BY CORINNE RUFF STAFF WRITER A viral Facebook post has sparked discussion regarding fines and lawsuits from bus company Suburban Express. The original post, which has been shared 789 times and “liked” 646 times in the last two weeks, as of 10:52 p.m. Thursday, trac- es back to the personal Facebook wall of Jeremy Leval, a graduate student at the University. In his post, Leval describes an incident that occurred during a trip back to Champaign on March 31, on a bus driven by an individu- al who, according to the company, was not an employee of Suburban Express. Four days later, Leval said he received an email stating that he was permanently banned from Suburban Express and was issued a fine of $500 for liquidated damages and the cost of the ticket. As passengers boarded the bus at the O’Hare International Airport stop, Leval said he over- heard the bus driver shouting at an unidentified international stu- dent who he said did not under- stand that the driver was asking her to fold her ticket in half before she could board the bus. “If you don’t understand Eng- lish, you don’t belong at the Univer- sity of Illinois or any ‘American’ University.” Leval said in his Face- book post, quoting the bus driver. Leval said he confronted the driver and told him his language was offensive and unnecessary. In a statement provided to The Daily Illini, Suburban Express said after contacting the passen- gers on the March 31 trip, the company had not yet received “any first-hand knowledge of the incident.” The statement also reads: “An offhand verbal exchange between a driver who is not an employee of Suburban Express and a pas- senger has been blown totally out of proportion by a meddling, self- aggrandizing student who has cho- sen to use this incident to promote his own agenda, which seems to be to call as much attention to himself as possible and to promote his own competing business.” Suburban Express owner Den- nis Toeppen said in an email later, “We take our obligation to serve all passengers with respect and professionalism very seriously.” Meanwhile, several posts on the Facebook thread had addressed that Leval had attempted to launch a carpooling website called Col- lege Rides in May 2012. “College Rides has not been launched, and it will never be launched,” Leval said in reply to a question about his former busi- ness plans. On April 4, the same day Leval wrote his post, Suburban Express sent an email to passengers who were on Trip 705, asking if they had noticed an incident on the bus, said Hanyu Gu, senior in Busi- ness and one of the recipients of the message. Gu said he was sitting two seats behind Leval when he witnessed the scene. He replied to the email: “The attitude of the driver was very rude and arrogant, which made me feel unpleasant. I didn’t ask the details about the quarrel but I don’t think in any situation the driver should talk to a passen- ger like that.” But in the statement provid- ed to The Daily Illini, Suburban Express maintained it was not directly informed of the incident. While a lawsuit hasn’t been filed against Leval, other students, who BY JANELLE O’DEA STAFF WRITER The Illinois Senate voted 52-1 in favor of Senate Bill 1587, titled “Drone Surveillance,” on Thursday, passing the legisla- tion regarding unmanned aer- ial vehicles (UAV), or drones, to the House. Champaign Coun- ty Sheriff Dan Walsh said he will not make any decisions regarding the UAV, which was purchased by his depart- ment in 2007, until the law is established. “Right now we’re just going to sit and wait to see what the law and the (Federal Aviation Administration) end up doing,” Walsh said. Senate Bill 1586, proposed by Daniel Biss, D-Evanston, pro- hibits police or other govern- ment agencies from using UAVs unless a judge issues a search warrant authorizing the use of the UAV. Gene Robinson, owner of RP Flight Systems, a Texas-based UAV manufacturing company, said the FAA has been discuss- ing regulations for UAVs over the past few years, as well. Because UAVs are a new tech- nology used by police offices and other government agencies, regulations have not been fully developed yet. Robinson’s company manu- factured the SkyCamo Spectra purchased by the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office, and Robinson said the FAA’s slow progress in developing legisla- tion has caused him difficulties in his business. “The FAA has a long histo- ry of not making their dead- lines,” Robinson said. “It’s been a very frustrating situa- tion for manufacturers and also law enforcement officers who want to use the technology, and they cannot.” Walsh said in an email that he and his office purchased the Spectra to assist in search-and- rescue missions, mostly, but the UAV could be used for more. He said the UAV could assist in many different situations, such as photographing outdoor crime BY ELEANOR BLACK STAFF WRITER Wearing nothing but a plaid shirt and jeans, Charley Nye, lab manager of the University’s Bee Research Facility, toured the backyard of the property. Before him was a Styrofoam box; the buzzing of bees became louder and louder as he approached. With the onset of spring, the ground he stepped on was lush and budding with dandelions, the early-season pollen source for the facility’s residents: honeybees. “The year’s kind of ramping up right now,” Nye said. “(The bees) spend the winter clustered togeth- er in a tight little ball, warming each other up and slowly eating honey until spring comes and the flowers start blooming.” The box is one of the facility’s man-made hives, and by July, it will be joined by many more boxes as the bee population in the facil- ity increases. But this increase doesn’t reflect the nationwide honeybee pop- ulation, which saw a dramatic decrease this year, according to University researchers. They are using the facility to look into this decline through genetic research. “This last year was a real shock,” said Gene Robinson, direc- tor of the Bee Research Facility and the Institute for Genomic Biology. “(The honeybee popula- tion) looked like it was getting bet- ter, the problem was getting less severe ... it’s not yet clear what the problem was this year.” Researchers have not yet found a specific cause of the decline, but May Berenbaum, head of the depart- ment of Entomology, said four dif- ferent factors have been proposed as contributors to the decline. “There’s pesticides, parasites and diseases, management prac- tices, and nutritional factors,” Berenbaum said. “So we’ve got people working on most of the main hypotheses that are out there to account for bee decline.” The Bee Research Facility is one place where University researchers can experiment and test these theories. “The Bee Research Facility exists to support our research and make possible our research on honeybees,” Robinson said. “Our research on honeybees deals with a variety of topics that generally have to do with understanding the role of genes.” Berenbaum said the main focus of the research is to determine the cause of the population decline. “Identifying the causes opens up possibilities for treatment and prevention,” she said. Researchers are also figur- ing out ways to preserve the bee population. “There are new efforts to breed resistance, so people are taking a very different approach to the use of pesticides in the hive,” said Berenbaum, referring to a pesti- cide that protects bees from fatal BY JOHNATHAN HETTINGER STAFF WRITER Many students will pay more for their education next year if Congress doesn’t act by July 1. Federal student loan inter- est rates are set to double at the beginning of the next fis- cal year, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on subsidized Staf- ford loans, effectively raising the cost of a college education by $1,000 for students who need loans, according to the United States Public Interest Research Group. The rates were set to double last July 1, but Congress, in the midst of an election year, vot- ed June 29 to extend the rates one year. Now, government leaders are looking for a more permanent solution to the interest rates. In his recent budget proposal, President Barack Obama sug- gested tying student loan rates to market interest rates. Rates for subsidized loans will be 1 percent higher than the 10-year Treasury yield rates for subsi- dized loans, while the increase will be 3 percent for unsubsi- dized loans and 4 percent for graduate loans. With Thurs- day’s rates, this would mean a decrease in the rates of subsi- dized loans (from 3.4 percent to 2.7 percent), unsubsidized loans (from 6.8 percent to 4.7 percent), and direct graduate loans (from 6.8 percent to 5.7 percent). Many Republicans have supported this idea, but some have suggested capping the interest rates if the Treasury yield rate gets too high. “Right now, we are kind of at historic lows in terms of our interest rates being very low, so right now it would be a ben- efit to the students, but in three or four years, when the inter- est rate changes nationally, (it may not be),” said Dan Mann, director of financial aid. “If we go strictly to a variable interest rate, is there a possibility that it would always just be a variable interest rate, or should there be a cap put on at some point? Those are the questions that are being asked and debated at this INSIDE Police 2A | Corrections 2A | Horoscopes 2A | Opinions 4A | Crossword 5A | Comics 5A | Life & Culture 6A | Sports 1B | Classifieds 4B | Sudoku 4B facebook — dailyillini, DailyIlliniSports twitter —@TheDailyIllini, @di_sports YouTube — thedailyillini tumblr —thedailyillini The Daily Illini Friday April 19, 2013 The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871 www.DailyIllini.com Vol. 142 Issue 142 | FREE THE UNIVERSITY BORROWS $50,859,086 $36,670,945 $75,950,275 $80,736,089 SUBSIDIZED UNSUBSIDIZED GRADUATE PARENT PLUS $244,216,395 TOTAL $99,750,244.75 TOTAL $0.125 $0.333 $0.548 $0.490 SUBSIDIZED UNSUBSIDIZED GRADUATE PARENT PLUS $6,357,385.75 $12,211,424.69 $41,620,750.70 $39,560,683.61 SUBSIDIZED UNSUBSIDIZED GRADUATE PARENT PLUS THE GOVERNMENT EARNS PER DOLLAR LENT THE GOVERNMENT PROFITS IF THESE RATES EXPIRE, THE GOVERNMENT WILL EARN AN ADDITIONAL $10,578,6898.89 FOR A GRAND TOTAL OF $110,328,934.63. Attorneys’ fees exceed Suburban Express lawsuit fees Since January, Suburban Express has filed 44 lawsuits toward passengers who have violated its terms and conditions. In the case of Yu Zhang, international student and senior in Business, the cost of an attorney to defend her small claims case was more than the amount for which she was sued. Source: Thomas Betz, University student legal attorney estimated attorney fee for small claims lawsuit $500 $320.03 $100 convenience charge $27.75 ticket price $64.69 screening fee $5.59 collection cost Source: Yu Zhang, international student and senior in Business $47 screening fee $75 collection cost Source: Kim Evans, Ford County circuit clerk SCOTT DURANDTHE DAILY ILLINI Student loan interest rates set to double What this means to students If Congress doesn’t act by July 1, the interest rate on subsidized Stafford student loans will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Over the course of a college career, the extra interest would likely mean that students on average will pay $1,000 more for their college education, according to the United States Public Interest Research Group. Without action from Washington, rates to go up July 1 See LOAN RATES, Page 3A See BEES, Page 3A See DRONE, Page 3A See SUBURBAN, Page 3A Bee facility swarms to solve problem EMILY OGDENTHE DAILY ILLINI The Bee Research Facility, located on South Lincoln avenue, contains indoor and outdoor hives home to thousands of honey bees. This hive encloses around five thousand bees, one of the smaller hives on site. Researchers focused on cause of bee population decline Ill. Senate sends drone surveillance bill to House Viral Facebook post about Suburban Express sparks controversy PHOTO COURTESY OF RP FLIGHT SYSTEMS High: 47˚ Low: 32˚ Not Yet Begun to Fight: Ebertfest’s closing film sends a hopeful message 6A Underdog seeks upset No. 16 Illini looking to win big at NCAAs SPORTS, 1B We are making some changes. On Fridays, you won’t see a printed Daily Illini newspaper on the stands, but you can still find our stories and photos on a redesigned website and our mobile site. And we’ve re-imagined how we approach design. Turn the page for a much more minimalistic style, which places emphasis on the stories, the photos and everything inbetween. We’re not cutting our coverage, though. Touchdown Times will be in Thursday’s publication, and our sister magazine, buzz, will be out Fridays. Technograph will hit the stands four times a year. You won’t see any less content on our site than you have in the past, and there will be no reduction in the number of people, events or sports games that we cover. With these changes, we are bringing the content to where you want to see it — where you are — which is online and on social media. That starts with how we can tell stories. Sixteen social media accounts across every department deliver our best, our most informative, our smartest, our most entertaining stories, photos, videos and broadcasts. Online, we’ve reorganized the site so that you can find our special sections in a single home and see more stories at a time, without all of the scrolling. Last year, we adopted the science and engineering magazine Technograph, and this year we’ve brought the217.com community calendar under our wing. Soon, the calendar will be completely migrated to DailyIllini.com. With these partnerships, we want to bring you more about what’s happening around you. We continue our efforts to grow, but doing that is expensive. Last year, the news broke that we owed $250,000 to our printer and other debtors. Since then we’ve paid it off, but we are still a media company fighting to stay alive. In spring 2013 in an effort to cut our expenditures, we sold our Green Street building, consolidating a three-floor operation down to a single floor, which we now rent. About a year before that, we turned to the students for support, and this semester we will receive it to help cover all of the media outlets at Illini Media Company. The $1.85-per-semester student fee is a reaffirmation of our mission: serving the University community as an editorially independent media organization. This support means our readers have a greater stake in what we produce here. We want you to take a greater ownership of your Daily Illini, letting us know your questions, concerns and ideas as we progress through this media transition. Over our 142-year history, we’ve made hundreds, if not thousands, of changes from small font tweaks to full-blown redesigns. Turn the page to see the next generation of The Daily Illini. Some big, some small. SEPTEMBER 14, 1988 APRIL 19, 2013 APRIL 20, 1995 SEPTEMBER 8, 2003 Big stories similar to this one showed that visuals were becoming just as important as printed content. This front page played up the story of a football victory with a postgame photo across the entire top fold. Stories and visuals shared equal space on this front page’s top fold. This page also included tidbits with weather and information about content inside the issue. This front page’s masthead featured a University symbol — the Alma Mater. A photo illustration used as the lead art took up the majority of the front page. REIMAGINING THE DAILY ILLINI In our previous design, we placed a stronger emphasis on a diverse range of visual elements paired with stories, such as graphics. We also switched to a lowercase masthead and creatively previewed content through the skybox.