Print not dead in Dubai; Forecast: Cold front expected; Dinner with a side of handcuffs; Painful poultry practices; Cutting back on style

Dinner with a side of handcuffs?
BEIJING — A father-daughter duo are enjoying brisk business at their Beijing restaurant after they started providing patrons with an S&M-themed experience. Drinks are served in breast-shaped cups and beers are opened with bottle openers shaped like penises, while mannequins wearing bondage gear gaze over customers, according to Reuters. The kitchen also serves up dishes such as “Horny” and “Sensuous World” and inflatable naked dolls sit on shelves while waiters wear aprons with breasts on them. “’Food and sex are the basic desires of humans,’ and the phrase has not changed in more than 5,000 years,” said owner Lu Lu. “’Release your basic instincts’ and ‘Liberate yourself’ are the two concepts we used as the basis for the restaurant.” While the police have visited once, Lu said she has been left alone to run her business. However, she hopes to turn things up a notch by putting female customers in handcuffs and having their male companions feed them. She also wants to give customers the option of whipping waitresses.

Print not dead in Dubai
DUBAI — Dubai has opened what it is calling the world’s first 3D-printed office building, according to Reuters. While traditionally the technology makes digitally designed, three-dimensional objects from plastic, this one used a special mixture of cement. “It has fully functional offices and staff,” said the United Arab Emirates Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Mohammed Al Gergawi. “We believe this is just the beginning. The world will change.” The arc-shaped, one-story building measures 250 square meters and was built in 17 days at a cost about $140,000. It’s estimated the technique could cut building time by 50 to 70 per cent, and labour costs by 25 per cent, said Gergawi, adding it is Dubai’s strategy to have 25 per cent of the buildings in the emirate printed by 2030.
 
Forecast: Cold front expected
LOS ANGELES — Dress code can always be a challenge in the workplace, as one meteorologist found out recently. Liberté Chan was delivering her weather report live on-air when an arm holding a sweater suddenly appeared to the right of the TV screen. “What’s going on?” she asked, putting on the sweater over her black dress. The KTLA co-anchor told her the station was getting a lot of emails complaining about her attire. “What?!” said Chan. “(Now) I look like a librarian.” After Chan posted the clip to her Facebook page, the video quickly went viral, according to Global News. “For the record, I was not ordered by KTLA to put on the sweater,” she said in a blog. “I was simply playing along with my co-anchor’s joke, and if you’ve ever watched the morning show, you know we poke fun at each other all the time.” Chan and her co-anchor also read out emails allegedly sent by viewers, including one saying she “looked like she stayed out late at a party and came to work in the same dress. It’s not appropriate for the morning weather report.”

Painful poultry practices
UNITED STATES — Workers on the processing line at large poultry producers in the United States are routinely denied adequate bathroom breaks, according to Oxfam America. “People regularly wear diapers to work in the plants. They feel they have to put up with this, to keep their jobs,” said Minor Sinclair, director of Oxfam America’s U.S. program. “The supervisors do whatever they can to keep the line running at breakneck speed, and the companies turn a blind eye, as they’re racking up record profits.” Poultry workers are some of the most vulnerable people in the country,” said Deborah Berkowitz, senior fellow at the National Employment Law Project. “Most are minorities and immigrants; some are recently resettled refugees. Poultry companies know they can get away with unfair, intimidating and legally questionable practices because these workers are too fearful to speak up.”

Cutting back on style
ROCK HILL, S.C. — Larry Thomas offered very selective services at his barbershop in Rock Hill, S.C., a would-be patron found out recently. When Arthur Hill requested a haircut, Thomas responded he “does not cut black hair,” according to the Washington Post. Hill then noticed the barber was holding a gun in his right hand. The barber was later arrested and charged with pointing and presenting a firearm at a person. He said he felt threatened but he was not racist. “I don’t do flat tops. White people wear flat tops. I no longer cut women’s hair because I’m not good enough to cut women’s hair anymore. The only thing I do is I stick with my middle-age group of men,” said Thomas. “Being an autistic individual, I pretty much stick to my routine.”

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