IN BRIEF

Beijing

US embassy getscharge d'affaires

Jonathan Fritz was named charge d'affaires at the United States embassy, according to an announcement by the embassy on Tuesday. David Rank left the post for personal reasons, the embassy said. Media reports speculated that Rank's leaving the embassy was in response to US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. There has been no update about when the new US Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, will assume office in Beijing, the embassy said.

Guangdong

Ex-Party chief sentenced to death

Chen Hongping, former Party chief of Jieyang city, was sentenced to death, but the sentence was suspended for two years. Chen accepted more than 139 million yuan ($20.4 million) in bribes, according to the Intermediate People's Court in Foshan. Chen took the bribes and sought benefits for others from 2004 to 2011, when he served as mayor and Party chief of the city, the court said. All his illegal gains were confiscated. Chen was expelled from the Party and public positions by the provincial discipline authorities in 2013.

Shandong

7 killed, 6 hurt in bus rollover

Seven people died and six were seriously injured when a bus with 33 passengers aboard slipped off the road and overturned near Rizhao around 10 am on Tuesday, according to police in the city. The bus was heading to Qingdao. The crash was apparently related to rain and slippery road conditions on the Shenyang-Haikou Expressway.

Death toll rises in plant explosion

Searchers pulled two more bodies out of debris on Tuesday at a petrochemical plant in Linyi, bringing the death toll to 10 in an explosion and fire at the plant on Monday morning. Their identities were being confirmed by police, according to the emergency rescue headquarters. Nine other people were injured in the blast. A liquefied gas tank exploded around 1 am, igniting a fire in the loading area of Linyi Jinyu Petrochemical Company in the city's Lingang Economic Development Area.

Guangxi

Police bust drug factory at farm

Police said on Tuesday that a methamphetamine workshop hidden at a chicken farm has been broken up. Twenty suspects were held, they said. More than 200 police officers were involved in the raid in Gusi, a remote mountain village in Nanning, on May 31, according to the Nanning public security bureau. They confiscated more than 560 kilograms of methamphetamine and more than 140 kg of chloroephedrine, an intermediate material for making the drug, along with equipment and more than 860,000 yuan ($127,000), the bureau said.