A restaurant in China's Changsha has faced a backlash for taking
President Xi's instructions to decrease food waste seriously. This
Chuiyan Fried Beef outlet placed two scales at its front door alongside
a request that customers weigh themselves and order accordingly.
Notes beside the scales listed certain foods and portion sizes that
might suit a man or woman in various weight bands.
Responding to accusations of fat-shaming, chain president Tan Yan
stated that the restaurant is deeply sorry for any offence and that it
will clarify that customers are not required to use the scales.
The Orlando Fire Department has described a call-out to Florida's Shooters World gun range, where a teenaged girl had climbed inside a gun safe on the showroom floor and found herself behind its closed and, therefore, locked door. Fire District Chief J.J. White stated that the crew began by trying the manufacturer's suggestions. When 'the fail-safe system failed on it', they asked the girl to stand back and then used hydraulic extraction tools to bend the safe to their will.
After George-Floyd-connected unrest boiled over, the couple who own Michigan's Nordic Pineapple bed and breakfast were accused of promoting racism by flying a Confederate flag outside their establishment. Kjersten and Greg Offenecker, who have two black children, have responded by pulling down both flags from above this Civil-War-era mansion building: the offending Norwegian one and that of the US. While some locals have urged them to fly Norway's flag once more, the Offeneckers state that they won't do so until they can figure out how to ensure that no further confusion ensues.
Things took a rather darker turn in the case of Alexander, Arkansas,
police officer Calvin 'Nick' Salyers, who told a colleague what would
happen if any protesters dared visit his home: he would 'shoot through
the door'. As far as we know, no protesters came calling. However,
fellow officer Scott Hutton did, to collect a patrol car locked in a
nearby garage. Knocking on the home's door after receiving no
response to his 'are you awake' text message, the 36-year-old rookie
cop was greeted with a round from Salyers's service weapon.
Salyers later explained that he'd fired accidentally while switching
hands to open the door to the gun-on-hip figure he'd spied through his
peephole. However, the state police reported finding evidence that
the Glock had been pressed against the door when fired.
Hutton died at a local hospital after Salyers rang 911.
A![[IMG: Sugar, looking doglike]](images/shaggy_dog.jpg)
fter Maine's Islesboro Department of Public Safety received reports
of a bear roaming the town, residents were advised to keep a close eye
on their rubbish bins and their pets. It later emerged that a bear
hadn't, in fact, managed the 3 km swim to the island town: locals had
mistaken one of those pets, a large dog named Sugar, for an ursine
visitor to the area.
A somewhat different experience awaited Emily Visnic, a West Palm
Beach, Florida, woman when she returned to her high-rise building
after a run and started removing her freshly cleaned laundry from her
washing machine. Though she didn't remember having any
snake-skin-print clothing, Visnic reached in to grab just such an item.
After screaming, she contacted the building's maintenance company to
remove the python from her laundry room.
Visnic later reported that animal-control officers deemed the snake
too large to have arrived via the building's pipes. She also learned
that, on the previous day, her downstairs neighbour had told the
front-desk staff of hissing from the ventilation system.
Kemah Siverand had been a quarterback with the Seattle Seahawks for only a few months when he was released from his contract. The problem wasn't with his playing. Rather, he violated a long-standing policy against bringing outside visitors into the team's hotel, a policy reiterated in light of anti-COVID-19 efforts. Although decked out in a Seahawks visor and other team garb, the woman accompanying Siverand did not pass for a member of the team and was turned away immediately.
After Calvary Chapel of the Desert was given a warning for breaching
Nevada's coronavirus-related restrictions on religious gatherings,
Pastor Chuck Carver found a workaround. In his words, 'we put up the
slot machines and bam -- no more restrictions'. He considers
the gambling machines' lights and noises during his sermons a small
price to pay, especially since they are offsetting recent months'
lost tithing.
This development follows on from a 5-4 Supreme Court denial of the
claim that the rules unlawfully treat the church worse than Nevada's
casinos. Among those dissenting was Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote
that 'there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to
favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel'.
T![[IMG: Dodd's driving licence]](images/chair.jpg)
ennessee's Jade Dodd chose the hassle-free way of renewing her
driving licence, applying online and receiving the card by post. Upon
its arrival, she soon noticed that it was missing her photo - the
image on the licence was of an empty chair. Ultimately, she had to
visit a Department of Motor Vehicles office in person anyway, to get
the error corrected. Agency spokesman Wes Moster explained that Dodd
'received an image of a chair because that was the last picture
taken on file'.
She has received a new driving licence, but references to the
erroneous one are bound to linger. For instance, her boss 'pointed to
a chair outside of his office door and was like "I thought this was
you. I waved at it this morning", and I was like "thanks"'.
Rhode Island state officials have blamed a 'technical glitch' for 176 tax-refund cheques bearing the signatures of Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney, who are not the state's general treasurer and account controller. Jade Borgeson, chief of staff for the Rhode Island Department of Revenue, explained that 'the invalid signature lines were incorrectly sourced from the Division's test print files'. The taxpayers affected, mostly corporate entities, have been sent corrected cheques.
The co-ordinator of a theatrical production company in Japan has
found a way to keep his theme-park actors employed amidst requirements
for social distancing. In their Kowagarasetai (Scare Squad) service,
the customer lies in a plastic coffin throughout a 15-minute show that
features such characters as chainsaw-wielding zombies. One customer,
36-year-old Kazushiro Hashiguchi, reported on the experience: 'Lots of
events have been cancelled because of the coronavirus, and I was
looking for a way to get rid of my stress. I feel relaxed now.'
The shows are now being held at a temporarily disused
passenger lounge in Tokyo, but co-ordinator Kenta Iwana has plans to
take them on the road. He said: 'We needed to have something that
we could take anywhere, and coffins are easy to move.'
More than a year ago, Illinois's Long Grove Covered Bridge was damaged
by a tall shipping lorry. One day after its much-anticipated grand
reopening, it was hit by a chartered school bus whose driver chose to
follow the advice of her passengers rather than the vehicle's GPS
unit. The next day, a WLS-TV crew interviewing locals about the
damage to the historic structure witnessed another vehicle striking
it. When the lorry driver responsible was tracked down, he explained
that he thought he'd heard his load of medical supplies shifting.
The bridge is still structurally sound, but its structure might soon
be augmented with physical barriers on either side, to deter other
overly tall vehicles from earning their driver a traffic citation.
The AFP reports on Lee Price III, a 29-year-old man who received $1.6 million in government loans to pay his many employees while the COVID-19 pandemic rages. This comes to $1.6 million per worker. That worker, Price, bought such items as a Lamborghini, lap dances, and a Rolex watch before being hauled off to jail for fraud. One of the clues leading to his arrest was the fact that the CEO listed on one of the loan forms was dead on the application date, according to the Justice Department.
T![[IMG: the accident scene]](images/autoprang.jpg)
o unwind after a long day at work, North Carolina emergency-room
physician Devainder Goli decided to watch a film on his mobile phone.
In combination with his car's regrettably named Autopilot feature,
this decision caused Goli, 66, to crash into a Nash County patrol car
that was responding to an accident on the motorway. The Tesla's
impact, in turn, sent the police car smashing into a North Carolina
State Highway Patrol vehicle. Two officers were knocked to the
ground but not seriously injured.
F![[IMG: Julio Luengo tunnel with scooter in it]](images/scootertunnel.jpg)
inally, an 88-year-old man identified his fastest route home
in Gran Canaria as via the Julio Luengo tunnel. This led to some
problems, partly because he entered the tunnel with no lights on and
partly because his vehicle's top speed of 8 km/hour was no match for
the prevailing speed on the motorway. His mobility scooter had created
what was described as an hours-long queue of vehicles before the
police were able to pull behind him, slowly, and escort him from the
fast lane.
According to La Provincia, the man explained that he hadn't known
that his actions were against the law, and the police decided not
to bring charges against him.