Random News Stories

[Frank Cox]

https://www.rocketcitynow.com/video/...b-5da2cf3eca91

https://www.actionnews5.com/2024/02/...t-radio-tower/

JASPER, Ala. (WBRC/Gray News) - A 200-foot AM radio tower in Alabama is gone, stolen without a trace.

WJLX’s AM station signal has been greatly impacted by the theft in Walker County.

Station general manager Brett Elmore said he remains hopeful that somebody will share information to help law enforcement find those responsible for the theft. Still, he said he is blown away by what happened.

“I have tried all weekend to figure it out, and I just can’t. I have been in the radio business, around it all my life and then in it professionally for 26 years, and I can say I have never heard of anything like this. I can say I’ve seen it all now,” Elmore said.

He said they first learned of the theft on Friday. He said a bush hog crew went down to the WJLX tower site to clean up the property, but the thieves had already cleared it out.
“When he arrived, he called me Friday and said, ‘The tower is gone.’ I said, ‘What do you mean the tower is gone? Are you sure you are at the right place?’ you know. He said, ‘The tower is gone. There is wires everywhere, and it is gone.’”

Elmore said they are working with the FCC to get temporary authority to carry on while they rebuild the AM side of their operations. Still, its unclear just how long the rebuild efforts could take.

“This really hurts a small operation like this, but like I said, I believe we will find out who did this. It is a federal crime and it absolutely will not be worth it to them,” he said.

[Leo Enticknap]

This was covered on an AM talk radio station I listen to this afternoon: the presenters spent several minutes speculating as to what a bush hog crew is. Professor Google gave me the answer in a few seconds!

I'm guessing that the criminals wanted the tower for the scrap metal. Last fall in Southern California, thieves made off with about 500 yards of railroad track (the actual rails) in the middle of a night. Apparently the scrap value of very high grade steel like that is pretty lucrative, even on the black market.

[Harold Hallikainen]

It's interesting that no one at the station, and apparently no listeners, missed the AM signal. A landscaping crew discovered that the tower and transmitter were missing. Many AM stations have FCC licensed FM translators that "rebroadcast" the AM signal. Most (probably all) FM translators are fed directly instead of from the AM signal. This results in a lot of expense (land, electricity, maintenance) to keep an AM signal on the air that no one is listening to. But, since the FM translator is only authorized to "rebroadcast" the AM signal, the FM translator had to shut down when the AM went down. The FCC originally authorized FM translators for AM stations as part of their AM improvement program. The net result was decreased listenership to AM.

[Frank Cox]

I've always been under the impression that an AM signal has greater range. So if an AM radio station that someone listens to suddenly switches to FM only couldn't he lose access?

[Leo Enticknap]

A variation on this is happening in the city next door to me, too.

In San Bernardino, street lights are dark, cameras are dead

By David Allen | dallen@scng.com | Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
PUBLISHED: February 8, 2024 at 12:49 p.m. | UPDATED: February 9, 2024 at 12:57 a.m.

In Hollywood, it’s lights, cameras, action. In San Bernardino, they’re promising action over the city’s street lights and surveillance cameras.

Hundreds of lights are dark all over the city due to stolen wiring. Pole-mounted police cameras are so decrepit, only a few are able to transmit images. To quote a Bob Dylan lyric, “Everything is broken.”

Let’s start with the cameras. They went up on traffic poles and other vantage points around San Bernardino starting in 2009, Police Chief Darren Goodman told the City Council last week.

There are 95 cameras.

“Currently,” Goodman reported, “only four of those cameras work.”

Uh, 91 out of 95 cameras are dead? I hope no criminals follow my columns or this might spark a crime wave.

(Then again, my goal is to serve all segments of the community. If you’re a bad guy, you might be thinking, “About time dis crummy newspaper printed sum good nooze.”)

Why don’t the cameras work? The manufacturer no longer makes parts for the 15-year-old cameras, and officials never had “a self-sustaining plan” to maintain or upgrade cameras, said Goodman, who was hired less than two years ago.

Goodman said 15 of the cameras are downtown but didn’t indicate how many, if any, are working. He did say nobody monitors the live footage.

Councilmember Sandra Ibarra reacted in alarm.

“I’m pretty shocked at the news that of 95 cameras, only four are working,” Ibarra said. She recalled that the city had contracted a few years ago with a company to maintain them.

The city halted that nearly $100,000-a-year contract in 2021, Goodman said, and with good reason.

Because no parts were available to fix broken cameras, the chief said, “All they were doing was coming out and cleaning the lenses.”

For 100 grand, no less. What were they polishing the lenses with, truffle oil?

Goodman and City Manager Charles Montoya said they will return to the council in the near future with parameters for a new, better camera system and for civilian staffing to monitor them. Chino police have such staffing, Goodman noted.

San Bernardino’s preferred cameras would have 360-degree panning and software that would allow for quick searches. Downtown would be the initial focus, with annual expansion to other parts of the city.

Goodman said the new cameras would display city logos to let people know police are watching and thus deter crime.

Bad guys, moaning: “Chee, we t’ought dis was gonna be a positive article!”

Sorry, bad guys.

Now, back to the street lights.

Some downtown business owners brought up that problem during the Jan. 31 council meeting. Darkness might be making the area less safe, they said.

The Fourth Street boba shop Viva La Boba had been broken into twice in two weeks, co-owner Tansu Philip said.

With so many broken street lights downtown, “we’re doing business in the dark,” complained the shop’s other owner, David Friedman. He’d submitted 21 service requests through the city’s app.

Marco Romero, owner of The Barbers Club, said a break-in that week at his E Street shop cost barber students the tools they’d invested in to learn their trade.

Some of the ire was directed at Councilmember Theodore Sanchez, who represents downtown and the west side.

“I ask for people’s patience,” Sanchez responded. “A lot of this is copper being stolen.”

As an example, he said, new street lights had been installed on the west side. As a deterrent to copper thieves, concrete had been poured into the crevices to prevent anyone from getting at the wiring. Nice try.

“A week later,” Sanchez said, “they were out.”

Montoya agreed: “It’s not like replacing a light bulb. It’s replacing the entire fixture. It’s not a cheap fix.”

He’d signed an emergency purchase order to spend up to $100,000, the limit of his purchase authority without council action, to repair and replace lights downtown and on transit corridors.

Councilmember Fred Shorett said he’d already noticed a positive difference.

“Driving in today,” Shorett said during the meeting, which began at 3 p.m., “I noticed lights on that I haven’t seen on in a long time. But turn them on at 5 p.m., not at 3.”

I left the meeting at 6 p.m., driving a block south on E Street and hanging a right on Fourth. Noticing that my drive was on darkened streets, I pulled into the Regal Cinema lot and got out to take photos.

More than half the lamps around just that one intersection were dark.

As of Wednesday, one week later, they were still out.

“The street lights are not fixed. They’re anywhere from cracked and broken to stripped at the bottom,” Friedman told me. “Up and down Fourth Street, up and down E Street.”

Repairs were delayed due to the heavy rain, as public works had more immediate concerns about street flooding and flashing traffic signals. But street light repair “is imminent,” promised city spokesperson Jeff Kraus.

The scope of the problem is, frankly, staggering.

“You asked how many street lights were or are out,” Kraus said when we spoke Wednesday. “Citywide we’re estimating about 700.”

Holy moley. But it’s not just a local problem. In the city of L.A., the neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights and El Sereno have more than 3,700 broken lights, the Times reported.

“Copper wire theft is back,” Kraus said. People have been breaking into lamps’ access points, cutting wires and pulling them out to sell the copper.

As fixtures are replaced, such as on Sixth Street, the lights are staying on 24/7 to keep the electrical wires “live,” thus deterring thieves from cutting them, Kraus explained. That’s why Shorett noticed lights on during the day.

Montoya has requested proposals from private firms on repairing and replacing lights in the rest of the city, with a Feb. 14 deadline to respond. That job may approach $500,000 and will require a council vote.

The city will explore how to “harden” the circuits to make them tamper-proof, Kraus said, and may extend a pilot program to install solar-powered lights, which have no copper wire and have not been vandalized.

At least as of press time.

[Randy Stankey]

It sounds to me like the city council fiddles while Rome burns, letting the Chief of Police who has only been on the job for two years speak for them.

The City Council members are all saying things like, "We're shocked!" and "We don't know what to do!" but the Chief is forced to stand there with his ass in his hands, telling people that the city had been paying $100 grand per year for nothing until they canceled the contract, three years ago without telling anybody.

Now, the problem hits the news and the only thing anybody can say is, "I dunno'..."

This is a classic case of nobody doing their jobs then blame shifting and pointing fingers when they get caught cold.

I've always been under the impression that an AM signal has greater range.

FM radio propagates mostly by line of sight while AM radio can reflect off different layers of the atmosphere. You can pick up an AM signal from "skip" which makes it possible to receive from hundreds of miles away or, in some cases, around the world while, with FM, you have to be "under the umbrella" of the transmitter.

[Martin McCaffery]

To quote a Bob Dylan lyric, “Everything is broken.”

I won't say that lyric is totally obscure, but jeez, it's not like those three words have never been spoken before. Just how old is this reporter, anyway.

Fun late era Bob, nonetheless

[Leo Enticknap]

I was going to make the obvious reference to snakes on a plane, but a local journalist in Detroit (alongside countless others, I'm sure) beat me to it...

Maggots spill from overhead bin on Detroit-bound Delta flight

Francis X. Donnelly, The Detroit News
February 16, 2024

Pick your poison: Snakes on a plane, or maggots?

A passenger dealt with the smaller version Tuesday while flying from Amsterdam to Detroit.

One moment she was settling in for nine-hour flight on Delta Air Lines. The next, soft-bodied legless larva were falling upon her.

“She was freaking out,” passenger Philip Schotte told Fox 2 Detroit. “She was just trying to... fight off these maggots.”

Schotte, who was sitting across the aisle, counted a dozen of the disgusting creatures. They came from a rotten fish wrapped in a newspaper in the overhead compartment.

The plane, which was an hour into the flight, promptly returned to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

Delta released a statement saying that a carry-on bag was improperly packed and that passengers were placed on the next available flight from Amsterdam. It said the aircraft was removed from service for cleaning.

“We apologize to the customers of flight 133 AMS-DTW,” the statement read.

Schotte told WXYZ that he first realized something was wrong when the other passenger kept making a repetitive motion on the empty seat beside her. As he continued to watch, he spotted the maggots.

They finally got the attention of the flight attendants, who began searching for the source of the infestation. When they opened the overhead bin, several more maggots dropped out.

The opening of the overhead bin also unleashed an unholy smell that caused several passengers to hold their noses, said Schotte. The attendants took the offending fish to the back of the plane.

“She was very freaked out," Schotte told WXYZ about the other passenger. "Especially when I saw a maggot fall on her, she got especially freaked out.”

He said a male passenger told the attendants he was responsible for the fish but Schotte didn’t know if any action was taken against him.

Schotte said he was surprised such cargo wasn’t noticed by airport security.

He got on another flight after several hours.

After the maggots were discovered, Schotte moved to another seat five rows back but, before the plane had returned to Amsterdam, one of the creatures had slithered all the way to his new seat.

"I can only imagine what it would've been like had we been on that plane for seven more hours,” he told WXYZ.

I'm also surprised that this wasn't caught by security. Between 2008 and 2013, I traveled between the Northern England and Southern California 2-3 times a year for work, and several times more for personal reasons toward the end of that period. I nearly always went MME > AMS > a Delta hub > ONT, and so connected at Amsterdam onto a Delta transatlantic flight many times. Amsterdam Airport operated a kind of "El Al lite" screening process whereby every passenger boarding a US-bound flight was briefly interviewed by a security officer when entering the gate area: where did you start your journey, what is the purpose of travel, did you pack your own bags, etc. etc. On some of these screenings, I was asked to open my carry-on for them to take a quick look.

If they are still doing this, I am astonished that some guy showing up with a carry-on full of rotten fish wasn't caught at the gate.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I literally read that article about 5 min ago and was also wondering why on earth security didn't catch that fish... Aside from that, I also wondered why would someone from the Netherlands be living in Iowa??? Iowa is a pretty boring place unlike say, Amsterdam...

[Frank Cox]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montr...wish-1.7132622

Dune: Part Two premiered at Quebec palliative care home to fulfil man's dying wish

Man died before watching ending of movie on filmmaker Denis Villeneuve's laptop

CBC News · Posted: Mar 03, 2024 3:17 PM EST | Last Updated: 8 hours ago


Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides in Dune: Part Two, which was released March 1. (Warner Bros. Pictures-Warner Media)
The work of Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve was shown in a room at a palliative care centre to fulfil the end-of-life wish of a long-time film fan in a special world premiere, well ahead of the official launch.
A man from Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Que., had an almost impossible final wish when he knew he was at the end of his life. The movie buff said he would like to see the film Dune: Part Two, which was set to be released on March 1, before he died.
He expressed this wish to Josée Gagnon, whose job is to accompany people at the end of life through her company L'Avant.
Sébastien Pilote, a director from the Saguenay region, put Gagnon in touch with Villeneuve, the renowned filmmaker, after she put a call-out on Facebook with the man's last wish.
"Denis Villeneuve and his wife Tanya, who is a producer, said, 'OK, we could get him to come to Los Angeles.' I said, 'You don't understand, he's at the end of his life, there's no way to move him. We don't even know if he's going to be here next week,'" said Gagnon in an interview on Radio-Canada's Place publique.

Director Denis Villeneuve, right, and producer Tanya Lapointe attend the premiere of Dune: Part Two in Montreal. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)
Realizing that the man would not be able to go to the premiere, Villeneuve decided to send the movie directly to the municipality of Saguenay. Villeneuve's assistant flew down to Quebec with the filmmaker's laptop.
"They locked themselves in a room at the Maison de soins palliatifs [...] and this man managed to watch the film on his own," said Gagnon. Everyone had to sign waivers not to reveal anything about the movie.
The screening took place more than a month and a half before its worldwide release.
Too weak, the film buff fell asleep before the end of the movie and died later. Gagnon said Villeneuve and Lapointe were disappointed that the man had not been able to see the end.
"They said, 'He didn't see the ending, you know, the ending of the film is so good.' I said, 'You don't understand, it's extraordinary what this man went through, The end of a film when you're going to die, it doesn't mean anything … it was all there for him," said Gagnon.

Gagnon had to keep this story to herself until the movie hit the big screen. She finally posted a long message on Facebook late Friday, thanking everyone who had made the adventure possible, including her husband and the staff at the Maison de soins palliatifs du Saguenay.
"It's been truly magnificent. The others went through something great, they went off to do the international red carpets, the media, but here there was something," she said.
"[Villeneuve and Lapointe] said, 'It's for him, it's for that man that we make films, it's for the guy who said before he died, I want to see that film,'" she said.

Similar to the last wish that I did a few years ago. The lady who wanted to see that movie lived long enough to see the end of it when she was here, though.

I had it for her a week before it was released.

[Jim Cassedy]

I'm sure this is being done at multiple theaters across the country (and maybe the universe!)

FYI: The $90 tickets for this event were sold out in about an hour.
(The auditorium seats apx 325)

AlamoStarWars.jpg

Star Wars enthusiasts will soon get to truly live a day in the life of their favorite galaxy far, far
away, thanks to Alamo Drafthouse's 21-hour movie marathon spanning all nine movies of The
Skywalker Saga. The ode to the iconic film series will take place May 3 to 4, in conjunction with
the national Star Wars Day, May the Fourth, and in celebration of the 25th anniversary of "The
Phantom Menace," as reported by SFist.

Mark your calendars, because fans are in for a space odyssey that starts at twilight and ends
just before the next sunset, transforming day into an interstellar marathon designed to boldly
wear out even the most resilient of buttocks. Tickets are going at $90 a pop and are still up
for grabs. And for those die-hards who can last the space-time continuum from "The Phantom
Menace" through to "The Rise of Skywalker," Alamo ensures your thirst will be quenched with
unlimited water and coffee, and their full menu available to order from throughout the marathon
— temporary sustenance for the long haul across the cosmic saga.

Special Star Wars-themed eats and exclusive merchandise, including t-shirts and collector's
glassware with custom art, are also on the bill, with our local Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco
tempting fans to up their game. In an announcement on their Facebook page, they wrote, "You
don’t want to look like a scruffy nerf herder at the show, right?" referring to the limited edition
merchandise designed by their own Chris Bilheimer and Mutant's Cesar Moreno, and available
only with online ticket purchase, the post stated.

But let's get down to brass tacks. If you're planning to embark on this behemoth of a binge-watch,
take note: Alamo is very clear that your seat is yours only so long as you continue to to actively
occupy it. "If you leave the theater to go nap through a couple of the films, they 'reserve the right
to offer your spot to someone else without a refund,'" Sfist reports. With stringent rules against
noise and phone use, one wonders how the force will be with the fans as they strive to keep their
eyes open and the snores at bay through the slower space opera sequences. <end>

LINKS: https://tinyurl.com/yuwkbh5c and https://tinyurl.com/3ytzt4kt

NuMishNite_S.jpg

[Geoff Jones]

In Colorado, the local Alamo has actually been advertising that New Mission San Francisco showing on social media, despite the fact that it is a 19 hour drive.

Here, the 245-seat "Big Show" auditorium is always reserved for small crowds watching the current new release.

Any sort of classic showing has to go in small auditorums with tiny fixed-width screens.

I wonder if that happens to be going on today...


image.pngimage.png


image.pngimage.pngimage.png

[Frank Cox]

https://canoe.com/news/local-news/pa...9-a6b043bef7e2

Parents file $1.5-million lawsuit after teacher allegedly tried to sell students' artworks online


The lawsuit names St-Lazare art teacher Mario Perron and the Lester B. Pearson School Board.
Author of the article:
René Bruemmer
Published Mar 25, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

Joel DeBellefeuille says his 13-year-old son told him he found a portrait that a fellow student had painted of him had been posted for sale online. Image courtesy of Joel DeBellefeuille

The parents of 10 students at a Montreal-area junior high school have launched a $1.575-million lawsuit against their school’s art teacher alleging he tried to sell the students’ artwork and merchandise emblazoned with their drawings online without their knowledge.

The lawsuit also names the Lester B. Pearson School Board, arguing that as the teacher’s employer it had a responsibility to check his social media profiles and other professional activities before hiring him and is responsible for wrongful acts carried out while under its employ.

The students in Grades 7 and 8 at Westwood Junior High School in St-Lazare discovered in early February that their art teacher, Mario Perron, was listing for sale thousands of copies of items, including mugs, tote bags, iPhone cases, T-shirts and towels, featuring their artwork, the lawsuit states. The students said they were doing an internet search to look up their teacher’s art and found their own work listed under his profile on websites selling artwork.

The prices of the 2,976 listed items ranged from US$9.50 to US$113, the lawsuit says.

“Perron used the work of 96 of his students and reproduced them on 31 different items to put them on sale and make a personal profit,” the lawsuit reads. “To cap it off, the accused Perron, for commercial purposes, specified the name of the child as the artist, which would easily allow them to be identified on public platforms, especially since the artworks in question are portraits.”

The 10 parents are claiming $5,000 for each of the 31 items they say were put on sale with their children’s drawings, for a total of $155,000 each. They are also asking for $10,000 each in punitive damages on the basis that Perron “clearly planned out his actions and was in a position of authority over minors.”

Under the Canadian Copyright Act, damages of between $500 and $20,000 can be sought if the infringements are for commercial purposes.

The parents are also requesting their children’s artworks be taken down from any websites and that a report of any sales be transmitted, and are asking for a written letter of apology.

“Mr. Perron did not take into consideration the children’s confidentiality when he posted and then attempted to sell their drawings online without the consent of the children, the parents or the school board,” said Joel DeBellefeuille, one of the parents filing the lawsuit. “This is extremely troubling and very concerning.

“Here we are in a digital age, where families and parents are there to scrutinize everything that our children are looking at, but who would have thought that it should have been the parents scrutinizing the teacher?”

Legal letters were sent to Perron and the school board in February and March, requesting $1.75 million in payments. When those went unanswered, parents filed the lawsuit Friday in Quebec Superior Court. The teacher and school board have 15 days to respond to the lawsuit.

The parents’ allegations have not been tested in court.

Edith Liard, who is also among those filing the lawsuit, said the school and its teacher broke their trust.

“My daughter loves art, always has been into art, and this year after everything that happened, she said to me, ‘I don’t think I’ll do art next year,'” she said.

An administrator at Westwood Junior High School said Monday that Perron was not presently at the school. She could not say if he had been let go, referring all questions to the school board. His name has been removed from the school’s staff list online.

Perron did not respond to previous messages seeking comment.

The Lester B. Pearson School Board said Monday it does not comment on internal investigations or human resources issues. In February, it issued a statement saying the board was taking the allegations very seriously and an investigation was underway.

The artworks in question were created by 96 students for their art class with Perron. The works include portraits the students made of themselves in the style of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat for a class project assigned by Perron called Creepy Portrait.

[Frank Cox]

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada...rtel-shootings

'Like a cartel:' Shootings point to turf war over rights to screen South Indian films
Shootings come amid an effort to ensure these films are only shown in a select group of smaller, independent theatres

The day Thomas Sajan was expecting to see a South Indian action epic at a theatre in British Columbia, a spate of shootings thousands of kilometres away disrupted his plans.

Sajan, a self-described South Indian film fanatic, said he had been waiting months to see Malaikottai Vaaliban, a blockbuster Malayalam-language film about an aging warrior who reigns over a vast desert.

Hours before the scheduled showtime in late January, Cineplex sent a message saying the screening had been cancelled and the company would be issuing a refund “due to circumstances outside our control.”

Sajan, who moved to Surrey, B.C., from Kerala in southern India in 2017, said he was “heartbroken.”

“I was really sad and we were never told why,” he said in a phone interview earlier this month.

But the events that forced the cancellation soon became more clear.

Earlier in the day, police in Ontario reported shootings at four theatres in the Greater Toronto Area, which had been planning to show Malaikottai Vaaliban. Windows were shattered in some locations, but no injuries were reported.

York Regional Police said this month that while the drive-by shootings in their area remained under investigation, they believe the incidents were targeted and involved the same suspect.

For Sajan and Saleem Padinharkkara, who distributes South Indian films in Canada, those reports did not come as a shock.

Padinharkkara, who lives in Ontario and is the founder of film distribution company KW Talkies, alleged that there is an ongoing campaign to prevent popular South Indian movies from appearing in major Canadian theatre chains like Cineplex.

He claimed there is a group of distributors trying to ensure that these films are only shown in a select group of smaller, independent theatres, which charge higher ticket prices than large chains like Cineplex or Landmark Cinemas.

This, he alleged, was part of an effort to safeguard higher profits by controlling the market.

For example, he said Cineplex tickets can cost anywhere between $13 to $16 but people can pay up to $30 per ticket to watch a South Indian movie at a smaller theatre.

“It’s like a cartel,” added Padinharkkara, who said he has personally received threats for trying to distribute rights to South Indian movies to certain theatres.

“It’s disheartening. It’s soul destroying. I’ve lost money too. There’s a set of theatres in the GTA that are benefiting from these attacks. For me, it’s very blatant what’s happening but … there’s nobody talking about what’s happening.”

Padinharkkara said that cancellations, like those that affected Malaikottai Vaaliban, result in “a big loss” for the distributor.

“There is no way he is going to recover his money and movies have a shelf life.”

The Movie Theatre Association of Canada wrote in a statement that it “was aware of various incidents that have occurred at member theatre locations” and “it has been tremendously frustrating that criminal activity has prevented theatres from safely playing certain content.”

The association has had “productive meetings with Public Safety Canada” and it “is working closely with both local authorities and the federal government to raise awareness,” the statement added.

Public Safety Canada did not comment on the shootings.

Cineplex’s chief executive Ellis Jacob said in February that the company lost money due to the shootings but it remains determined to offer international programming, which makes up 10 per cent of its annual box office revenues compared with four per cent at many of its counterparts.

“We are working very closely with the authorities,” Jacob said, noting that the most important thing is the safety of staff and moviegoers.

Canadian interest in South Indian cinema has been rising.

Sajan linked that in part to the pandemic, when people were searching for a wider variety of content to stream with theatres shuttered. He also cited the growing numbers of immigrants from southern India.

Padinharkkara said that in 2010 rights to distribute a South Indian movie in Canada cost between $10,000 and $20, 000. Now those rights can cost up to $200,000.

Sajan has started a petition signed by about 500 people urging the federal government, the RCMP, Cineplex, Landmark Cinemas and others to take action.

“These criminal activities not only undermine the cultural diversity represented by South Indian cinema but also limit the choices available to movie lovers in Canada,” his petition states.

“The attacks and intimidation tactics against theatres daring to show South Indian movies demonstrate a blatant disregard for the principles of fair competition and freedom of artistic expression.”

[Leo Enticknap]

I thought initially that this could be the Telegraph's April fool story for this year, but it appears to be genuine. Lena Forsén has a Wikipedia entry that corroborates the biographical info in the story. Terry Benzel also exists, though the Telegraph appears to "misgender" her. What made me suspicious is that they gave no links to external evidence that the IEEE had gone woke and banned the photo from their journals, and, interestingly, I couldn't find any in three pages of Google results, either. But DuckDuckGo came up with this, so it looks like the story is legit. I can't for the life of me find their actual April fool, though, and it's usually not that difficult to spot.

A photograph of a Playboy model that has been used by engineers in image processing tests since the 1970s has been dropped because it is not “inclusive”.

The famous photograph of Swedish former model Lena Forsén - cropped from the Playboy original - has been a staple in image processing research for decades.

However, a leading organisation in the computing field has said that starting from April 1, they will no longer be accepting any research papers which include the 1972 “Lena image”.

Terry Benzel, the vice president of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a global professional association, said: “New manuscript submissions will no longer be allowed to include the Lena image.”
‘Code of ethics’

He cited a motion passed by the group’s publishing board, which stated: “IEEE’s diversity statement and supporting policies such as the IEEE code of ethics speak to IEEE’s commitment to promoting an inclusive and equitable culture that welcomes all.

“In alignment with this culture and with respect to the wishes of the subject of the image, Lena Forsén, IEEE will no longer accept submitted papers, which include the picture.

The use of the image in the tech world has not been without controversy over the years and as referenced in the motion, Ms Forsén herself has urged the industry to stop using it.

Speaking to WIRED magazine in 2019, she said she was “really proud” of the picture, saying: “I don’t understand but I think I’ve made some good.”

But after the release of a documentary titled Losing Lena, which spearheaded the effort to encourage computer science to move on from the image, she said: “I retired from modelling a long time ago.

“It’s time I retired from tech, too. We can make a simple change today that creates a lasting change for tomorrow. Let’s commit to losing me.”
Pivotal role

Ms Forsén, now 73, is now a retired grandmother living in Sweden.

In 1997, the former model was presented with a wooden mantel clock - dedicated to “The First Lady of the Internet” - by the Society for Imaging Science and Technology in recognition of her pivotal role in shaping the digital world.

The Playboy photograph of her wearing nothing but a feathered sun hat, boots, stockings and a pink boa was taken when she was just 21.

It shot to tech world fame when a copy turned up at the University of Southern California’s Signal and Image Processing Institute, where Alexander Sawchuk was looking for a new picture to test his and his team’s latest compression algorithm.

Ms Forsén’s picture became the perfect candidate with its colours and textures and so the image of the young model became an industry standard which was replicated countless times. The WIRED article refers to Lena as “the patron saint of JPEGs”.

The IEEE’s decision comes after the scientific journal Nature blocked the Lena image in all of its research journals in 2018.

In an unsigned editorial, the publisher explained the reason behind the decision, saying: “We believe that the history of the Lena image clashes with the extensive efforts to promote women undertaking higher education in science and engineering.”