Around the nation: Chinese farmer finds 60kg of ancient coins buried deep in family land
Also, man caught for trying to blackmail 'adulterous' officials, and burglar jailed after falling asleep in home he broke into
A farmer in Haikou has found 60kg of ancient coins dating back 1,000 years buried deep in the soil on his farmland, the Nanguo City News reports. The coins were excavated from the land, but archaeologists said they were not valuable as a large amount of similar coins had also been discovered across the province over the years. The farmer said that back in the 1980s, his family had also dug up another 80kg of such ancient coins, which they later sold off as regular copper.
An elderly man and his wife have been forced to sleep on the streets in Haikou for two weeks after the man's adopted daughter drove them out of his home, the Nanguo City News reports. The 77-year-old man had been single for many years until he married the 61-year-old woman late last year, but his daughter accused the wife of eyeing his assets. The daughter, who was adopted 40 years ago, said she would allow her father to return home but not his wife, the report said.
A man has been arrested in Foshan for trying to blackmail 28 government officials with doctored photos supposedly showing them in bed with their mistresses, Guangdong Television reports. He planned to extort hundreds of thousands of yuan from each official, threatening to either send the pictures to the disciplinary authorities or release them on the internet if he was not paid. He was caught after a courier worker made a police report upon finding one of the photos that had slipped out of an envelope by accident.
A pet dog has helped his owners locate their two-year-old son who went missing in Foshan last week, reports. The boy's mother said this was not the first time the dog had helped them find their child after the toddler, who had been playing on his own around the village, lost his way home.
A man has turned himself in to police 11 days after a hit-and-run accident in which he knocked down a woman pedestrian in Zhengzhou's downtown area, the reports. The 28-year-old initially offered the injured woman 500 yuan (HK$630) in compensation, but when she did not agree to it, he fled the scene and drove the BMW - which did not belong to him - to Shanghai. The victim's medical bills, which have come up to 110,000 yuan so far, are being borne by the driver and the owner of the car.
The province's environmental protection authorities handled 2,687 cases last year in which firms breached environmental laws, reports. A total of 10 million yuan in fines was collected from those who violated the laws. Officials said they would focus enforcement efforts on industrial zones where polluting factories often discharged untreated water or air into the environment.
A man has been executed in Yiyang for killing a primary school pupil whom he kidnapped in 2012, the reports. He had demanded a 150,000 yuan ransom from the boy's parents, but when the child tried to escape, he smashed his head with a brick and stabbed him in the throat with a pair of scissors.
Petitions and whistle-blowing against local officials increased by more than half in 2013 and 2014, quotes the provincial disciplinary authorities as saying. The authorities have vowed to further intensify the anti-graft crackdown this year.
A zookeeper in Yichun was killed by a four-year-old tiger while cleaning its cage, reports. The man, who had worked at the zoo for 13 years, had forgotten to lock the inner chamber of the cage in which the tiger was kept, and was attacked by the animal. He was pronounced dead an hour after being taken to hospital for treatment, and the zoo has since been closed for investigations.
A man stood trial in Xian for chopping his wife to death, reports. The woman had married the suspect in February last year, but they argued often because the man believed that she looked down on him while the woman felt that the man was restricting her personal freedom. During a particularly heated argument last June, the man hacked the woman more than 50 times with a kitchen knife, killing her.
Residents in a village in Xian's Changan district have complained for many years about a milky, powdery layer of sediment in their boiled tap water, reports. Local water affairs officials had earlier said the sediment was because the water, which came from a well, was not purified. Their latest preliminary investigations showed the water quality was safe and that the sediment was from a high amount of calcium and magnesium in the water.
A bungling burglar has been sentenced to five months' jail and fined 1,000 yuan for breaking into a flat in Ningbo last October, the reports. The man, who did not found anything valuable in the flat after breaking in, decided to take a nap on the clean, comfortable bed, only to wake up at noon the next day to discover that the owner had already called police.
Six workers risked their lives diving into a river in Ningbo to save a driver whose SUV had plunged into the water after he lost control of the vehicle on a road, the reports. The driver, who had been trapped upside down in the car, was rescued with minor injuries. He said he was very grateful to the group of workers who had cast aside their own safety to help take him to safety.
