Around China

Shaanxi

17 rescued from illegal sales den

A woman, surnamed Li, was rescued from a secret pyramid sales group when she wrote a plea for help on a banknote and threw it out of a building in Baoji on Dec 9. Li, who comes from Chongqing, was one of 17 young people rescued from the illegal sales den hidden on the fifth floor of a residential building. Victims were held at the location and forced to raise funds from friends and family. Local resident Zhou Xinchang called the police after he picked up the banknote.

Huashang Daily

Jiangsu

Commuter fined for changing road signs

A man, surnamed Cai, who altered road markings to speed up his daily commute was fined 1,000 yuan ($150) in Lianyungang. Video footage showed Cai using white paint to alter road markings at a busy intersection. Cai told police he was frustrated by the continually congested intersection when he took the bus home from work. He said the lanes for vehicles going straight ahead were always packed, while those allocated for turning were often empty. Workers restored the intersection to its original design the same day.

Yangtze Evening News

Debts, theft land student in jail

A college student from a poor farming family was sentenced on Dec 10 to four years and six months in prison for amassing debts of 550,000 yuan ($83,095) and stealing more than 197,000 yuan from his classmates in Huaian. Wang Xiaohai, from Shanxi province, purchased a BMW car, iPhone and other luxury products using the loans and the stolen money. Wang was detained when his classmates called police in April.

Yangtze Evening News

Zhejiang

Research gets up gay men's noses

Researchers at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou are wrapping up a controversial two-year study in which they sprayed oxytocin up the noses of gay men to see if it affected their sexual orientation. Oxytocin is a hormone produced in the brain that is involved in childbirth and breast-feeding, and is broadly associated with trust and empathy. It's sometimes called the "love hormone" or the "cuddle hormone" because levels of oxytocin rise during hugs and orgasms. However, oxytocin's exact role in love and sexuality is not well understood.

Shanghaiist.com

Xinjiang

Attendant who ate leftovers punished

A flight attendant was suspended from her job after a video of her eating a meal left by a passenger went viral on Chinese social media in Urumqi. Urumqi Air said the attendant had been suspended on Dec 7 for not following standard procedure. Netizens from across China reacted to the incident with a mixture of confusion and outrage, asking why eating leftovers was such a big deal and attacking the person who shot the footage and shared it online.

Shanghaiist.com

Sichuan

Man uses 110 yuan to signal distress

A man managed to escape the clutches of an illegal pyramid sales group when he showed a taxi driver 110 yuan ($15) - the number for the police hotline - in Mianyang on Dec 10. Xu Xia, from Hebei province, found himself in trouble when he arrived in the city to meet his online girlfriend, a supervisor in the group. When Xu and the woman took a taxi, Xu sat in the front and repeatedly showed the taxi driver 110 yuan, indicating he was in trouble. The taxi driver finally realized what Xu meant and drove away when the woman, who was sitting in the back seat, got out of the cab first.

Chengdu Business Daily