A man in Germany may not have been in danger when he called the police on a baby squirrel chasing him, but it all worked out for the best for the furry suspect.

Emergency services in the city of Karistruhe got a call on Thursday from a man afraid that the tiny animal wouldn't stop following him around, The Guardian reported. Police arrived at the scene, where the squirrel finally stopped running after him by lying down and going to sleep.

It turned out that the squirrel actually needed help, the police said, “It often happens that squirrels which have lost their mothers look for a replacement and then focus their efforts on one person,” the police spokesman Christian Krenz told The Guardian.

The squirrel, now named Karl-Friedrich, is in the care of an animal rescue center. Karlstruhe police posted a statement on Facebook about the animal, including several lovely photos. The department wished Karl-Friedrich the best.

The baby squirrel chase is the second police-involved squirrel incident to make international headlines this summer. Last month, a London woman called the police after she heard loud noises in her home and suspected a thief. The unwanted visitor turned out to be a “rogue squirrel”, according to the police who came for help.

Although authorities in the German case said the squirrel did need assistance, wildlife experts generally warn that before dealing with the case where you suspect a squirrel is orphaned, you should do your best to make sure the creature truly requires help. The Wildlife Center of Virginia, which gets hundreds of calls annually about supposedly orphaned squirrels, published this handy guide to help determine whether such an animal really needs help and what to do if so. When in doubt, contact a local wildlife rescuer, a rehab center on animal control.

A super-reflective cooling coating

A team of Columbia University researchers thinks that painting buildings with a new type of coating could help. Some cities already use white roofs to try to cool buildings by reflecting sunlight. But the new coating developed by the scientists can help buildings even cooler.

"It's like snow," says Yuan Yang, an assistant professor at Columbia. Snow, he explains, is filled with micron-sized（微米级的）crystals of ice that create tiny pockets of air that scatter light—the effect that makes snow white rather than transparent like ice, and highly reflective. The researchers created a polymer（聚合物）coating that also has nano to-micro-scale pockets of air that turn it white. "Our paint can be much more reflective than normal paint," he says.

Regular white paint might reflect 85% of the sunlight that hits it. The new coating, depending on its thickness, could reflect as much as 99%. If used with colored paint, it's less effective, but also keeps buildings cooler than they would otherwise be; the coating is also less effective in areas with high humidity（湿度）. In a hot, dry city like Phoenix, the white coating could keep a building around 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the outdoor air on a summer day. Most Arizonans have air conditioning, and in a city where temperatures regularly reach well over 100 degrees, the coating isn't likely to replace it. But it could help buildings use less energy to stay cool. For the small fraction of residents there who don't have air conditioning, the coating could potentially help protect their health on the hottest days. In 2018, more than 155 people in Phoenix died in heat waves.

In places where air conditioning is currently uncommon, such as Seattle, where there were a record number of hot days last July, but only one-third of residents have air conditioning, the coating might help stave off （延缓）the need to install new systems. In the developing world, the coating could potentially help those who don't yet have electricity or who can't afford an air conditioner. But the biggest impact of the technology—which the researchers hope to commercialize—is likely to be its ability to help air conditioners use a little less electricity and help cut emissions. Without changes, the emissions from air conditioners are predicted to almost double by mid-century.

HONG KONG—The government said early Thursday(today) that its first charter flight will take home at least 92 Hong Kong passengers who have been quarantined aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan since early this month. The number of passengers to be evacuated via the first flight that was scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong on Thursday morning was higher than the 45 announced on Wednesday, The 45 are among 52 Hong Kong passengers who were allowed to disembark from the ship and chosc to take the flight, according to Under Secretary for Security Sonny Au Chi-kwong, who is in Japan to handle the issue.

Under the HKSAR government's arrangements, all of them will be required to stay at quarantine centers for 14 days on their return to Hong Kong. The Diamond Princess has been quarantined at Yokohama port since Feb 4. So far, 621 people on board have been infected by the novel coronavirus, including 53 from Hong Kong.

The SAR government has arranged two chartered fights to take Hong Kong passengers stranded on the ship back to the city free of charge. The second flight is also expected to leave Tokyo on Thursday, according to Au. He said about 230 among the 352 Hong Kong passengers on the Diamond Princess have indicated they would like to take the chartered flights home. Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu told the Legislative Council on Wednesday the government may arrange a third chartered flight to Tokyo to take back the rest of the passengers.

Meanwhile, the tally of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Hong Kong reached 65 on Wednesday, while the fatality toll rose to two following the death of a 70-year-old patient in Princess Margaret Hospital.

In Shenzhen, the authorities have set up a green channel for processing Hong Kong visa applications to visit family members or relatives, study, work or for training programs amid the epidemic. The Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau said the green channel will keep human-to-human contacts to the minimum in processing the applications.