• Beijing calls for family leave to show filial piety

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  A new plan calls for employers in Beijing to give staff more time off to show filial piety to their elderly relatives as the government aims to build a senior-friendly city. This is the first time that the capital has proposed such leave, reported Beijing News on Wednesday.

• Beijing doles out cash rewards for exiting chemical plants

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  Beijing is offering cash rewards as an incentive for chemical plants that leave the nation's capital. Eighty hazardous chemical plants should be out of the city by 2018, the local work safety watchdog said on Thursday.

• Is Beijing really sinking?

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  Recently, some foreign media reported that excessive pumping of groundwater is causing the geology under Beijing to collapse, which has attracted wide attention. The Water Supplies Bureau of Beijing responded that the decline of groundwater levels has been slowed down currently and it is expected that starting from 2025, the underground water level of Beijing will gradually recover.

• Beijing to raise threshold for issuing air pollution 'red alerts'

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  BEIJING - Beijing is to raise the thresholds for issuing its highest air pollution warnings, the state news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday, two months after smog triggered the city's first ever "red alerts".

• Beijing, 5 other cities to fight smog together

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  The national environmental authority has launched a new plan that targets Beijing, Tianjin and four neighboring cities with tough restrictions in an effort to curb severe smog in the northern region.

• Hospitals to require advance bookings

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  Patients with nonemergency conditions will soon have to make advance appointments before going to a major hospital in Beijing.

• China to ease permanent residence application process for foreigners

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  BEIJING -- China will ease the permanent resident application process for foreigners, according to a circular issued by the general offices of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council.

• Red-Letter Day: Uncovering Beijing’s Literary and Ideological Past

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  It’s a bitterly cold Beijing morning with flurries of snow floating around us. I’m joining Nelly Alix from Beijing by Heart (who also took us on a visit of Guozijian last August) for a three-hour walking tour. We’ll be exploring the city’s past, with stops at the former residence of writer Lao She, the Red Building of the old Peking University, and Zhongshan Park, where writers gathered for artistic inspiration in the 1920s.

• Beijing Railway Stations Trialing Facial Recognition Security System

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  Although the outbound leg of travel for Spring Festival is almost over, travelers leaving Beijing after the celebrations may have the chance to utilize a new security system being tested at Beijing's railway stations, state-run media reported.

• Beijing's Mysterious Line 3 to Finally Begin Construction

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  At the government affairs consultation in late January, Dai Mengdong, the deputy director of the city's major affairs office stated that Beijing's Subway Line 3 was due to begin construction in 2016.