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News at 6 on WNUR News – February 7, 2022 Graffonics, Rihanna pregnancy, Surplus breakdown WNUR News broadcasts live at 6 pm CST on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on WNUR 89.3 FM
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Speaker 1 00:00:23 You're listening to the six o'clock news on w N U R 89.3, FM HD one Evanston Chicago it's Monday, February 7th, 2022. Tonight on WMUR news, show a deep dive into Rihanna's pregnancy announcement and putting the surplus into context, those stories, and more coming up now on WMUR news at six. Thanks for tuning in on this Monday evening. We hope everyone is having a non terrible week six graffiti dancers and tonic tap collaborated for the seventh year in a row on Griffith. Anik's a dance show last week in that focused on temptation music ranged from childish Gambino to Fleetwood Mac, but the main performance piece is centered around seductiveness and desire. Here's reporter Iris Swarthout with more
Speaker 2 00:01:30 Audience members from across Northwestern and Evanston were lured into Griffith Onyx temptation dance show. This past weekend desire is performance hosted by two of Northwestern's premier dance groups on campus, graffiti dancers and tonic tap. The two performed in their seventh annual grift phonics dance show marking the first in-person show of the year for both groups, the performance utilized music from all genres ranging from hip hop, musicians, mustard, and Migos To the more romantic beat of Samsung,
Speaker 3 00:02:04 Um,
Speaker 2 00:02:13 Tonic tap group focuses on a wide range of music. According to Hannah Gonzalez, one of ton of taps artistic director,
Speaker 4 00:02:21 Everywhere from like tessellated and like these crazy hip hop beats to, um, like Joni Mitchell, I think was pitched a couple of years ago. We've had beach boys songs, um, melts was in this show. I'm thinking of just all the other, like as a very, very wide range. And I think with the more new members that we keep bringing in the more different backgrounds, I like dance backgrounds, all of these people have the more diversified it becomes.
Speaker 2 00:02:48 Graffiti dancers also fit in well with tonic and that they have a somewhat broad range of music as well. And their lineups, according to tonic tap member and graffiti dancers, artistic director Shira occurred,
Speaker 4 00:03:02 I would say it's also a range, but maybe less, a more narrow range and tonic. Um, we, there are a lot of, we have mostly different types of styles of contemporary and jazz, and also like heels. I got like some fun pieces and these musical theater pieces. Um, but it ranges anywhere from like slow, like sad boys songs to like throw back jazzy songs. Like we had a, um, love
Speaker 2 00:03:34 This weekend's performances were a long time coming for audience members who hadn't seen either group or form in person since this started the pandemic. According to graffiti artistic director, Maddie banish dancers from both graffiti and tonic tap were excited to express themselves on stage. Again,
Speaker 4 00:03:52 Temptation was a really exciting show because as artistic director, but also as a junior, I had only ever done one show with graffiti given how COVID kind of changed the trajectory of all of our college experiences. So I think there was a lot of excitement, a lot of nerves, and just a lot of, um, like there was so much bottled up creativity that people are were finally able to set on their dancers. So I think, um, I wouldn't say expectations were really high, but I think it was just such an awesome place for people to finally come back and get to set the choreography they'd been thinking about during lockdown and during the at-home period
Speaker 2 00:04:39 And the creativity that Benish alludes to is mostly channeled into more central pieces, such as need to know by dojo, cat
Speaker 2 00:04:52 And all my girls like to fight by hope Talla.
Speaker 6 00:05:00 Um,
Speaker 2 00:05:03 Both graffiti dancers and tonics tap have auditions at the beginning of fall quarter, according to , this is also in planning for growth, Sonic begins, choreographers pitch songs, and choreography associated with it. And members of the two groups vote on what pieces they would like and which ones they would like to be in. After that Gonzalo said, practices begin,
Speaker 4 00:05:26 Start with small group rehearsals for about an hour each week, as well as our company rehearsals on Sundays. And, um, so pretty much from, I think we got started around week three. So from week three on, um, through about reading week of fall quarter, we, each group was meeting about once a week. Um, and we were meeting uncomfort for company every Sunday. Um, and then overwhelmness, uh, the wellness period when we returned, um, after we moved our show, I don't think anybody in tonic actually helped rehearsals. Um, we kind of were just posting breakdown, videos and, um, making sure that all the members were up to speed and then pieces got finished up, um, in the last couple of weeks before the show. And then this last week was our tech week process. So definitely sense the early weeks of fall quarter.
Speaker 2 00:06:15 And luckily this process is awarded by funds, collected from audience members who each paid $5 for admission, if students and $10, if members of the general public to see the show, those numbers added up to account for various costs associated with tech week, whether that be lighting or stage management, according to
Speaker 4 00:06:36 Yeah, we set it up so that, um, like each group was paying for different things. So graffiti paid for lighting designer, tonic paid for videographer. Then we have other expenses throughout the tech week, like buying snacks and stuff. So I'm actually like I collected all the funds and then we're going to split it evenly. Like after deducting all those costs that we put in
Speaker 2 00:07:00 Temptation was composed of four performances, two at seven 30 and two at 10 on Friday and Saturday nights at the ballroom in the word center for performing arts and the audience members. Well, they felt pretty enthusiastic about the performances themselves.
Speaker 4 00:07:22 Um, and I think I really like, it's a small space, but doing it in the ballroom, I think it's exciting that an audience who probably didn't come knowing everyone can kind of feed off each other's energy.
Speaker 2 00:07:37 No, that temptation is done. Graffiti and tonic tap are looking forward to their next venture for Gonzalez. The end of this nearly five month long journey has resulted in a whirlwind of emotions.
Speaker 4 00:07:49 I just can't believe that we pulled this off and I'm feeling pretty tired, but I'm feeling good. Um, and ready to start preparations for the next one
Speaker 2 00:08:03 From Evanston or whichever city you're in. This is Iris Swarthout. WMUR news.
Speaker 6 00:08:11 Yeah. So
Speaker 1 00:08:18 WMUR news will return after these messages stay tuned.
Speaker 7 00:08:24 Um, in almost every school blessing class, he seen me around the neighborhood and you tell me, then I'm a pretty good kid. Well, I'm one out of every five children in America, and I'm struggling with hunger. Please visit feeding america.org today and find your local food bank for ways to help every dollar you donate helps to provide eight meals for kids like me. We are feeding America, brought to you by feeding America and at council
Speaker 9 00:08:58 Today, my new dad and I shot off a rocket in the park today, my new son and I failed to shoot off a rocket, the rocket launched into the air and then crashed into the pond. I'll never forget that day. I'll never forget that day.
Speaker 10 00:09:14 You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent. Thousands of kids in foster care. We'll take you just as you are for more information on how you can adopt visit, adopt us kids.org, a public service announcement from the U S department of health and human services adopt us kids and the ad council.
Speaker 8 00:09:29 Alison is perfect. I mean, she'd never tell you that she's humble and perfect. She likes everyone. She even likes her own tidy roommates, weird Guinea pig. Alison wait, are you texting and driving? Alison? No, that's the exact opposite of what I was just saying about you. Why Alison, why texting and driving makes good people look bad. Visit stop tech, stop. rex.org brought to you by the national highway traffic safety administration and the ad council.
Speaker 1 00:10:00 Welcome back. And I never text and drive onto arts and entertainment. WMUR News's favorite. Multihyphenate Rihanna announced her pregnancy last week with a series of glamorous and camp photo shared online here's reporter Jim and Kim with a breakdown of the moment,
Speaker 11 00:10:21 The art form known as a celebrity pregnancy photo shoe as a new winning entry popstar, Brianna and rapper ASAP Rocky have announced their first child with the release of a screenshot by miles steaks, better known as Dixie, the 20 something photographer named by Bo as fashion's favorite paparazzi. After months of rumor and speculation, the musician and makeup local made her own silent statement over the weekend by walking around with their partner in Harlem with stomach's Baird for inquiring eyes, the series of photos by digs, posted on Instagram and sold to a variety of media outlets, feature Rihanna and a long pink vintage Chanel popper jacket from the fall 1996 collection. It has a winterized and accessorized version of the maternity crop top trend embrace my mom's to be last summer, the coast button and Belize bank reports, crystals, mirrored, the pendants elaborate decoration worn over extra long ripped jeans puddling in the street.
Speaker 11 00:11:13 The jacket is held up by another statement piece, a golden leather Chanelle chain bell, her stomach framed by the coat, which is closed by a single button at the breastbone is covered only by a Juul and crossed across on a long prom necklace, which is also by Chanel. Our hands are tucked into the pocket of her jeans and her hair and loose ways. ASAP. Rocky is wearing leather pants, a Carhartt denim jacket, a hooded varsity sweater, and a black beanie in one photo. They're scrolling down a Hartland street seemingly under the Riverside drive via duck holding hands and another. He is kissing her on the crown of the head, creating a loving circle of two though. It is snowing in the background with the early flakes of winter storm. Keenan Rhianna's belly is bear showcasing a gold cross pendant and bridge style. That's the focal point of a Pearl and gemstone chain around her belly.
Speaker 11 00:11:59 There is what looks to be only a sprinkling of snow on their hair. Suggesting the photos were taken before the weekend snowstorm and freezing temperatures in New York and released on a planned schedule. The framing is carefully calculated in his pretend intimacy, both off-duty and on-message caught so that you get the sense that you are getting a peak into a private moment though, in a way that has been entirely choreograph down to the vintage diamond ring on her finger. And this the Rihanna snap is the latest stage in a photographic tradition that can be traced back to the Demi Moore pregnancy cover on Vendini hill in 1991, that portrait featuring the actress cradling her distended stomach new software, a giant diamond ring was so scandalous when release that it was banned from certain stores despite being mailed with the paper covering the Shire, started an image-making trend that extended to Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears, Sierra NTG headin.
Speaker 11 00:12:48 The all of them were taught by Beyonce. It's 2017 baby bump photo shoot. That's not set a new standard for managing the public pregnancy reveal becoming not only Instagram's most liked photo of the year when it reached 11.1 million legs, but also the first of an entire series of high concept maternity photo shoot dropped by a stars naked as possible, or they'd be answering a picture. We stepped into our history. We chose a look and composition that seemed like a sly nod to fashion itself. More specifically, the photos referred to Anna winter, his first full cover in 1988, which featured the Israeli model Micayla pursue wearing all guests jeans and a Christian LaCroix jacket with elaborated Juul cross on the front, her hair windblown and wavy laughing on the street. At that time, it was considered revolutionary a way to let the stuffiness out of Vogue to demonstrate a RAR high, low era and fashion, and to Herald the advent of a new power at the top.
Speaker 11 00:13:56 At this time, it undisclosed to be honest facility at taking ownership of establishment imagery and revising it to her own ends, not to mention our ability to move product, both of which have helped transform her to mirror of fashion icon to billionaire entrepreneur already, according to the online shopping site, love the sale. So it just for pink petticoats increased 200% in the hours after the photos were posted for ripped jeans, 175%. And for Pearl necklace is 80% ASAP. Rocky also caused a spike in men's sweater, vest, leather trousers in Carhartt jackets. All of which suggest that when it comes to maternity style, not to mention baby kids, this may just be the beginning for WMUR news. That says she means Kim.
Speaker 1 00:14:40 I'm sure the birth announcement will pop off as well. Looking over to oddities, Northwestern grad workers released its annual report on university finances. Last Friday, after Northwestern announced an 87.8 million surplus for fiscal year 2021, reporter Madison Bradley decided to take a closer look at just what exactly that number means. We'll be back after a short break.
Speaker 7 00:15:11 Um, in almost every school blessing class, he seen me around the neighborhood and you tell me then I'm a pretty good kid. Well, I'm one out of every five children in America, and I'm struggling with hunger. Please visit feeding america.org and find your local food bank for ways to help. Every dollar you donate helps provide eight meals for kids like me. We are feeding America, brought to you by feeding America in council.
Speaker 8 00:15:43 Th this is a guided meditation on parenting. Take a deep breath in and let go of the time you and your son played basketball and you attempted to slam dunk, or when you hit that pinata into your neighbor's yard, let him go.
Speaker 10 00:15:59 You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent. There are thousands of teens in foster care who don't need perfection. They need you for more information on how you can adopt visit, adopt us kids.org, a public service announcement from the U S department of health and human services adopt us kids and the ad council
Speaker 12 00:16:17 Amnesty. International's a worldwide organization dedicated to promoting human rights, amnesty conducts letter writing campaigns, and tries to raise public awareness about capital punishment, police brutality, and torture in the United States and abroad. For more information about amnesty international, you can check their national [email protected]. This message brought to you by WMUR.
Speaker 7 00:16:46 Why don't you tell the class what you did this weekend? Well, my dad and I went and searched some magical minerals and found a zillion of them in the stream for my lookout rock. Then my sister and I escaped Brittany King. I went back to my super twin Fort for safety. Then we told stories till it got dark and the big dipper, let us all the way you Jill. We went to the forest. I thought that far away. Ask your parents to take you and your friends to the forest this week. It's closer than you think. Check out, discover the forest.org brought to you by the us forest service.
Speaker 13 00:17:16 I what, uh, at your boy, XOX Oxo. You getting these texts question, mark, where are you? What are you doing? Oh, M G you are making me mad. You better text me back. I'm waiting outside your house. Relentless,
Speaker 7 00:17:34 Aggressive texting. It's like sending an angry robot to deliver your message. When does the robot become dangerous? Let us know at that's not
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Speaker 7 00:17:44 Brought to you by the ad council.
Speaker 1 00:17:49 Here's Madison Bradley with the story.
Speaker 14 00:17:58 Northwestern had a surplus of $87.8 million for fiscal year 2021, the university's revenue total 2.5, $6 billion and its expenditures were about 2.4, $7 billion in an email signed by provost, Kathleen Johnson, executive vice president, Craig Johnson and president Morton Shapiro. The surplus was called a quote, small operating margin and quote. And the email said that the access mostly came from cutting back spending Northwestern university grad workers on Friday released its annual report on university finances. To learn more about this research. I spoke with economics professor mark at the end, you grad worker's research chair, Andrew Monta Quinn. We started with the basics first. What's an endowment
Speaker 15 00:18:49 Like you can sort of imagine if you put a hundred dollars in the bank at a 5% interest rate every year, you could go to the bank and take out $5 to spend and do whatever you want with it. And you can think of the endowment is like that. It's a big pile of money that earns a return that then allows the university to fund faculty salaries and dorm repairs and skating rinks and whatever
Speaker 14 00:19:09 That's economics, professor mark, Whitney.
Speaker 15 00:19:11 There is some risks though, because sometimes the endowment goes down and so we wouldn't do as well. And you know, certainly some of the times it goes up, there's also a little problem and that sometimes just the economy crashes and financial markets close up, sort of just freeze. And then this money we're expecting to get coming in from the endowment just doesn't come. Like you would imagine if you really bad, as some of your, a bunch of students just didn't pay tuition, we'd be like, oh, you know, it's not like our costs go away. And so similarly, if the endowment doesn't come through for us, if it doesn't earn us very much, then no, we have to hustle around and cut spending or, you know, borrow the money from someplace. So as frustrating as operating Northwestern is expensive. And so we have to pay for that.
Speaker 15 00:19:58 And so one way to pay for it as tuition, another way to pay for it is a cut of research grants and other ways, you know, revenue from the big 10 network and ticket sales and stuff like that, housing and black and a big part of it is earnings off of our endowment. So we have this big pile of money. It grows over time and we typically take out like 4% or so per year. But as long as we take about as much as grows back, or even slightly less than every success of generation Northwestern students will have a somewhat better time.
Speaker 14 00:20:31 Why does Northwestern care about the size of its endowment?
Speaker 15 00:20:35 Ah, the bigger the endowment, the more that its earnings would pay for in terms of what we can spend in a given period. And
Speaker 14 00:20:41 What's a surplus
Speaker 16 00:20:43 You can personalize to take that at face value and say, when the university has a, that means they didn't spend as much as they took in. What that means to me until a lot of other people on campus is that they could have been spending a lot more to support the people that are on campus. For example, they easily with that money easily could have funded just to give an example. It easily could have funded insurance for dependence of graduate students, um, or at least match the federal funding that they use to send out these $2,000 stimulus checks. So they had more money to work with. Then they actually ended up using
Speaker 14 00:21:14 That's an IU grad worker's research chair, Andrew Monta Quinn.
Speaker 16 00:21:18 That's the question, but is the goal to make a surplus? Like I said, the goal is always to support for future generations as well as the current generation. And part of that involves kind of over long periods of time, just growing the amount of money you have to support the people on campus, but that doesn't necessarily have to happen every on a yearly basis. You know, it should happen when averaged out over long periods of time and it has, but you do see kind of individual years where they will have budget deficits, but Northwestern has tens of billions of dollars of assets that they can draw on for cases like that when there is just a small budget deficit. So the goal is to have a surplus in the long run, but year to year, it doesn't seem as important
Speaker 14 00:21:58 In April, 2020 toward the start of the pandemic. President Shapiro sent an email to the Northwestern community to explain how the virus would affect the university spending quote. The sobering reality for us is that COVID-19 is having a significant impact on many elements of university's funding. And he also mentioned the endowment saying, quote, the endowment was not established to fix budgets, shortfalls, or manage crises, but rather to provide key resources needed to preserve our mission of academic excellence and research eminence far into the future. And quote,
Speaker 16 00:22:34 A lot of the fears that existed at the beginning of the pandemic about certain revenues like tuition and housing and gifts to the university. There are fears that those would kind of completely dry up as the pandemic happened. And those fears never really materialized, but we still are kind of left with the side effects of these austerity measures like budget cuts that individual departments had to implement. And that the university as a whole had to implement
Speaker 14 00:22:57 Comparing the years 2019 and 2021, the report said operating expenses decreased by $39.6 million while operating revenues decreased by $20.5 million. That means the university's operating expenses decreased by $19.6 million more than their revenues decreased. The report also set up budget surpluses during the pandemic have been 20 to $35 million larger than the years immediately before the pandemic. So what happens to that surplus?
Speaker 17 00:23:30 We're a nonprofit and I don't think surplus is the same thing as a profit. Also.
Speaker 15 00:23:36 I think they're pretty similar. We just, yeah. Called surplus instead of profit because we're non-profit how can you, if you're a nonprofit,
Speaker 17 00:23:47 All right. So if we are a nonprofit, does that mean, does that mean anything for us making a surplus
Speaker 15 00:23:53 It's the same? I mean that in a way, everything is a business. My dance studio, a position playing violin out on the street corner, like university at hotdog stand, like everything has to bring in enough revenue to cover its costs. Otherwise it dies. And so with the nonprofits, the thought is that they are providing a social service. So be it a hospital or a church or a charity or a university that it's doing something good for society. And so we've chosen not to tax it as a society, whereas AAA or Al's deli or target or something like that. We're saying that that is not providing the same sort of beneficial externalities and nonprofit. And so we, we put the costs of maintaining society through taxes, on things like that and on individual people. But anyway, so, so Northwestern is seen as a nonprofit, which means if we have surpluses, we have to pour that into the mission. Whereas if we were for-profit college or we were AAA with big profits, we could pay out the profits to the people who own us, but as a nonprofit, we're not really owned. And so if we have a, if we have a surplus, we're supposed to reinvest that in the mission. So
Speaker 17 00:25:10 Is the goal for the university to make the surplus?
Speaker 15 00:25:13 I think the goal for university is about a mission that we want to serve the mission as well as possible. And the mission is to create knowledge, you know, do research and spread knowledge by publishing it and by teaching. And so the finances exist to serve that. And so I think we're trying to do as well as we can for the current generation, well, allowing for growth for what we can do for future generations. And you might say, why do we favor future generations over present ones? That's a philosophical question, but it's, it is what is typically done.
Speaker 14 00:25:49 The report also points to $444 million in liquid assets, cash, cash equivalents, and an assets from acting as a lessee. It said those resources can be readily used to improve the quality of life of Northwestern employees and quote, but what our liquid assets,
Speaker 15 00:26:08 Hey, so having a bunch of liquidity on hand, like all this cash that does make it seem like we're less likely to get caught, unable to meet the spending we need to do because that cash is pretty easily turned into spending compared to our other assets that may be harder to turn into spending, but may appreciate more over time.
Speaker 17 00:26:27 So it's meant for emergencies, not for use in like buildings or something like that,
Speaker 15 00:26:31 Correct. I mean, you know that we do spend some of the endowments, that's how we keep this place running it isn't, it's a big part of our revenues is this endowment earnings. But yeah, that we do keep some in the form of, of cash or, you know, something cash equivalent, they call it that doesn't earn us very much, but is there for emergencies now back to the research,
Speaker 16 00:26:54 What actually constitutes an emergency for? So a hurricane is an obvious example. I don't think that's something we have to worry about really in Evanston, particularly, but there are sort of, you know, maybe not these kind of very short term like emergencies, but longer term effects of the university, not financially supporting its workers or its graduate students
Speaker 1 00:27:15 Seems like the university is pretty well endowed. You can listen to the extended version of this story on our website, wmur.news. Welcome back to WMUR news at six it's 6:27 PM in the headlines today Northwestern's campus positivity rate has stayed at about 2% since testing requirements stopped two weeks ago. Currently only students not up to date on vaccination requirements are required to test twice weekly. This week's rate is 2.25% a 0.15 percentage point drop from the prior week. However, the university received about half the number of tests than last week, indicating a drop in testing numbers. Positive case numbers have dropped from 181 to 95, but this does not necessarily indicate a decline in positivity. President Biden emerged from a meeting with Germany's new leader to valve the Nord stream. Two gas pipeline in Europe would be blocked. If Russia invades Ukraine, he made the statement during a joint press conference with German chancellor, Olaf Schultz.
Speaker 1 00:28:19 This comes as president Emmanuel Macron of France has spent hours talking with Vladimir Putin. Currently Putin maintains that Russia's foes are the only ones discussing invasion. The white house has expressed increasing alarm about potential military conflict and the winter Olympics continue in Beijing with team USA, clenching three silver medals, Jalen cough, one for women's mogul in freestyle skiing, Julia Marino, one for women's slopestyle, snowboarding, and the USA placed second in figure skating team competition skier, Mikaela Shiffrin crashed out of the grand slalom. Earning a did not finish on her first run after failing to complete a course, her teammate Nina O'Brien suffered a crash in her second run and was being transported for further evaluation and figure skater. Vincent Zhou will not compete tomorrow after testing positive for COVID-19. We're still waiting on team USA's first gold taking a look at the weather right now.
Speaker 1 00:29:16 It's 23 degrees with partly cloudy skies and wind speeds around 12 miles per hour. Tonight, you can expect a low of around 15 degrees. Tuesday, we'll be in fog and mostly cloudy skies with temperatures peaking in thirties. Wind will stay around 10 to 15 miles per hour, but some gusts could get up to 25. Wednesday brings a chance for precipitation with snow in the morning and rain in the afternoon and evening Thursday during the day will be sunny and chances for precipitation will increase again Thursday night heading into the weekend. You can expect some partly sunny and partly cloudy skies with temperatures peaking in the late twenties and lowering to the tens. That's all for w and your news at 6:00 PM. For more news updates and reports. Follow us on Twitter at WNU our news and Instagram WMUR news 8, 9 3. You can listen to these and other stories of the day on our Spotify, Google podcasts and SoundCloud. You can also find us on our new website, w N U r.net. Our producer today is Sarah fedora. Our reporters are Irish Swarthout, Jim and Kim and Madison Bradley. I'm Alison from all of us here at w and you are news. Thanks for listening. Catch our next show. This Wednesday, February 9th at 6:00 PM. Now back to schedule program,
