Domestic migrants who have lost or need to renew their identification cards can now apply for a replacement in localities other than where their “hukou” (household registration) is registered.

The Ministry of Public Security on Saturday said public security departments nationwide have issued nearly five million new identification cards under this new rule.

The reform has made the process much more convenient, according to the ministry.

With rapid economic and social development, China’s rural migrant worker population continues to grow. Official statistics released last April put the number at more than 277 million in 2015, up 1.3 percent from the previous year.

The 15th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform in August 2015 adopted a document that committed the country to cutting red tape, which included the ID card renewal measure.

China plans to relocate 3.4 million people from poverty-stricken communities to more developed areas this year as part of its poverty reduction drive, according to government sources.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s economic planner, said 2.49 million people living in poverty had been relocated in 2016, meeting the target for the year.

By the end of 2016, there were relocation projects in 22 provinces, which include housing, infrastructure and public services, Yang Qian, an official with the NDRC said.

Local authorities are also exploring supportive industries, employment and social security for the relocated people.

China has vowed to lift all of its poor out of poverty by 2020. Alleviating poverty through relocation is one aspect of the strategy.

By the end of 2016, there were 45 million people living in poverty, many in areas without roads, clean drinking water or power.

Tiger keepers in a northeastern province in China have found a novel way to keep their cats in shape over the winter — a cat and mouse game, but the mouse in this instance is the keeper’s vehicle.

The staff at the Siberian Tiger Park in Heilongjiang, a world leader in tiger breeding, realized that the tigers always followed the feeding truck around their enclosure, so the keepers turned into coaches and started to drive the vehicle around between meals.

Captive tigers eat about 8kg of meat each day, and the staff at the Siberian Tiger Park feed their big cats 10 percent more in winter because of the cold, said Liu Dan, with the park.

If the cats do not exercise they will gain weight and, like humans, if they are obese they are at risk of high blood pressure, metabolic disorders and could die earlier.

A male adult Siberian tiger normally weighs around 250 kg.

China Railway Corp. expects 8.2 million trips to be made by rail Saturday as it is Lantern Festival, the end of the lunar new year celebrations.

The company said it had scheduled an additional 598 trains to cope with demand.

On Friday, 8.92 million trips were made by rail.

The Lunar New Year holiday was from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2 this year. The period, which is also known as Spring Festival, is known as the largest human migration in the world, as hundreds of millions of people go back to their hometowns, putting huge stress on the transportation system.

The first post-festival travel rush started toward the end of the week-long holiday. The second travel rush usually happens around Lantern Festival, when students return to start a new semester and migrant workers return to work.

China will spend 50 billion yuan (about 7.3 billion U.S. dollars) on building methane projects in rural areas as the government seeks to increase the use of clean energy.

According to a plan released by the country’s top economic planner, during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period, China will build 172 new biogas projects and 3,150 large-scale methane projects.

The plan aims to increase the country’s methane producing capacity by 4.9 billion cubic meters, replace the equivalent of 3.49 million tonnes of standard coal with cleaner energy and cut carbon emissions by 17.62 million tonnes.

The projects will benefit more than 230 million rural residents.

China’s fast-growing economy has seen rural energy consumption surge and the rapid expansion of the livestock breeding and agro-industries. These rural businesses create billions of tons of biomass waste annually, which can potentially be used to produce energy.

According to official estimates, China generates 1.4 billion tonnes of rural waste materials annually that could be used for methane production. This amount of waste could produce 73.6 billion cubic meters of biogas and replace 87.6 million tonnes of standard coal.