Drug dealers sentenced

FIVE people have been sentenced to death for drug dealing, according to a court in North China’s Shanxi Province.

Of the 23 people involved in the case, three received death sentences with a reprieve, and one received a life sentence. The rest were sentenced to three to 16 years imprisonment, according to the ruling of the intermediate people’s court in the city of Jincheng on Friday.

Their personal properties were confiscated.

The drug gang was involved in selling drugs weighing more than 84 kilograms between September 2016 and January 2017. They were busted in January 2017.

Drug trafficking is a felony offense in China. The maximum sentence for anyone convicted of selling or producing more than 50 grams of heroin is the death penalty.

Poverty alleviation

FORTY-ONE counties in North China’s Shanxi Province have shaken off poverty so far, the provincial government announced Saturday.

Among them are nine counties, including Lishi, Jiaocheng and Wanrong, which were recently removed from the list of poor counties.

Depression treatment

THREE hospitals in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region have established an alliance for depressive disorder prevention and treatment to boost coordinated medical care development in the region, local authorities said Friday.

The alliance was launched by the First Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Peking University Sixth Hospital and Tianjin Anding Hospital.