Beijing prepares plans for big smog

Beijing is upgrading its air pollution warning and emergency response system.

Emergency response measures include an odd-even license plate rule for vehicles, shutdown and emission reduction of heavy polluters and suspension of school classes, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection.

Starting in November, the warning system for Beijing, Tianjin and other heavy-polluted surrounding areas will boast three levels.

When the PM2.5 air quality index is set to go above 500 for three consecutive days, a level I warning will be issued. Level II is for 300 to 500 and III for 200 to 300.

The Beijing government outlined in early September its enhanced efforts to tackle air pollution over the next four years in the Beijing 2013-17 Clean Air Action Plan and on September 25 pledged to invest 1 trillion yuan ($163 billion) in clean air efforts.

Wrong place, wrong time for vendors

Five unlucky men with the wrong accents were mistaken for child traffickers by an angry mob of thousands in Yunyang, Chongqing, police announced on Tuesday.

After parents discovered a pedophile had allegedly used ice cream to lure their four girls aged 5-8 up a hill and molest them, they called on neighbors to join them in a posse to help catch the man.

As the crowd brought the alleged criminal down the hill, someone overheard a Henan man making a phone call and murmuring a word like "sell."

They rounded on the man and other Henanese in the crowd, then called police. The men's van was turned over as the mob barricaded another Henan man inside a restaurant, refusing to let police take him away.

It was later found all the five Henan men were street vendors and had nothing to do with the child molestation. The alleged pedophile, surnamed Zhu, was arrested.