THE DAILY ILLINI
THURSDAY November 7, 2019
The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
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Vol. 149 Issue 22
The Art Theater closes despite $25,000 donation BY HEATHER ROBINSON STAFF WRITER
On Oct. 25, the marquee outside of The Art Theater read, “THANK YOU CHAMPAIGN URBANA,” as it announced the theater would close after a final night of showings on Halloween. The theater had financial issues in the past, only keeping its doors open due to the support from the community that donated large sums of money. This past spring, the Art
Film Foundation set up an online fundraising page on which it requested $25,000 to remain open. After having raised more than the foundation’s goal, the theater proceeded to shut down. “There are a lot of people upset right now,” said David Kraft, owner of the building. “They gave $25,000 a couple of months ago, and everyone’s asking, ‘Where did the money go?’” Kraft said multiple news organizations have
attempted to contact the foundation, which is refusing to respond to questions about the money. The executive director of the theater, Porshé Garner, sent the following statement in an email to The Daily Illini: “We are devastated by the closing and (are) extremely grateful to our community, both for their support over the years and for sharing their responses to the sad news so visibly and audibly across so many digital and
analog platforms. We will not be releasing any further statements beyond the previously released public statement.” Last week, Kraft said he noticed the liquor license for the theater was set to end on the day of Halloween, and the Art Film Foundation may not have been able to pay it. The theater owes Kraft $4,952.24 for rent. If the amount is not paid by Tue
JACOB WARGO THE DAILY ILLINI
The Art Theater’s sign reads “closed” in downtown SEE THEATER | 3A Champaign on Friday. The theater shut down after Halloween.
Researchers work toward safety in self-driving cars BY LASZLO RICHARD TOTH CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Ongoing research at the University is working to increase the safety of selfdriving cars. The research works to increase reliability in selfdriving cars, known in the field as autonomous vehicles. The focus of this project is to analyze scenarios of potential risk for AVs and attempt to create artificial intelligence that can assess, manage and solve them effectively prior to the actual use of the vehicles on the roads. The researchers began by recreating accidents and possible scenarios of the AVs in order to study where the errors could arise from. These scenarios can range from slippery roads, human error and malicious attempts to hack the car. They soon realized, however, attempting to assess every possible scenario where an accident could occur proved challenging. “If you just sort of create situations willy-nilly, you could be doing it forever,” said Ravishankar Iyer, pro-
fessor in Engineering and one of the main researchers. “You could be doing it for months or years and still really not hit any real safety problems.” In order to account for this, researchers realized they could equip the AVs with a failsafe “AI engine” that attempts to find any potential threat to safety. In this way, the AI engine, which has “domain knowledge” about the vehicle itself, checks to see whether the AV may have missed something that may lead to a dangerous situation. One aspect the research may not yet have accounted for is the human emotional response. “If you see a person with a baby in a pram and you are sort of losing control, you might actually go in another direction (and hit a tree instead),” Iyer said. “That kind of emotional decision is still not there, so we could actually provide for that kind of thinking.” According to Saurabh Jha SEE CARS | 3A
CAMERON KRASUCKI THE DAILY ILLINI
Sarah Gale, junior in ACES, speaks at the School of Social Work about her personal experiences with the California Wildfires. Her family had to evacuate their home due to a fire in 2003.
California wildfires impact students BY ETHAN SIMMONS STAFF WRITER
Wildfires have ravaged thousands of acres in California this October. For over 2,000 Californian students and professors at the University, blazing landscapes are the normal back home. Sarah Gale, junior in ACES, is a lifelong resident of Claremont, California, just 30 miles east of Los Angeles. One night in 2003, just after her fifth birthday, fires forced her family to evacuate. “It was around midnight that night when the fire had reached the top of our street. That street I live on is a dead-end, we had pretty much no way out,” Gale said. Gale’s family came in contact with the Grand Prix fire, one of 14 expan-
sive wildfires that burned over 750,000 acres across California in the fall of 2003. Gale’s parents loaded her and her sister into the car. Gale’s mother walked their horse down to a nearby house with a stall-carrier, then Gale’s father drove the family out on a concrete jogging trail behind the house. The family drove over to Gale’s grandpa’s house in San Dimas. They slept in one bed. When the Gales returned the
next day, surrounding wildlife was charred, but their house was untouched. “If that had caught, that entire residential neighborhood that goes down to the freeway would have caught on fire,” Gale said. “We lived in a little matchbox house built in the 1940s, paperthin walls; it would have lit up like that.” Fast forward to 2018: Camp Fire was the deadliest wildfire in the state’s
history. It leveled the entire city of Paradise, California, including the home of Gale’s elementary school principal. Gale said during these evacuations, cars would sometimes not start because it was too hot outside. Other cities in California don’t have to be ablaze to be affected by wildfires, either. “The other component is the air quality; fire makes a lot of smoke. It can block out the sun in the middle of the day, and it’s very unhealthy to breathe all that in,” said Jeff Frame, professor in LAS. Such was the case for Bryan Ku, freshman in LAS, who’s lived in Cupertino, California, since the third grade. Even though the fires were hours away from his home, his swim meet still got canceled. “In California, all the pools are outdoors,” Ku said. “They realized it was too smoggy, and it would be unsafe for the athletes.” Currently, at least 13 major wildfires are spreading across California. The largest is the Kincade fire in Sonoma County, which totals over 77,000 acres and has forced evacuation of over 180,000 people.
“It was around midnight that night when the fire had reached the top of our street. That street I live on is a dead-end, we had pretty much no way out.” SARAH GALE JUNIOR IN ACES
MARK CAPAPAS THE DAILY ILLINI
A Tesla Model 3 sits in a parking lot in Urbana. Researchers at the University are trying to improve the safety of self-driving cars.
INSIDE
Power shutoffs
Features: Modeling club brings show to Main Quad
Sports: Illinois stomps Nichols State in season opener
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KENYON EDMOND THE DAILY ILLINI
Rows of dead trees stand after a wildfire in Yosemite National Park on Oct. 8, 2016. Over 2,000 University students from California are familiar with the risk of wildfires near their homes.
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