Casino Operator Surprises Employees by Giving Away $70 Million in Stock

Some of the longest-serving Station Casinos employees were left in awe Wednesday when they arrived at a surprise event at the operator’s Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Las Vegas to find themselves tens of thousands of dollars richer. At the event, Red Rock Resort Chairman and CEO Frank Fertitta III and Vice Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta announced that employees would receive $1,000 in Red Rock Resort's Class A stock for each year they worked for the company. "Our father founded this company on a few simple principles: serve the local community, deliver great value, and most importantly, take care of our Team Members," Frank Fertitta III said in a statement. He went on to say that the award reflects those values and recognizes the people who have worked for them for the past 50 years. Nearly 10,000 full-time and part-time employees received a stock award, including Ida Johnson, who has been with the company since 1977. She received an eye-watering $49,000 worth of stock. In total, seven employees who started at the company in the 1970s each received more than $45,000 worth of stock. Red Rock Resort's Class A stock was trading at $55.84 per share Friday afternoon. Employees will be able to receive their shares starting Monday.

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McDonald's and Burger King Are Bringing Humans Back

The past 10 years in the fast-food industry have been a study in automation. McDonald’s rolled out in-store kiosks in 2016 for customers to use to place their orders instead of waiting in line for an employee at the counter. Wendy’s debuted an AI drive-thru system in 2023. Now the tide appears to be turning back to human interaction. “Customers want a friendly face,” said Burger King President Tom Curtis. “We have to lean in to that because that’s evaporating in the fast-food space.” While fast-food outlets have been quick to incorporate digital kiosks and AI drive-thru ordering, customers say they would rather deal with a human being. In fact, 80% of diners polled said they prefer ordering from a human over an AI agent. Chick-fil-A even took it a step further by sending staff out to take orders in lieu of the typical menu and speaker. Meanwhile, McDonald's and Burger King are both making a move toward a more human restaurant experience by getting rid of self-ordering kiosks and AI drive-thrus. They believe that a move toward a more human restaurant experience elevates key qualities that AI can’t offer, including accountability, judgment and observation. Technology can improve prep, reduce waste, and eliminate administrative work, but removing human interaction from the guest experience risks stripping away what fast-food restaurants are after: connection.

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Funny Photos of Animals Stuck in Random Places

Animals can be surprisingly clever. They can communicate in complex ways, find their way across huge distances, and pick up on sounds and smells that humans barely notice. With abilities like that, you would think they would be pretty good at staying out of trouble. Unfortunately, sometimes curiosity gets the better of them. One questionable decision later, they crawl somewhere they shouldn’t or seriously overestimate what they can squeeze through and end up stuck. Luckily, people are usually around to help them out, but not without collecting some hilarious photographic evidence first.

 

"My dog chewed a hole through his towel and stuck his head through it. Now he wears it around the house like a poncho!”

“When I rescued him, he hissed at me and burrowed back in.”

"Forget about how he got up there. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get him down."

“Our bird’s version of Pheasant Under Glass.”

"I have no idea.........."

“I’m still trying to figure out how our cow got her head stuck in a tree.”

“This is the first time I’ve seen a monkey like this.”

“When they went IN to the drain, they clearly gave no thought to coming OUT.”

“How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck wasn’t stuck in a storm drain?”

“He was pretty sure that was a shortcut.”

“Oh, THAT’S why the power is out.”

 

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The Last Person to be Killed on 9/11

Shortly before midnight on September 11, 2001, Henryk Siwiak, a Polish immigrant to the United States, was fatally shot on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, where he had mistakenly gone in order to start a new job. He was able to make it to the door of a nearby house before he collapsed. The homicide remains unsolved. Siwiak has been described as “the last person killed in New York on 9/11”, although he wasn’t a victim of the terror attacks earlier that day. Police believe the initial investigation may have been hampered by the diversion of law enforcement resources in the city in the wake of that day’s terrorist attacks, which ultimately killed 3,000 people. Since Siwiak wasn’t robbed, wore camouflage, and spoke with a heavy accent, detectives have speculated that his killer may have thought he had something to do with the attacks. Siwiak’s homicide is the only one recorded in New York City on September 11, 2001, since the city doesn’t include the deaths from the attacks in its official crime statistics.

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