Beaten by Bobcats Mean Green softball defeated in San Marcos Page 4 Wednesday, April 20, 2011
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Volume 97 | Issue 46
Stormy 82° / 70°
ntdaily.com
The Student Newspaper of the University of North Texas
Hail flurries interrupt sun-filled skies BY SEAN GORMAN Sports Editor
NEWS: Dallas theater owner talks to students about art Page 2
SPORTS: Women’s golf team in fourth place Page 3
After experiencing sunny skies and temperatures above 90 degrees for most of the day, UNT students received a curveball from Mother Nature in the form of sporadic hail flurries Tuesday afternoon. Golf ball-sized hail as wide as 1.75 inches fell throughout Denton between 4:01 p.m. and 4:15 p.m. as part of a rainstorm that hit the area. “We initially issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 3:37 p.m., and the storm grew faster than we expected,” said Steve Fano of the National Weather Service. “Typically we use coins as reference points for hail sizes, but this hail was too big for that.” The storm moved southeast towards Lewisville and Flowermound after passing through Denton, according to the National Weather Service. A tornado watch was issued for Denton County during the storm, but no severe chance of it happening exists, Fano said. “The cooler temperatures that Denton will receive the rest of this week prevents any real chance of a tornado happening,” Fano said.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WFAA-TV
Sporadic hail flurries hit Denton Tuesday afternoon with golf ball-sized hail as wide as 1.75 inches.
Program ranks No. 1 in Texas Referendums halted in senate BY LINDA NGUYEN Intern
VIEWS:
Political science freshman Rika Fenk said she missed the Tuesday hail, but came across it over the weekend. “My friends and I were driving back from Victory Hall when it happened. It was pretty scary,” she said. “We were outside in my friend’s Mustang, so he was really freaked out about it getting damaged.” Seeing pellets of ice fall from the sky was a first for business junior Greg Fullerton, who said he was at his apartment when it hailed for about 20 minutes. “I just moved to Denton from Houston, and that’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like it,” he said. “It wasn’t too dangerous, but a lot of the cars were getting hit.” Denton can expect more rain and thunderstorms for the rest of the week, Fano said. A lack of precipitation has plagued the North Texas region, as it has been 3 to 6 inches below average in rainfall for the last six months, according to the National Weather Service. “The drought is a long-term phenomena, Fano said. “I expect us to have a normal amount of rain the next three months but still be behind overall.”
U N T ’s Community Rehabi l itat ion Prog ra m provider training has been designated as Texas’ official prov ider for CRP t ra ining by the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS). According to the US News a nd World Repor t, UN T’s Communit y Rehabilitation Program is ranked first in Texas and 13th in the nation. The CRP provider training is the only one of its kind available in Texas and approved by DARS.
Governor uses partisanship to base cuts on education Page 4
“DARS has a long-standing relationship with UNT,” said Jim Hanophy, the assistant commissioner of development rehabilitation services. “So when we wanted to standardize the provider training in Texas, we immediately thought about UNT.” DARS has given the university’s CRP training program $500,000 to cover costs for training for existing providers and for implementing this program, Hanophy said. DARS and UNT have been work ing for severa l yea rs t r y ing to develop cr iter ia for communit y rehabilita-
tion providers, said Martha G a r b er, t he d i r e c t or of applied research and development in the Department of Rehabilitation, Social Work and Addictions. “We [used to] have a ny number of provider training programs, but now it’s one entity which is cost effective. The online training is consistent and available for people all over Texas,” said Hanophy. “We are planning on keeping UNT as the only CRP provider training program.”
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Prey at the pump
ONLINE: Denton Weather: Cold front, chance of rain ring in semester
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PHOTO BY BERENICE QUIRINO/VISUALS EDITOR
Ever-rising gas prices have rocked North Texas. The national average for a gallon of gas is $3.86. “You can’t even drive around town without paying 20 bucks,” said Jeffrey Gouge, a Denton resident.
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State leaks personal information BY MEGAN R ADKE Intern
L a st week, Tex a s st ate Comptroller Susa n Combs announced that the socia l security numbers, dates of birth and other personal information of 3.5 million people were inadvertently disclosed on a public computer server. The information was said to have been available publically
for over a year and is believed to be the largest information breach in the nation. Affected agencies include t h e Te x a s W o r k f o r c e Commission, t he Teachers Retirement System of Texas and the Employees Retirement System of Texas, according to TXSafeGuard.org, a website set up by the comptroller’s of f ice a f ter t he i ncident.
The comptroller’s office is sending letters to all individuals who could have been affected by the information that was exposed, but office officials said there has been no evidence that any of the leaked information had been used to commit identity theft.
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Bills deleted from university computer BY ISAAC WRIGHT Senior Staff Writer
Clerical errors and scheduling conf licts will likely prevent a student vote on three referendums recently passed by the Student Government Association senate. Two referendums passed by the student senate were mistakenly erased from a university hard drive, and a third referendum will not be held this semester, SGA leaders said Tuesday. Both the homecoming reform legislation and a referendum that would create a House of Representatives voting body in the student senate were saved on a university computer in Terrill Hall 120 after the April 6 SGA meeting at which the bills were passed. The documents were not saved on an external computer and were erased during the university’s nightly hard drive clearings. “The fully amended bills were all on that computer and are now gone,” said Christopher Walker, a senator for the College of Music. The third referendum would bring students a vote on reforming the university’s marijuana policy in residence halls. The bill remains pending approval by SGA President Kevin Sanders but, even if passed, Sanders said it is unlikely students will be able to vote on the referendum because the semester is almost over. Sanders said two weeks are required to hold a special election, one week each for campaigning and the election. Sanders said only three weeks are left this semester and special events cannot
be schedu led for the week before finals or f i n a l s week. “It looks VALERIE u n l i k e l y GONZALEZ t h a t st udents will get to v ot e on the bills,” Sanders said. S ome s e n a t o r s KEVIN said they SANDERS will try to recreate the bills at tonight’s meeting, but even then, they said the fate of the referendums will remain up in the air. “The hope is that they could be passed in such a way that a special referendum vote could come to the student body within the first month of classes into the new fall semester,” Walker said. It is still unclear whether Sanders will approve rewritten legislation, said Valerie Gonzalez, a senator for the College of Arts and Sciences, who authored the House of Representatives referendum and co-authored the marijuana policy referendum. She said Sanders has made statements that he will not approve the recreated legislation because it would not be what the senate originally passed. Gonzalez said that could be grounds to bring the legislation to the SGA Supreme Court. “It’s almost like the referendums are at a stand-still,” Gonzalez said. Sanders said the incoming administration will decide how to pursue a student vote on the marijuana policy referendum and any other referendums that may be recreated.