Front Page: July 11

To our readers,

Front Page is an experimental news project by China Daily Website, mainly for our WeChat users. WeChat, a mobile chatting tool developed by Tencent Holdings Ltd, has more than 300 million users, including over 70 million overseas. You can find us by searching for public account Real Time China on WeChat or read online. The content and form will be updated constantly to meet the needs of readers. We will summarize the key topics on social networking sites and newspapers.

On Twitter-like Weibo, the most discussed topic is rainstorms in Sichuan province. The downpours have been battering most parts of Sichuan since Monday evening, with seven people dead and 48 missing as of 7 pm Wednesday. Torrential rain also pounded Wenchuan county, the epicenter of an earthquake on May 12, 2008, that left 87,000 people dead or missing.

Photos of Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, two students who died during the airline crash in San Francisco, were shared by their Chinese friends on social networking sites and widely redistributed on Weibo.

The top search word on Chinese search engine Baidu.com is Guo Meimei wishing to be as slim as lightning. Guo remained the center of attention after she almost single-handedly brought a public credibility crisis to the Red Cross Society of China in 2011. This time it's a weight problem. She was ridiculed for editing pictures to make herself look slim.

It has been several days, but the picture taken on July 7 still dominates the Baidu search. A woman carrying a man battling through a flooded street in Wuhan, Hubei province. Some Internet users said the woman may have lost in rock paper scissors, but one China Daily editor said the man must be wearing very expensive shoes.

Should children be allowed to enter university campuses? This should not be a question in a country with a smaller population, but the Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics made headlines after it tried to ban children from entering the campus, as students complained about noise and the use of school resources, such as the lawns or even the relatively cheaper canteen services.

Zhou Shengxian, the minister of environmental protection, is also at the center of attention after he said his ministry is one of the world's most embarrassing government departments. Zhou said the ministry is under heavy pressure, but the solutions for the pollution problem should involve joint efforts by different departments from different regions.