samhexum

About the safety of taking a road trip in China... A newly built bridge partially collapsed in southwest China on Tuesday, sending large pieces of concrete plunging far below in a cloud of dust. Authorities said the 2,487-foot-long Hongqi Bridge, which connects Sichuan province with Tibet as part of a national highway, was closed on Monday after cracks began to appear on nearby slopes and roads in the mountainous region. On Tuesday, a landslide caused the bridge to fracture and collapse, according to officials in the Sichuan city of Ma’erkang, also known in Tibetan as Barkam. There were no reported casualties from the incident. The cause is still being investigated by authorities in Sichuan, a seismically active region where a 7.9-magnitude earthquake killed more than 69,000 people in 2008. Construction of the bridge was only completed earlier this year, local media reported. China has in recent years made massive investments in infrastructure, including roads, railways and bridges. In September, the world’s highest bridge opened in the southern province of Guizhou, taking the crown from another bridge in the same province. In July 2024, Chinese authorities said at least 11 people died in a partial collapse of a highway bridge in the northwest province of Shaanxi.

Emmy winner Brett Goldstein ("Ted Lasso") will play a divorced dad who accidentally becomes a male escort in the comedy "Escorted," which has earned an eight-episode order from Prime Video.

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Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Claseand Luis Ortiz have been indicted by prosecutors in Brooklyn on charges involving sports betting, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN, among others. Ortiz was arrested earlier today. Clase is not currently in custody. Clase and Ortiz are charged with “wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery, and money laundering conspiracy, for their alleged roles in a scheme to rig bets on pitches thrown” according to the Department of Justice, relayed by Zack Meisel of The Athletic. The indictment details an alleged scheme that involves the pitchers purposely throwing balls so gamblers could bet on pitches being balls or strikes. It began as early as May 2023 with Clase, according to the indictment. The allegations from prosecutors in the indictment include a specific incident on June 15, when Ortiz was paid $5K for throwing an intentional ball, and Clase received $5K for facilitating it. Co-conspirators won at least $400K on fraudulent wagers relating to Clase and at least $60K on fraudulent wagers relating to Ortiz, prosecutors allege in the indictment. Clase and Ortiz face up to 65 years in prison if convicted on all charges. “MLB contacted federal law enforcement at the outset of its investigation and has fully cooperated throughout the process. We are aware of the indictment and today’s arrest, and our investigation is ongoing,” the league said in a statement to ESPN. Ortiz was placed on non-disciplinary paid leave in early July, and Clase followed later in the month. The pitchers had their absences extended“until further notice” at the end of August as the league continued its gambling investigation.

You should be more specific with your headlines. You had me thinking that it was never mentioned that Steve Landesberg's character on Barney Miller had a daughter.

Target workers now must follow official guidelines on how to interact with customers. The new guidelines encourage them to be more welcoming to in-store guests. While Target has long encouraged employees to be friendly, which is the norm in the retail world, the new guidelines are much more specific than in the past. Bloomberg News reported that the policy is known as the “10-4” rule because of what it requires. Specifically, under Target’s new 10-4 policy: If customers are within 10 feet of a worker, the worker must make eye contact, smile, and say hello. If customers come within four feet of a worker, the worker must either ask if they need help or check in to see how their day is going. The policy is reportedly similar to one that Walmart has had in place for a long time, which requires employees to make eye contact if a customer comes within 10 feet. However, it goes a few steps further in its requirements. In the r/Target subreddit, the announcement was greeted with a lot of skepticism about whether it would have a positive impact. One Reddit poster commented, “Good luck greeting people who don’t even want to talk to you.”

How bored am I? I watched all six of this season's Chicago med episodes in one sitting last night and I suppose I will continue to watch it because I need stuff to fill up the empty hours of my life, but it will be at the very bottom of my rankings. The Sherlock Holmes related storylines on Watson bore me to tears, but I prefer the show's characters and medical cases to Med's.

I liked this week's episode. The actor who played the priest (Timothy V. Murphy) played a lot of bad guys about a decade ago and I always found him quite handsome for an "older guy." (Of course he's all of 2 years and 4 months older than I am.) I first noticed him on CHUCK and NCIS: LA.

HE WON! He was on THE VIEW for the first time today:

Austin Butler Had More Than 40 Appearances In A Classic Nickelodeon Sitcom - TVLine WWW.TVLINE.COM Years before he rose to big-screen fame on films such as Elvis, Austin Butler was little more than an extra for most of this Nickelodeon teen sitcom's...

I commend you for listening to the movie's advice.

https://www.aol.com/articles/biggest-changes-coming-hooters-chains-185133682.html Biggest Changes Coming To Hooters After The Chain's Founders Take Back Control A group called Original Hooters LLC, made up of some of the original owners and investors, has taken control of the restaurant again, buying it back during the bankruptcy process with plans to reinvigorate the franchise. The new-but-old owners want to take Hooters back to its roots, and for them, that means making it family-friendly, doing away with the controversial and revealing uniforms the chain is known for. The orange shorts and white t-shirts remain, but the plan is for the shorts to become more modest, keeping in line with how uniforms looked in the 1980s when Hooters opened. Those shorts are by no means long, but they are closer to a traditional athletic short and not as revealing as some later versions were under the previous owners. As for the rest of the uniform, which is traditionally just a tight, revealing shirt, there are no changes planned. Instead, the rest of the revamp will focus on the restaurant itself and the food that it serves. Hooters is famous for chicken wings, but despite that, reviews over the years have not always been kind. The wings are often considered inconsistent or average, although we ranked them fairly high amongst other popular chains' wings. In order to address this problem and put the wings front and center again, the chain plans to make all of its wings fresh, no longer using frozen products. That also includes hand-breading the wings according to the original recipe and using AA-grade butter in the wing sauce. That focus on freshness will extend across the menu, which will be simplified. No word on exactly what that means or what may be cut, but the new owners seem focused on higher-quality ingredients. Another thing diners can look forward to at the revamped Hooters is salad dressings that are made in-house.

I was watching family feud while waiting for a dental cleaning today. They got up to the final round and the first woman came out and with her five answers she got a total of 30 points, partly because when she was asked name a country known for its beautiful scenery, she replied Paris. Then the next person came out, who I think may have been her mother, and for the same question, she answered London.

On a small island off the coast of Nagoya, Japan, one traffic light follows an unusual schedule of turning green just once every year. The place is Himakajima, a fishing community with roughly 2,000 residents and one intersection that has become famous for its peculiarity. The light is fully functional and connected to the town’s power grid, but it spends nearly all of its time blinking yellow and red. It wasn’t installed for cars at all. This traffic light was built to teach children how to cross the street, rather than to coordinate vehicles. The Himaka Traffic Safety Association introduced the light in 1994 after realizing local kids had no real experience with traffic signals before leaving the island for mainland schools or jobs. Before that, lessons used small training props that couldn’t replicate the timing and sound of real signals. Once a year, usually in May, the island activates the light’s green cycle for a single day so children can practice safely crossing the road like they would in a busy city. During the event, teachers, parents, and officials gather near Hakajima East Port, where the light stands. The usual flashing yellow along the coastal road and red toward the port switches to a full sequence of red, yellow, and green. Children line up, wait for the signal to change, look both ways, and cross the zebra stripes with raised arms. The practice also helps younger residents understand city traffic etiquette. Himakajima’s roads rarely see more than a handful of vehicles at a time, so kids can grow up without seeing how signals actually work. The annual event bridges that gap, simulating realistic crossings to help the children grasp how fast the light changes and what safe reactions look like. A Curious Attraction Visitors are charmed and curious about this strange ritual, and every year, media circulate online showing the children’s training day. Travelers planning a trip often check the local government website to find out when the light’s “green day” will happen, although the date changes slightly each year. When the event is over, the intersection quietly returns to its usual cycle of blinking lights. It serves no real traffic purpose but still manages to represent something special about the island’s identity, in addition to its beaches and octopus dishes.

A few things that I DO find interesting are seeing one actor play twins and the secretive Dr and the Chinese Dr with the southern accent have their interesting moments. PLUS:

Any relation to Pearl?

I watched Watson for the second consecutive week last night. It's your typical network medical drama; it's nothing special but good enough and it pairs well with FBI on Monday so I have a new show to watch. These were the third and fourth episodes of the second season. There were 13 episodes in the first season. I just finished the first five of those so of course I get a new thing to watch and I'll knock it all off in two days. There is a whole minor sub storyline about Sherlock Holmes and Watson and Moriarty, which I couldn't care less about because I never read a single one of the books or watched any of the movies about Sherlock Holmes but fortunately, so far it is far enough in the background that I can ignore it.

Never heard of him

As Ms. Parton would say, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene...

I had a friend who remembered a mutual friend's # as ANTCLOT 911 has been changed.wav

Or if you had Hetty Woodstone's from GHOSTS. It was 4. (They were the first in the county to have a phone.)

Diane Ladd, Oscar Nominee And Mother Of Laura Dern, Dead At 89 - TVLine WWW.TVLINE.COM Diane Ladd, the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated actress, has died at 89 — read daughter Laura Dern's statement.

Josh Charles' Dr. Martin Best does not want to be known as "Doc Martin," we learn in the first trailer for Fox's upcoming "Best Medicine." But tell that to the good people of the small community he's just joined. "Doc Martin!" they cry, to Dr. Best's consternation, in the teaser released Monday. From the local restaurant to the traditional town fair, they seem determined to make Charles' character a homey favorite — despite his icy manner and standoffish replies. Described as a "charmingly complicated one-hour comedy," "Best Medicine" follows Dr. Martin Best (played by "The Good Wife" alum Charles), a brilliant surgeon who abruptly leaves his illustrious career in Boston to become the general practitioner in a quaint East Coast fishing village where he spent summers as a child. "Unfortunately," per the official logline, "Martin's blunt and borderline rude bedside manner rubs the quirky, needy locals the wrong way, and he quickly alienates the town, even though he's all they've got." However, "What the locals don't know is that Martin's terse demeanor masks a debilitating new phobia and deep-seated psychological issues that prevent him from experiencing true intimacy with anyone." The cast includes Abigail Spencer ("Timeless") as school teacher Louisa Gavin; Annie Potts ("Young Sheldon," "Designing Women") as Martin's aunt, Joan; Cree ("Game Shakers," "Mr. Iglesias") as Martin's assistant, Elaine Denton; and Josh Segarra ("The Other Two") as sheriff Mark Mylow. Martin Clunes, who played the titular character in "Doc Martin," the ITV series on which "Best Medicine" is based, will guest-star as Martin's father, Dr. Robert Best.

Miami's new GM: