertile ground for fringe parties, such as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), to pick up support, experts warn.

Still, Fratzscher said that Germany had undergone economic upheavals before, and urged politicians and companies to try to ensure the economy emerges stronger.

The current economic transformation should be seen “as an opportunity to move into sectors that have better margins, better jobs,” he said.

“The biggest mistake we can make is to try to cement the status quo, to keep all companies exactly the same. That would lead to a much bigger deindustrialisation.”

karendore posted a photo:

Karen Dore Photography

Scientists use tools ranging from models to microscopes to make sense of the world around them. Some might say artists do the same thing using tools such as paintbrushes and musical instruments.

“I’ve just always felt like art and science are flip sides of the same coin, with maybe different outcomes or different processes, but they’re both just getting at the truth of the world,” said Sara Bouchard, a sound artist and composer and adjunct faculty member in the Department of Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) School of Art.

A recent National Science Foundation–funded collaboration between scientists and artists brought this principle to life.

The scientist-artist pairs worked together in yearlong residencies and produced art pieces—ranging from music compositions and video installations to ceramic works and paintings—that they presented at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts in Corvalis, Ore., in early 2026.

“The metaphor that people use to describe what this science network measures, or does, is that it’s monitoring the breath of the biosphere,” said Maoya Bassiouni, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who directed and developed the residency. “Those fluxes are sort of this giving and receiving between the land and the atmosphere, and it’s exactly what the scientists are doing in the community. So, part of the framing of the residency was around flux as this metaphor for connection and belonging and relationships.”

Bassiouni, who also created artworks in the residency, presented a lecture about the series alongside two other fluxART artists in late May at the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR) Mesa Lab in Boulder, Colo.

An installation at NCAR’s Mesa Lab Library featuring all four fluxART projects also opened on 27 May and will be on display through the end of 2026.

En Masse

Bouchard, the sound artist, was paired with Chris Gough, a biogeochemist who serves as the executive director of the Rice Rivers Center at VCU.

The result was a composition for choir and percussion called En Masse, which explores the connections between communities and ecosystems in a time of climate crisis. The piece’s five movements represent the movement of carbon through the environment: “Air,” “Wood,” “Soil,” “Fire,” and “Breath.”

In addition to vocals and instruments, the composition features birdsong, recordings from a compost pile, sonified data from Gough’s lab, and spoken words gathered from real people sharing their climate anxieties. An excerpt from the “Fire” movement reads,

Both Bouchard and Gough said they were moved by the piece as it was performed in Corvalis and by seeing the mix of artists and scientists who attended, many traveling from other states.

“I was struck by how engaged both the scientific and artistic communities were,” Gough said. “We walked out, and it was a full room of people. It was energizing, and I think it felt meaningful in a way that stepping up on a conference stage to deliver the traditional convention talk [isn’t].”

September: Orange

In another pairing, video artist Julia Oldham partnered with Christopher Still, a plant ecophysiologist at Oregon State University.

At the top of the tower, a PhenoCam takes photos of the surrounding Deschutes National Forest every half hour. Still uses data from these images to examine how the greenness of the canopy changes over time because such changes can provide information about fluxes in carbon, water, and energy.

“I learned more about what Chris uses the PhenoCam for and got superexcited about the fact that Chris is using color data to understand forests,” Oldham said. “I thought that that was a really beautiful point of overlap for us as a scientist and an artist, to think about color and forests and what we can learn from color as a scientific tool.”

The pair created two pieces. 18//Flux shows how the colors and light from one PhenoCam site changed from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. throughout the year for 13 years. Each frame is divided into 13 strips, with each strip representing 1 hour of the monitoring period.

The two had conversations throughout the duration of the project about the growing role of wildfires in the area. In fact, one of the FLUXNET towers they were using in the project burned down.

Their conversations led to September: Orange, a three-channel video showing footage from 24 different PhenoCams in the northwestern United States and Canada. When all of the landscapes are the same shade, the video briefly pauses. In September, when wildfires sweep through Cascadia, orange becomes the dominant color. The piece is accompanied by field recordings from Oregon forests and sonified canopy greenness data.

“I think the installation was a wild success, and I had a lot of people tell me how much they enjoyed it and appreciated it,” Still said. “Most people don’t respond to a 2D graph of data…whereas I think almost everyone responds to images, and photographs are really meaningful to people. So I think that is a really brilliant way to draw people into the science.”

—Emily Gardner (@emfurd.bsky.social), Associate Editor

Citation: Gardner, E. (2026), Artists and scientists partner to bring atmospheric data to life, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260178. Published on 3 June 2026.

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

A 63-year-old Ocean Park mechanical technician died after collapsing at work on Friday.

Police told HKFP that they received a report at 9:08am after the man, surnamed Luk, was found unconscious outside a staff restroom before starting his duties.

Paramedics discovered him with serious head and shoulder injuries. He was certified dead at 10:33am at Ruttonjee Hospital.

Police said that they are still investigating the case. The Labour Department arrived at the Aberdeen theme park at 11am to inspect the facility’s operational safety conditions, local media reported.

The park expressed sorrow over the staff member’s death and are supporting his family and colleagues, according to RTHK.

The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has announced that tax revenue jumped by 22 per cent in the 2025-26 fiscal year, hitting a record high of HK$458.3 billion.

Unveiling the provisional tax figures at a press conference on Monday, Benjamin Chan, commissioner of Inland Revenue, attributed the rise partly to rallies in the property and stock markets.

Revenue from stamp duty – a tax imposed on the transfer of property or assets – reached HK$102.6 billion in 2025-26, a 61 per cent rise from the previous period.

Chan said the IRD also noticed a rise in the income of Hong Kong taxpayers and a higher number of companies paying profits tax.

In 2025-26, the tax office collected HK$212.6 billion in profits tax – a 20 per cent increase from 2024-25 – and HK$97.7 billion in salaries tax – a 10 per cent rise.

“The department’s revenue collection in 2025-26 was HK$458.3 billion, which is a record high,” Chan said.

The government previously logged HK$341.4 billion in tax revenue in 2018-19, a record high at the time, according to an IRD annual report.

The tax revenue declined afterwards – until the 2024-25 fiscal year, which recorded HK$374.5 billion, a 9.5 per cent increase from the previous period.

2.77 million tax returns issued

Chan also said on Monday that the IRD had issued about 2.77 million tax returns for individuals for the 2025-26, an increase of 115,000 from the previous year.

The commissioner also encouraged taxpayers to file their tax returns through eTAX, which is more environmentally friendly and helps ensure they reach the IRD in time. 

An extension of one month will be granted for returns filed electronically, according to the IRD.

Lam Hing Street in Kowloon Bay was filled with billowing smoke during the lunchtime rush hour on Wednesday, after a stove overheated at a restaurant.

Police told HKFP on Wednesday that eight people were on the premises at the time – all were evacuated, and no injuries were reported.

Smoke from a kitchen stove was thought to have spread rapidly through ventilation shafts. A dramatic clip on social media appeared to show smoke engulfing the area outside, reducing visibility.

The incident occurred at around 12.43pm at a ground-floor eatery.

karendore posted a photo:

Karen Dore Photography