Latest news with #Wachter
New York Post
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Long Island school asks Trump to ink executive order to keep embattled ‘Chiefs' mascot, logo
Chief nation is going national. As the Massapequa school district continues its tussle to retain its Chiefs moniker and logo, the town is asking its biggest backer — President Trump — to sign an executive order to safeguard Native American names and images across the US. 'It's about not erasing, but instead educating about Native Americans and keeping them on the forefront,' Massapequa school board president Kerry Wachter told The Post. Advertisement 7 The Massapequa school district is asking President Trump to issue an executive order protecting schools with Native American team names or imagery from having to change their mascots. AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File 'It's the battleground here in Massapequa, but this keeps popping up all across the nation, of state educational departments banning Native American mascots and team identities.' The proposal would 'protect the voluntary and respectful use of Native American names, imagery, and symbols,' language in the draft reads. The executive order pitch would also put a halt to how 'radical state and local bureaucrats are attempting to erase this heritage, tear down this history, and silence this legacy,' according to Wachter and her attorney, Oliver Roberts, who called such bans unconstitutional and an attack on freedom of speech. Advertisement 7 Trump holding a Massapequa Chiefs shirt in the Oval Office. Instagram/realdonaldtrump President Trump has been sympathetic to the situation, intervening last April during the Long Island town's contentious legal battle over the New York State Board of Regents' 2023 ordinance requiring the removal of all Native American team connections in public schools. Schools were threatened with funding cuts and school board members faced removal if they didn't comply. Advertisement He proudly declared 'LONG LIVE THE MASSAPEQUA CHIEFS!' and even posed in April with school apparel in the Oval Office — in addition to ordering Sec. of Education Linda McMahon to step in. McMahon has made significant strides in the interest of schools resistant to the ban. '[Trump] stood up for us,' said Wachter, who claimed 'the overwhelming majority' of Massapequa is behind the push to keep the Chiefs name — and that phasing in a new one would waste about $1 million in school funds and taxpayer dollars. 7 Massapequa school board president Kerry Wachter said the order would prevent state and local officials from attempting to 'erase this heritage, tear down this history, and silence this legacy' in Massapequa. Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post Advertisement 7 Wachter wearing a shirt with a quote from President Trump. Kevin C Downs for The New York Post 'It brought great pride in the community, and everyone was really happy to see that he took the time to talk about the Chiefs,' she added about 47. Trump further broadened his stance Sunday, calling on the Washington Commanders to revert to its long-used Redskins name — which a 2016 poll showed 90% of Native Americans were not offended by — or risk the team's new stadium deal being blocked. He also urged the Cleveland Guardians to return to their Indians moniker. 7 A Massapequa Chiefs mural seen by the school's softball and baseball field. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post 'I think that this battle here in Massapequa and President Trump's involvement in our town sparked further interest in the Washington Redskins issue and that of other teams,' Wachter added. 'We're all bringing this back out to the nation to say, 'where does it stop?'' Educate, don't erase Massapequa's nationwide executive order would 'work with tribes, not against them,' while also giving Native American organizations protected privilege for 'requesting changes to imagery or names that it finds inappropriate.' Advertisement Massapequa has also partnered with the Native American Guardians Association, a pro-logo organization, which has granted the school permission to use the term 'Chiefs.' 7 The Bif Chief Lewis statue in Massapequa. AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson The school district is also working on expanding its existing Native American educational programming in collaboration with NAGA, which recently filed an injunction against the state ban. 'Preserve history, do not erase it; educate future generations in heritage, pride, and unity — not censorship,' the executive order states, adding that 'any institution found to be engaging in unconstitutional censorship or compelled renaming shall be subject to funding reconsideration' by the US Department of Education. Advertisement McMahon pushed back on the woke ideology during a Massapequa High School tour in late May. Inside the school's gym, she said that banning only Native American imagery was a civil rights violation and referred the Chiefs' issue over to the Department of Justice weeks later. 7 Massapequa Chiefs softball players Shea Santiago, left, Sienna Perino, center, and Samantha Portz posing in front of a Chiefs mural. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post This month, she began investigating Long Island's Connetquot district regarding the restriction of its Thunderbirds moniker amid a backroom deal with New York state to allocate $23 million for rebranding — potentially to an already in-use nickname of T-Birds, which state officials had initially disallowed as an alternative. Advertisement The relentless support from the Trump administration has brought new life to the fight on Long Island — mere months after the courts dismissed the Massapequa lawsuit. 'We're still pushing ahead with our federal litigation, which we fully expect to prevail on,' Roberts said.
San Francisco Chronicle
17-05-2025
- Climate
- San Francisco Chronicle
Officials predict ‘active' fire season in California. Here's where conditions could be worst
California's door for rain is closing quickly and wildfire season is around the corner. On the heels of last year's dynamic season, which featured the state's fourth-largest blaze in history and culminated in January's deadly Los Angeles-area infernos, officials expect another year of fierce fires. Above-normal wildfire activity is predicted throughout much of California in July and August, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. 'Overall, an active fire season is what I'm predicting,' said Brent Wachter, a fire meteorologist with the Northern Operations Predictive Services unit. Officials say the hot summer forecast combined with lush and likely very flammable vegetation, are fueling the active outlook. Grasses are thick across Northern California after a healthy dose of winter rain. Most areas north of Interstate 80 received above-normal precipitation from October through May, which could tame the fire season at first, particularly in forested areas. But grasses are predicted to become flammable throughout June, especially in the valleys between the Coastal Ranges and Sierra Nevada. Measurements from May 1 found the grass crop to be 41% more dense than an average year in Browns Valley (Yuba County) at the Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center, a center under the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Grass is even thicker this year than in spring 2024 at the Browns Valley site. That summer, a bulletin issued by Cal Fire and other agencies warned of tall grasses contributing to rapid fire spread following a July heat wave. With plenty of vegetation available across California, the stage is set for big fires this summer if hot, dry windy weather aligns with a spark. 'I firmly believe if everything is projected right with the heat and dryness, that we're going to have some flash drought conditions develop, similar to what we had last year,' Wachter said. Grasses and shrubs in mountainous areas will probably be ready to burn by the second half of July, contributing to the above-normal wildfire potential in the Sierra, Wachter said. An early melt-off of California's snowpack means mountainous areas could dry up earlier than normal and allow wildfires to spread more rapidly. Central and Southern California forecast Central and Southern California picked up significantly less rainfall this winter. Drought has already emerged in many areas. However, rain that fell from late February to April spurred grass growth across Southern California, according to Jonathan O'Brien, a fire meteorologist with the Southern Operations Predictive Services unit. 'It only takes a couple weeks of hot and dry weather to really start zapping the finer vegetation and even into some of the heavier fuels,' O'Brien said. There is a slight tilt in the odds toward above-normal large fire potential in the Sierra foothills, the Southern Sierra, the Central Coast, the Transverse Ranges and the South Coast in July and August, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Seasonal forecasts from multiple agencies predict above-normal temperatures from June through August, especially in the inland valleys and Sierra foothills. California typically lacks meaningful rainfall during summer, except in the mountains where the North American Monsoon can yield occasional thunderstorms. The hot, dry outlook suggests elevated fire weather conditions across much of inland California by midsummer as heat combines with ignition risks such as Santa Ana and Diablo winds. 'Warm summers predispose forested parts of the state to enhanced fire potential by curing fuels,' said John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at UC Merced. 'Years with significant and widespread heat waves have often ended up with plenty of fire.' Short-term weather drivers, like heat waves and tropical moisture intrusions that can bring lightning risks, will shape week-to-week fire danger. The outlook for those monsoonal intrusions is muddled. The Climate Prediction Center shows a slightly increased chance of above-normal precipitation across parts of Arizona and New Mexico in July, but it's unclear how that could play out in California. Abatzoglou points out that the lingering effects of a weak La Niña have left behind cool ocean waters near California, which could 'pad fog and abate summer fire danger' in coastal areas through June. Andrew Hoell, a scientist at NOAA's Physical Sciences Laboratory, said that the broader weather setup is unclear this early in the season. 'The key players this summer will be the large-scale atmospheric patterns, where ridges and troughs set up, and whether they persist,' Hoell said. 'But we don't tend to have a lot of forecast skill for those features beyond a few weeks.' July may mark a turning point: more heat waves and increasing lightning potential setting the stage for fast-moving shifts in fire danger. 'Lightning is a huge wildcard,' Abatzoglou said. 'Monsoonal surges or other lightning outbreaks can quickly turn a dull fire season into an extremely active one.'
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nevada bill would charter new payment banks
This story was originally published on Payments Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Payments Dive newsletter. A bill in the Nevada Assembly would offer a special charter for new payment banks, aiming to allow financial technology companies and others to access federal payment rails and help merchants bypass many of the expenses associated with traditional card payments. The new licensing system would allow retailers, payment processors, remittance companies and others to apply as banks for direct access to U.S. payment systems like ACH, FedWire and FedNow. As a result, Nevada retailers – and potentially consumers – would benefit from lower transaction costs for credit and debit cards, say supporters of the proposal. Card payments carry interchange fees that U.S. merchants have decried for years as both excessive and onerous. The goal would be to eliminate the 'middlemen' that add costs and delays to payment settlements, its sponsor, Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, a Democrat, said last month at a committee hearing on the bill. The Retail Association of Nevada, which represents about 2,000 mostly small retailers, is lobbying heavily for the proposal in Carson City, said Bryan Wachter, a senior vice president at the retail association. The bill would allow Nevada to become 'the first state in the nation to offer a charter built for the digital economy,' Yeager said. The bill would prohibit the new payment banks from lending and 'lending-related' activities and impose a 0.0025% fee per transaction on merchant-acquiring activity. Merchants have had little choice but to use 'the monopolies' that govern payment rails and the bill is an effort to empower new types of banks to offer lower-cost transactions, said Wachter, who testified with Yeager at the April hearing. Payment banks would not be required to be insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Regulators at the Nevada Financial Institutions Division would determine whether companies have sufficient protections on funds to grant a license, Wachter told the committee. Smaller businesses 'have had no choice but to go through layers of intermediaries just to process everyday transactions,' Yeager told his colleagues on the Assembly Committee on Commerce and Labor. The legislation would put Nevada 'at the cutting edge of financial innovation,' and create new financial jobs and a steady revenue stream for the state, he said. Supporters are confident they have sufficient support to pass the bill before Nevada's legislative session ends June 2, Wachter said Wednesday in an interview. If passed, 'I do think that there might be a payments processing company, an internet company, some other companies that exist in this space that comes in and says we can create a better product,' he said. The Nevada Bankers Association was concerned that the new banks could increase state assessments on its banking members to fund new regulators and oversight, Connor Cain, with the NBA's lobbying firm, Carrara Nevada, told lawmakers at the same hearing. The banks are 'encouraged' by dialogue on an amendment to the bill to ensure that current Nevada banks do not bear new financial costs to implement the legislation, Cain said. The Electronic Transactions Association, which counts banks among its members, has not taken a position on the bill, a spokesman said Tuesday. Other states have previously enacted special banking charters, including Connecticut, Georgia and Wyoming, although the Nevada legislation, if it passes, would make the state the first to license and regulate payment banks without the FDIC insurance requirement, Wachter said. In recent years, Connecticut has revived its 1990s-era uninsured bank charter, created to allow companies to offer some financial services without taking deposits, as a way to lure startup fintechs to the state. In March, Stripe applied with Georgia regulators for a merchant acquirer limited purpose banking charter so it could access card networks directly, without a bank partner. Last year, Georgia granted payment processor Fiserv a bank charter. Smaller merchants in Nevada typically pay fees of 2% to 3% per transaction, which cost about 0.25% for traditional acquiring banks to facilitate, Wachter told the committee. The narrower scope of a payment bank – without lending and other full-service bank offerings – would mean lower operating costs for a license holder and less overhead to fund via its charges to merchants, Wachter said. 'Because you aren't having to be a full-fledged, full-service bank, we're hoping that it will actually be cheaper to operate those licenses and that cost savings would then also be passed along to those merchants,' he said at the hearing. At a typical supermarket, banks and card issuers enjoy higher profit margins on a card payment than the grocer selling the shopper a cart full of food, Wachter said, offering legislators an example of how the bill could help retailers and consumers. With new payment tools, many merchants would ultimately be able to avoid including their payment expenses in the price of the goods they sell, Wachter said. The legislation would allow Nevada to emulate payment-processing systems common in Europe, where payment specialists have lowered transaction costs for businesses and consumers, Paul Dwyer, co-founder and CEO of money transmitter Viamericas, told the committee. Routing consumer transactions via full-service banks to access payment rails 'is a fount of inefficiency,' he said. Recommended Reading Swipe fee foes find legislative support in almost a dozen states Sign in to access your portfolio
New York Times
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Leading Collection of Old Masters Will Be Auctioned, Sotheby's Says
A trove of old masters put together by Thomas A. Saunders III, a former chairman of the influential conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, and his wife, Jordan, is going to auction in New York in May. Sotheby's is billing it as one of the greatest collections of such works to come to market 'in living memory,' and estimates it will raise at least $80 million. Saunders, who died in 2022 at the age of 86, was a Wall Street banker and private equity executive. A passionate conservative, Saunders served as the chairman of the Heritage Foundation from 2009 to 2018 and in 2010 was instrumental in the formation of its Heritage Action organization. More recently, the foundation's Project 2025 policy initiative is said to have provided the blueprint for much of President Trump's downsizing of the federal government. Saunders and his wife also found time to become prolific buyers of fine old master paintings. Most of the couple's 60 pictures were acquired between 1998 and 2000 to complement the classic décor of their Upper East Side apartment on 75th Street, near Park Avenue. 'They were a close and funny couple,' George Wachter, a Sotheby's chairman and the co-worldwide head of old master paintings, said in an interview. 'They wanted old masters; they told me to go out and get the best of the best,' added Wachter, who acted as the couple's unofficial art adviser. The prized core of the collection is a group of eight high-quality paintings acquired privately for an undisclosed sum in 1999 from the Canadian philanthropist and collector Michal Hornstein, who was based in Montreal. Among these Hornstein pictures is Thomas Lawrence's slickly painted early-19th-century 'Portrait of Miss Julia Peel,' featuring the eldest child of the British Prime Minister Robert Peel holding a squirming spaniel. This will be offered by Sotheby's with an estimate of $6 million to $8 million. A rare 'Still Life With Cauliflower, Basket of Fish, Eggs, and Leeks, and Kitchen Utensils' by the mid-18th-century Spanish painter Luis Meléndez — which had hung in the Saunderses' opulent Manhattan dining room — is valued at $5 million to $8 million. The collection also includes gems by the 17th-century Dutch artists Adriaen Coorte, Gerrit Dou and Salomon van Ruysdael. 'Jordan was the driver; she loved the paintings, but he did too,' said Wachter, who added that Thomas would settle the bills. 'They were buying beautiful things; it didn't matter if it wasn't by Rembrandt,' said Wachter, explaining that the couple's primary motivation was to decorate their home rather than acquire masterpieces by the most famous names. Jordan Saunders's enthusiasm for old masters started when she saw a small, atmospheric view of Venice in a work by the mid-18th-century painter Francesco Guardi at Sotheby's in 1998. 'It was a little jewel, and all afternoon I kept coming back to visit it,' Saunders recalled in a Sotheby's media release. 'Perhaps you'll think me crazy, but I swear I heard that little picture speak to me, 'Please buy me, buy me.'' The picture (which, coincidentally, had been consigned by Hornstein) was duly bought by the Saunderses for $1.3 million. The Guardi will reappear in May, estimated at $4 million to $6 million. A larger pair of views of Venice by the coveted Rococo-period artist are the most ambitiously valued works in the sale at $10 million to $15 million. (These had been bought at auction in 2020 for $5.6 million.) Sotheby's, which has been mired in debt and has laid off staff, said that it had guaranteed the Saunders family minimum prices on all the lots in the sale. As has become common in recent years, the auction house will aim to transfer at least some of the bigger house guarantees to third-party 'irrevocable bidders' in the run-up to the auction. With its minimum valuation of $80 million, the Saunderses' collection represents the most valuable specialist single-owner auction of old master paintings in recent years, Wachter said. The old masters could do with a boost, as could the rest of a slumping art market. Historic paintings have fallen out of fashion with wealthy collectors in recent years, and research conducted by the London-based art market analytics firm ArtTactic indicated that last year, old master auction sales at Sotheby's and Christie's declined by 44 percent compared with those in 2023. 'The average price of old masters has been in a downturn since 2022,' the ArtTactic report said. 'These lower prices have been impacted significantly by the lack of single owner collection sales.'
