Random News Stories

[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...

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Frank Cox]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...dals-turf-war/

Movie exhibitors including Cineplex Inc. [42]CGX-T have pulled screenings
of a South Indian-language film across Canada after individuals opened
fire at four cinemas in the Greater Toronto Area last week, the latest
incidents of intimidation related to Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam
blockbusters.

Videos obtained by The Globe and Mail show a person in a hoodie shooting a
gun multiple times through the passenger window of a vehicle at the
entrances of Cineplex locations in Scarborough and Vaughan. In a separate
video, the driver of the vehicle fires at a Cineplex in Brampton. York
Cinemas, a theatre in Richmond Hill, Ont., was also hit by gunfire. The
shootings shattered glass and left bullet holes in windows. According to
York Regional Police, the incidents occurred in the early morning hours,
when the theatres were closed.

The videos were e-mailed to a few theatres and film distributors just
ahead of the Jan. 24 premiere of Malaikottai Vaaliban, a fantasy-action
epic. Cineplex pulled the movie, as did CinéStarz, which owns six theatres
in Ontario and Quebec.

Film distributors have contended that a [43]turf war is being waged and
that a group of individuals is trying to control the lucrative market for
South Indian-language films in Canada, using vandalism and intimidation to
pressure theatres and distributors to drop certain titles and ensure the
films run in favoured cinemas.

“With reference to the incidents at our theatres, we are working closely
with local authorities, who are leading this investigation, and can’t
share more details at this time,” said Michelle Saba, vice-president of
communications at Cineplex. “Due to circumstances beyond our control, we
are no longer playing Malaikottai Vaaliban at Cineplex theatres.”

Incidents of vandalism started around 2015 in the GTA, as Cineplex, the
country’s largest theatre chain, was making a bigger push into the Tamil
film market. Vandals have slashed screens at Cineplex theatres showing
Tamil movies and released noxious substances such as pepper spray inside
auditoriums, prompting the chain to pull some titles.

In recent years, Telugu and Malayalam movies have been affected, too. The
Globe has found [44]more than 20 incidents at Cineplex locations,
independent theatres and other chains such as Landmark Cinemas across
Southern Ontario, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and Surrey, B.C.

In December, noxious substances were sprayed inside [45]three GTA Cineplex
theatres, forcing audience members to evacuate.

Despite the turmoil, Saleem Padinharkkara had high expectations for
Malaikottai Vaaliban. His company, KW Talkies, partnered with an
international distributor for the Canadian rights to the film. About 8,000
tickets had been sold. “This is unheard of for a Malayalam movie,” he
said. “This is an untapped market.”

In the days before the premiere, another distributor, 2kerala
Entertainment Network, sent letters through a law firm to some theatres
showing the film, claiming to hold the exclusive distribution rights.
2kerala demanded that the theatres negotiate for the rights or drop the
movie.

Jeff Knoll, who runs a movie house in Oakville, Ont., received the letter
but had no doubt that Mr. Padinharkkara held the rights to the film,
having worked with him in the past. “He showed us he had the film,” Mr.
Knoll said. “I don’t think he would put himself out there if he didn’t
have the rights.”

A few days later, on Jan. 22, both Mr. Padinharkkara and 2kerala received
an anonymous e-mail demanding $200,000 and threatening to stop the
distributors from obtaining rights in the future. “Remember we know
everything about you and your family,” the e-mail read. “Don’t be [an]
idiot.”

A follow-up e-mail arrived the next day. Mr. Padinharkkara didn’t see
either one until later, since the sender used a company e-mail address
that he rarely checks. But on Jan. 24 he received yet another e-mail that
contained the videos of the four shootings. He declined to provide a copy
of that e-mail, citing a police investigation.

“Investigators are aware of all four incidents and are working in
partnership with the other services,” said media relations officer Ashley
Visser of the Toronto Police Service.

York Regional Police also issued a news release Tuesday seeking witnesses
to “drive-by shootings” at movie theatres. Investigators believe the four
incidents are linked, according to the release.

Distributors lose money when film screenings are cancelled, and some have
abandoned the market. International distributor Aashirvad America, which
partnered with Mr. Padinharkkara on Malaikottai Vaaliban, is now
reconsidering bringing movies to Canada. “I don’t see us doing a film in
Canada until we get this resolved,” said representative Neil Vincent.

Moviegoers, meanwhile, are being deprived of the chance to see
blockbusters in theatres when companies are forced to drop titles.

“At this time CinéStarz is not playing the movie Malaikottai Vaaliban in
any of its cinemas. Our priority includes the safety of people while this
sensitive matter is currently under investigation,” said spokesperson
Melissa DiMarco.

York Cinemas and a few other Ontario theatres with the same owner are also
not screening the film. (These theatres were working with 2kerala, not Mr.
Padinharkkara, according to an online advertisement.) Representatives for
the theatres did not reply to a request for comment, nor did 2kerala.

Only two theatres are still showing Malaikottai Vaaliba: the TIFF Lightbox
in Toronto and Mr. Knoll’s [46]Film.ca theatre in Oakville. So far, the
movie is drawing only modest audiences, according to Mr. Knoll. “Some of
these incidents probably dampen some excitement,” he said. “Who’s going to
bring their kids to a movie if there’s a risk of bear spray?”

Mr. Knoll, who is also a city councillor in Oakville, has experienced the
vandalism first-hand. In February, 2022, individuals slashed two screens
at the theatre. Still, he’s not planning to pull any films. “No one’s
going to tell me what to play,” he said.

[Frank Cox]

https://canoe.com/news/crime/police-...a-3d9ae750a4cc

Police tracked Quebec cold case suspect to cinema, seized drinking cup, trial hears

SAGUENAY, Que. — A Quebec police officer described for a jury on Thursday how he and his partner tracked a suspected killer to a movie theatre, where the officer sat in the seat next to the suspect for nearly two hours before secretly taking his discarded soft drink cup for a DNA test.

Provincial police Sgt.-Det. Christian Royer took the stand in the Saguenay, Que., trial of Marc-Andre Grenon, who is charged with the first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault of Guylaine Potvin in April 2000.

Royer said he was sent to Grenon’s apartment in Granby, east of Montreal, in August 2022 after the province’s forensics lab identified him as a possible person of interest in the 19-year-old’s death.

While he was originally only asked to verify Grenon’s address, Royer and his partner saw him get into the passenger seat of a vehicle driven by a woman and decided to follow.

“Since ultimately the goal was to recover DNA, we said to ourselves, we’ll follow them to see where they go,” he told the trial.

From there, Royer and his partner followed Grenon and his companion to a cinema, where the officer purchased a ticket for the same movie, which had assigned seating.

He said it turned out that the last available seat in Grenon’s section was directly on Grenon’s left. While his partner stationed himself near the closest garbage cans, Royer spent the next two hours less than a metre from Grenon, watching him sip his drink and checking to see if anyone else touched the cup.

“I don’t have to tell you, I wasn’t very absorbed in the movie,” he told the courtroom, drawing laughs.

Royer said he and his partner followed Grenon out of the theatre, where they watched him throw his soft drink cup in the garbage. The officer said he donned gloves and fished it out, and it was bagged as potential evidence and later sent for DNA testing.

Potvin was found dead in April 2000 in her apartment in Jonquiere, now part of Saguenay, 215 kilometres north of Quebec City. A pathologist concluded she’d been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

The Crown has previously said the accused became a person of interest in the case in 2022 after a database that links DNA to male surnames suggested the sample collected at the crime scene might be connected to the name “Grenon.”

Crown lawyers have said Grenon was arrested after DNA collected from the cup and straws at the theatre were found to match the previously unidentified male DNA collected at the crime scene more than 20 years earlier.

A second officer, Pierre-Antoine Cote, described arresting Grenon in Granby on Oct. 2. The suspect was then taken to Montreal, where a warrant had been issued for fingerprinting, a dental imprint test and a new DNA test, testified Cote, who added that Grenon was co-operative.

Earlier Thursday, the jury learned that Grenon had been cited in 2001 as a “person of interest” in the crime because he had previously lived in a building behind the residence where Potvin lived and was killed.

Grenon, 49, has pleaded not guilty. On cross-examination, Royer told the defence that he didn’t take photos of the suspect holding the cup or sitting in the theatre. He also acknowledged that the evidence bag had been mislabelled as containing one straw, not two.

The trial resumes Monday.

[Leo Enticknap]

Groucho is in a glitzy Hollywood graveyard (Eden Memorial Park), where I suspect you'd need rather more than $25K to join him. Maybe Karl and his fellow travelers aren't such a bad deal after all!

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I'm not sure what she wants to get across as it was a dead link...

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

"I'd rather be buried next to Groucho Marx. . ."


I claim the other side!

[Jim Cassedy]

I'd rather be buried next to Groucho Marx. . .