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August 30-31, 2014 • $1.50
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Hamstrung by red ink Durbin touts student loan debt refinancing bill at NIU By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Aysha Flowers would like to save money to buy a house or a car, but instead her extra money goes toward $64,000 in debt from student loans she took out to pay for her Northern Illinois University education. Flowers shared her story with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.,
debt. Durbin expects senators Are you paying student loan debt? to vote on the bill, which he co-sponsored with U.S. Sen. Vote online at Daily-Chronicle. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massacom. chusetts, when the senate reconvenes the week of Sept. 8. “The student loan indebtedon Friday when the lawmaker ness is now larger than credit met with students, alumni and card debt,” Durbin said. “It NIU President Doug Baker to has grown so fast. And as a talk about a bill that would al- consequence, we are finding a low students to refinance their lot of people in delicate, com-
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promised positions, because of the debt they took on as students.” The bill would allow borrowers with Federal Family Education Loans or federal direct loans taken out before July 1, 2013, to refinance into Katie Dahlstrom – kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com the interest loans available to borrowers during the 2013-14 U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin talks to Northern Illinois University graduate academic year. Refinancing Jessica Ibares about her student debt Friday at the university. Durbin
has co-sponsored a bill that would allow students to refinance their federal student loans at a lower interest rate.
See DURBIN, page A6
CAMPAIGN OF COMPASSION Party police on patrol in DeKalb Noise complaints among residents’ most-frequent calls By ANDREA AZZO aazzo@shawmedia.com
Photos by Danielle Guerra – dguerra@shawmedia.com
Jordan Ervin, 6, takes a break after playing with his three sisters after school Thursday in his family’s DeKalb. Ervin was born not breathing and has had issues with speech, development, muscle tone, asthma and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ever since.
Family needs help traveling for child’s heart surgery By ANDREA AZZO aazzo@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Between multiple hospital visits and phone calls from school officials, raising 6-year-old Jordan Ervin has been a daily struggle for DeKalb mother Seville Spearman and stepfather Charles Spearman. Jordan was not breathing when he was born June 13, 2008. A feeding tube had to be inserted after
his birth because food was going down his trachea instead of his esophagus. He has also had issues with speech, development, muscle tone, asthma and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It wasn’t until June 2013 when his parents received a diagnosis: Williams syndrome, a genetic condition that affects 1 in 10,000 people worldwide, according
See FAMILY, page A4
Jordan Ervin, 6, plays with his sisters Madison Spearman (center), 5, and Carrington Ervin (right), 7, Thursday in their family’s DeKalb living.
DeKALB – If you’re planning a party, officials recommend letting your neighbors know – unless you want police knocking on your door. Noise complaints were the second-most-common type of call DeKalb police received last year, right behind calls for suspicious activity. Officers can use their discretion in deciding whether to issue a $100 noise violation ticket, but more serious matters can lead to more serious fines. “If your Loud noise complaints neighbor is having a parYear NIU DeKalb ty at 3 a.m., police police you have an 2013 70 1,371 infant, and 2012 61 1,414 they’ve had 2011 57 1,427 problems before but Source: NIU Police Cmdr. Don we’ve never Rodman, DeKalb Police Department been there, 2013 annual report we’d issue a citation,” DeKalb police Cmdr. John Petragallo said. “But in general, if we haven’t dealt with them before, we’d issue a warning, [unless the neighbor insists on signing a complaint].” If noise coming from a property can be heard at a volume greater than 55 decibels at the property line between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., then it’s too loud under the law. From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., the limit is 60 decibels. A running dishwasher or normal conversation reach about 60 decibels, while a whisper is about 30 decibels and a gunshot is about 140 decibels, according to the American Academy of Audiology. Noise complaints have decreased slightly for DeKalb police, but Northern Illinois
See COMPLAINTS, page A6
At heart of Syria fears, some extremists returning home By KEN DILANIAN and BRADLEY KLAPPER The Associated Press WASHINGTON – The case of Mehdi Nemmouche haunts U.S. intelligence officials. Nemmouche is a Frenchman who authorities said spent 11 months fighting with the Islamic State group in Syria before returning to Europe to act out his rage. On May 24, prosecutors said, he methodically shot four people at the
Jewish Museum in central Brussels. Three died instantly, one afterward. Nemmouche was arrested later, apparently by chance. For U.S. and European counterterrorism officials, that 90-second spasm of violence is the kind of attack they fear from thousands of Europeans and up to 100 Americans who have gone to fight for extremist armies in Syria and now Iraq. The Obama administration
has offered a wide range of assessments of the threat to U.S. national security posed by the extremists who said they’ve established a caliphate, or Islamic state, in an area straddling eastern Syrian and northern and western Iraq, and whose actions include last week’s beheading of American journalist James Foley. Some officials said the group is more dangerous than al-Qaida. Yet intelligence assessments said it currently couldn’t pull off a
complex, 9/11-style attack on the U.S. or Europe. However, there is broad agreement across intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the immediate threat from radicalized Europeans and Americans who could come home to conduct lone-wolf operations. Such plots are difficult to detect because they don’t require large conspiracies of people whose emails or phone calls can be intercepted.
The 2013 Boston Marathon bombings were like that, carried out by radicalized American brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev acting on their own. So was the 2010 attempt to bomb New York’s Times Square by Faisal Shahzad, who received training and direction in Pakistan but operated alone in the United States. On Friday, Britain raised its terror threat from “substantial” to “severe,” its sec-
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Couple brings drug overdose awareness to Corn Fest; Vigil, speakers scheduled / A3
Harsh weather on first night of football season delayed, canceled area games / B1
Parenting experts give advice on talking to children about sex / C1
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ond highest level, citing a foreign fighter danger that made a terrorist attack “highly likely.” The U.S. didn’t elevate its national terrorist threat level, though White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the administration was closely monitoring the situation. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Friday that U.S. authorities aren’t aware of any “specific, credible” threats to the U.S. homeland from the group.
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