A policy think tank says public housing supply could outstrip the government's target by 20 percent over the next decade if the Northern Metropolis project is successfully pushed ahead. In its annual report, the Our Hong Kong Foundation also predicts a significant improvement in housing supply in general over the next five years, with the wait for public housing cut by nearly a year by 2027 thanks to the light public housing scheme. The foundation's vice president and head of research, Ryan Ip, spoke to Kelly Yu:

Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn says more than half of the people who took part in the government's recent public engagement exercise on its artificial islands plan support the scheme to reclaim 1,000 hectares off Lantau. She said some 7,800 views had been received on the development in the sea around Kau Yi Chau. Kelly Yu reports:

Save the Children has urged the government to speed up legislation on setting up a mandatory reporting mechanism for suspected child abuse. This comes after a survey it commissioned found most people were still reluctant to act when they suspected abuse. The group said this had to change. Mike Weeks reports:

Priscilla Lui, a former member of the Commission on Children, says the report is positive as 83 percent of the respondents support making it mandatory for professionals, who have regular contact with children, to report suspected abuse and neglect. Lui, the former director of the group 'Against Child Abuse' said this was a positive trend compared to the previous decade. But the child rights advocate also noted that just over 20 percent of adults said they would always intervene if they witnessed suspected child abuse. She told Ada Au that this number was not enough:

The assistant advocacy manager of Save the Children Hong Kong, Michelle Ng, has called on witnesses of child abuse to do more to intervene and report it. She said corporal punishment of a child in a public place was often a sign that the parent had run out of the "measures or mentality" to deal with the child. She told Samantha Butler what bystanders could do, to de-escalate such a situation:

The ombudsman has called on the Education Bureau to step up monitoring of boarding sections of schools for children with intellectual disabilities. As Violet Wong reports, the government watchdog found that bureau staff seldom went to the dormitories when they visited special schools:

Transport officials have conceded that they should have done a better job in consulting people before bringing in new permits for motorists carrying disabled passengers, after the ombudsman warned that the system could be abused. Ada Au reports:

An NGO says workers should be paid a living wage of at least $60.10/hr to make ends meet. Oxfam Hong Kong has been calling for a living wage, referring to the minimum income needed to meet basic needs and give workers a decent life. It earlier surveyed 170 low-income workers from various sectors, and found around half of them earned less than $59/hr. Wong Shek-hung, an Oxfam programme director, told Frank Yung that paying workers a living wage would be a "win-win" situation for them and their employers:

Long queues formed outside cinemas on Thursday as cheap movie tickets went on sale as part of the government's Happy Hong Kong campaign. The campaign - to stage events and activities to boost people's moods and the local economy - kicks off on Saturday with $30 cinema screenings. Box office web sites were also struggling with the deluge of demand, as Hailey Yip reports:

A film academic from Baptist University says Thursday's queues for cheap movie tickets were "encouraging", but more needs to be done to counteract the rising trend of streaming. Kenny Ng, an associate professor from the university's film academy, says the real key to get people back into cinemas was to make good movies. He praised recent efforts from the local film industry, and told Ben Tse that cinemas could consider regular cheap-ticket days:

Former Legco president and National People's Congress Standing Committee member, Rita Fan, says she fears the Hong Kong public can be easily misled into choosing the wrong people to sit on district councils. That is why she believes only around a fifth of seats on the local representational bodies should be directly-elected, as Damon Pang reports:

China has accused the United States of provoking confrontation by promising to strengthen its nuclear weapons commitments to South Korea. President Biden told his counterpart, Yoon Suk Yeol, that there would be an overwhelming response if North Korea launched a nuclear attack on the South. American submarines armed with nuclear weapons will in future dock in South Korea. A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said the promise risked stirring up tension even further on the Korean peninsula. South Korea's president is on a state visit to Washington and received frequent standing ovations while addressing a joint meeting of the US Congress earlier. RTHK's correspondent in Seoul, Frank Smith, told Annemarie Evans more about the deal the two sides struck: