When many people are worried that there are no more heroes in the modem society, two university students who lost their lives to rescue drowning children have shown that heroes still exist.

According to the Inner Mongolia Morning Post, the tragedy occurred on the afternoon of December 14, 2002 when three school students skating on a frozen lake in Qingcheng Park in Hohhot fell through the ice into the freezing water.

More than 20 university students who happened to be near the spot immediately went to the rescue of the children.

Two children were quickly rescued, but the third died. The child’s body was not found for three hours. Two of the rescuers, Liu Ye and Hao Longbiao, also died of cold and exhaustion(筋疲力尽).

The body of Hao who took the lead in jumping into the lake was not found until the next day.

A student who was unwilling to tell his name said he and his classmates from the local college were taking photos at the lake. When they heard the children’s cries for help, they went to the ice hole hand in hand to rescue the children. But the ice kept breaking, causing most of them to fall into the icy water.

Local residents held mourning ceremonies (祭奠仪式) at the lake.

Eight of the students were seriously affected by the freezing water and were being kept in hospital for further observation, but their lives were no longer in danger.

A Dutch city will become the first in the world to ban meat adverts from public spaces in an effort to reduce consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (排放). Haarlem, which lies to the west of Amsterdam and has a population of 160,000, will pass the prohibition from 2024 after meat was added to a list of products thought to contribute to the climate crisis.

Adverts will not be allowed on Haarlem’s buses, shelters and screens in public spaces, causing complaints from the meat sector that the city government is “going too far in telling people what’s best for them”.

Recent studies suggest global food production is responsible for one-third of all planet-heating emissions, with the use of animals for meat accounting for twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods. Forests that absorb carbon dioxide are cut down for the grazing (放牧) of animals while fertilizers used for growing their feed are rich in nitrogen (氮), which can contribute to air and water pollution and climate change. Livestock also produces large quantities of methane (甲烷), a powerful greenhouse gas.

Ziggy Klazes, a councilor from the GroenLinks party, who drafted (起草) the law banning meat advertising, said she had not known the city would be the world’s first to enforce (执行) such a policy when she proposed it. She told the Haarlem 105 radio channel, “We are not about what people are baking and roasting in their own kitchen; if people wanted to continue eating meat, fine… Of course, there are a lot of people who find the decision unacceptable, but there are also a lot of people who think it’s fine.”

The ban also covers holiday flights, fossil fuels and cars that run on fossil fuels. The ban is delayed until 2024 due to existing contracts with companies that sell the products.

Research suggests that to meet the EU target of net zero emissions by 2050, meat consumption must be reduced to 24kg per person per year, compared with the current average of 82kg or 75.8kg in the Netherlands, which is the EU’s biggest meat exporter.

Most of the world’s crops depend on honeybees and wild bees for pollination (授粉), so decline in both managed and wild bee populations raises concerns about food security, the study notes in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological sciences.

“We found that many crops are pollination-limited, meaning crop production would be higher if crop flowers received more pollination. We also found that honeybees and wild bees provided similar amounts of pollination in general,” said senior author Rachael Winfree, a professor at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “Managing habitat for native bee species and stocking more honeybees would raise pollination levels and could increase crop production.

Pollination by wild and managed insects is important for most crops, including those providing basic micronutrients, and is important for food security, the study notes. In the US, the production of crops that depend on pollinators generates more than $50 billion a year. According to recent evidence, European honeybees and some native wild bee spices are in decline.

At 131 farms across the United States and in British Columbia, Canada, scientists collected data on insect pollination of crop of flowers and yields (产量) for apples, highbush blueberries, sweet cherries, tart cherries, almonds, watermelon and pumpkin. Of those, apples, sweet cherries, tart cherries and blueberries showed evidence of being limited by pollination, showing that yields are currently lower than they would be with full pollination. Wild bees and honeybees provided similar amounts of pollination for most crops.

The annual production value of wild pollinations for all seven crops was an estimated $1.5 billion — plus in the US. The value of wild bee pollination for all pollinator-dependent crops would be much greater.

“Our findings showed that the decline of pollinators could translate directly into decreased yields for most of the crops studied,” the study says. The findings suggest that adopting practices that protect wild bees, such as increasing wildflowers and using managed pollinators other than honeybees, is likely to raise yields. Increasing investment in honeybee colonies (群落) is another possible choice.