Barack Obama is running ads encouraging young voters to register.

The Democratic presidential candidate has a full-page ad in Wednesday's edition of The Independent, an alternative weekly based in Durham. He's run similar ads in The Daily Tar Heel, the student paper at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The ad shows an oil drop with wind turbines and plant designs inside. "I registered because the future won't run on oil. — Josie K." reads the headline. "Don't get mad. Get registered."

The ads are running with two weeks remaining before the Oct. 10 deadline for new voters to register. They coincide with tours by Obama surrogates on college campuses.

They are a further sign that the Obama campaign hopes to boost the turnout among young voters in North Carolina by a substantial margin this year. 

The public-records exemption on water bills has another effect.

It is allowing the city of Raleigh to keep secret how much municipal water Pepsi Bottling Ventures is drawing for use in its Aquafina bottled water.

According to The Independent Weekly, a Durham-based alternative paper, North Carolina has a total of 28 bottling plants using municipal and groundwater, but all are protected by a provision exempting water bils from public scrutiny.

Raleigh, meanwhile, refuses to reveal exactly what amount Pepsi or their other largest users are pulling out of the municipal system—citing an exemption in the public records law. "The records you requested are enterprise billing records and not available to the public," wrote Raleigh City Attorney Thomas McCormick. 

Amanda Martin, attorney for the N.C. Press Association, told the Independent that doesn't make sense.

"We are in the middle of an extreme drought, and we are not even entitled to know which users are consuming inordinate amounts of water," she said.