Tiger runs away

A TIGER cub broke out of a cage and escaped during a circus performance Friday night in central China’s Henan Province, according to local authorities.

The local police of Yuanyang County received a phone call at around 9 p.m. that a tiger cub had escaped from a circus performance and run into the cornfields nearby in Taiping Township.

The police rushed to the site and launched a search immediately with drones and thermal imaging devices.

After joint efforts from the police and local people, the cub was successfully caught on Saturday morning. No damage was caused by the cub.

R&D spending

THE country’s spending on research and development (R&D) hit a record high at 2.19 percent of its GDP last year, up by 0.04 percentage points in 2017, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The country’s total expenditure on R&D amounted to 1.97 trillion yuan (US$278 billion) last year, up by 207.2 billion yuan compared with that in 2017, according to a report released by the NBS.

The investment in basic research for the first time surpassed 100 billion yuan last year, accounting for 5.5 percent of the total spending, said the NBS.

In 2016, six provincial regions in China, including Guangdong, Jiangsu, Beijing, Shandong, Zhejiang and Shanghai, each invested more than 100 billion yuan on R&D.