ILLINI DANCE TEAM A NEW SIGHT AT FOOTBALL GAMES
ILLINI VS. SPARTANS: WHO WILL COME OUT ON TOP?
LOTS ‘O LAUGHS FOR HOMECOMING Jim Gaffigan and alumnus Nick Offerman to visit campus on comedy tours PAGE 6A
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THE DAILY ILLINI
THURSDAY October 24, 2013
The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
WWW.DAILYILLINI.COM
Vol. 143 Issue 34
BY BRITTNEY NADLER STAFF WRITER
HUBERT THEODORE THE DAILY ILLINI
Thane Fowler, president of BikeFace and sophomore in DGS, fixes bicycles on the Quad on Wednesday. Proceeds from the event will be used to fund the creation of a bike powered nut grinder.
Fracking debuts in Illinois under strict regulatory laws STAFF WRITER
Starting this month, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources has set up online registration for businesses to receive permits for fracking operations, setting the state up to receive its first large-scale fracking operations. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process of natural gas extraction using horizontal drilling to inject a highly-pressurized combination of water, chemicals and sand deep into shale rock layers that were previously inaccessible. The fluid creates or widens cracks in the rocks, allowing methane gas to escape. Senate Bill 1715, the Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act, was signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn on June 17. Local State Sen. Michael Frerichs, D-52, was the sponsor of the bill. “If we didn’t pass anything, (fracking) was going to come to Illinois regardless,” he said. “It was not regulated and we passed the strongest regulations in the country.” With this new law, Illinois became the first state to require pre and post-fracturing chemical disclosures and the only state to require pre and post-fracturing water testing, according to the bill. Groundwater contamination is one of the biggest concerns regarding hydraulic fracturing. Robert Bauer, principal engineering geologist at the Illinois State Geological Survey, said studies have been done on the east coast to determine the effects
on water supplies. “The best studies are the studies where folks go in before drilling and do sampling of the water supplies and groundwater wells in the area, and then after hydraulic fracturing and drilling has taken place, do additional sampling afterwards,” he said. “Those type of studies have shown no contamination from these drilling operations, and that is what’s required for their permits (in the new act.)” Bauer added that ISGS were brought into the meetings concerning fracking legislation. “(We) had a seat at the table of the multitude of folks who worked on this legislation, including a consortium of four environmental groups, the oil and gas industry and then all of the different departments in the state that would have concerns with this type of operation,” he said. Those departments included the Department of Health, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Attorney General’s office. Frerichs admitted that though some are worried about fracking’s potential impact on Illinois’ environment, others believe it could actually help the state. “Obviously there are a lot of concerns with what it could do to our water and environment. But there are also an awful lot of supporters who think that it has the ability to bring in much needed revenue to the state of Illinois, and make the state more energy independent,” he said. “After three years of working on this bill, hopefully the
Potential energy benefits of fracking in Illinois The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that shale gas production will rise to 13.6 trillion cubic feet by 2035, which represents 45 percent of all natural gas production in the nation. Just one trillion cubic feet of natural gas is enough to heat 15 million homes for one year, generate 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity or fuel 12 million natural-gasfired vehicles for one year.
STAFF WRITER
After walking through the double glass doors at 402 N. Randolph St., teens who have been arrested wait in a room with the words “dream” and “love” framed on a white wall. This is Champaign’s Youth Assessment Center, where the staff in the surrounding offices help troubled kids avoid blemishes on their criminal records and learn from past mistakes. Since the center’s Sept. 23 opening, local communities and agencies have donated funds to show their support, including the city of Champaign. At the Champaign City Council meeting on Oct. 15, an agreement was reached that the city would help fund the center by allocating $15,000 annually. “I was amazed that there’s a great opportunity for families to get help — for youth to get help,” said council member Will Kyles, District 1. Prior to the center’s opening, only youth sent for a referral after police arrests would get the chance to seek help from community services. But now that
Champaign has professionals ready to work with the youth at a centralized location, even overwhelmed parents can walk in and seek help with their at-risk child. Community Services Director Darlene Kloeppel, of the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission, said in the center’s first few weeks, she and her staff had received 49 referrals, eight of which pertained to cases like runaways and worried parents — cases that Kloeppel would never have had the opportunity to handle in the past. Before the youth center was in operation, Kloeppel said the average number of referrals was around 26 per month. “If we can keep (kids) out of the system, especially for some of these minor offenses, and we can change behavior, that would definitely be advantageous to everyone: to the community, the kids and law enforcement, all together,” Kyles said. Kloeppel and her staff members spend most of the day making their way through paperwork. She said it’s like any other office. During this time, they arrange mediated meetings between the
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For kids who face abuse and neglect at home, each day presents a new struggle. “Most of the kids who have come into contact with Child Protective Services could have been left at home when they were four, or left unsupervised, or they could be dealing with physical neglect, where their house is falling in or they are suffering from food insecurity,” said Jesse Helton, research specialist at the Children and Family Research Center. On top of these daily struggles, one in four of these children have to deal with obesity as well, according to research conducted by Helton and recently published in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect. Helton and Janet Liechty, assistant professor in the school of Social Work, used data gathered by Child Protective Services to analyze obesity levels within a group of 5,800 children across the nation who have been investigated for abuse or neglect. Their results showed that these children are more at risk of obesity than any other children in the United States. “Obesity puts children at
assembly struck a nice balance between those different interests.” Rep. Naomi Jakobsson, D-103, was one of the house sponsors of Frerich’s bill, and she noted the importance of regulations, specifically citing the aforementioned chemical disclosure provisions in the bill as being comprehensive. “I think anything that protects the people of Illinois, it really benefits all of us,” Jakobsson said. “Once this gets off the ground, I think that there will be many job opportunities for people working in that industry.”
Eleanor can be reached at eablack2@ dailyillini.com.
Youth assessment center brings in increased referrals
Three weeks after the opening, Kloeppel said on Oct. 16 that she had handled 49 referrals. Of minor who has committed an offense and the victim. A mediator sits in to ensure that talks between the two are productive, with the end goal of having the offender sign a contract written by the victim on how to make up for their actions. Kloeppel said in one case, a minor who damaged a store owner’s property was later hired to work at the store after the minor
those 49, eight were cases of families walking in, runaways or schools stepping in to help kids that never would have gotten help before.
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natural language processing, a system that identifies all of the nouns and verbs in the text and then exchanges those words with properly formatted and conjugated versions of what he refers to as “scary words.” The “scary words” were taken from a Homeland Security keyword list and are Grosser’s best guess at the types of words the NSA might be looking for in emails. From there, the process is simple: users compose an email and a unique version of the converted text is automatically added at the bottom. The text is different every time and is also editable. The intended results of the project are speculative, Grosser said, as the techniques used by the NSA to conduct surveillance are largely unknown. Yet he is familiar with a method he refers to as blanket collection of Internet traffic, a process
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higher risk for all sorts of bad outcomes,” Helton said. “Kids who are obese are not only stigmatized and bullied, they also have all kinds of internal and external behavioral problems that come around with it.” Helton also noted that certain demographics suffer from obesity in different ways. “Girls in particular are more likely to be depressed when they are obese, and new research is showing that boys who struggle with obesity end up acting out or not doing well in school,” Helton said. “(Obese kids) also have all these health problems such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, etc. It really sets them off on a bad first step in terms of adult health.” The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services funded Helton’s research because previously, little research had been done about the connection between obesity and maltreatment, he said. Karen Hawkins, the department’s deputy director of communications, said that when caseworkers are working with families, the issue of nutrition and health is only brought up
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Obesity increases in homes of neglect University research specialists Jesse Helton and Janet Leichty analyzed data of children who reportedly came from homes of abuse or neglect. The data showed differences in obesity between this population and others.
In the first three weeks... • 41 kids sent from the police department • 3 were runaways • 2 were from parents • 2 were from schools • 1 other from an agency
One in four children who live in homes of abuse or neglect were obese.
One in five children who live in poverty are obese.
finished the agreed punishment. “I see the difference it makes for the kids,” she said. “A relationship got formed. The store owner was able to understand that this was a person involved who had needs and who was willing to take ownership.” The center can determine whether, years from now, a
One in six children who live in homes without abuse or neglect are obese. SOURCE: STUDY BY JESSE HELTON IN CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT, THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
SCOTT DURAND THE DAILY ILLINI
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Study shows child abuse, obesity link STAFF WRITER
SOURCE: U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION
Prior to the Youth Assessment Center’s opening on Sept. 23, Community Services Director Darlene Kloeppel said that her staff would average about receive 26 referrals per month. They only dealt with minors sent from the police.
“It makes for nuclear threats. Well, this government so important? Because they think phishing. It might make the world as it resisted.” This text may appear as a meaningless jargon of words — and that’s because it is. Benjamin Grosser, a visiting instructor in the School of Art and Design, is the creator of ScareMail, a web browser addon that adds “threatening” text to the bottom of emails in an attempt to disrupt NSA surveillance. “It’s first and foremost a work of art. I’m an artist, and I’m interested in how software affects culture and how software changes who we are,” Grosser said. Grosser’s ScareMail software takes original source text — in this case, the text from Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” a novel set in a dystopian state — and performs
BY MARYCATE MOST
Champaign’s new youth center assists troubled teens BY STANTON POLANSKI
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Goin’ nuts about campus bikers
BY ELEANOR BLACK
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