World Courant
A Division of Justice investigation concluded that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo subjected at the very least 13 ladies to sexual harassment. | Seth Wenig/AP Photograph
13 ladies who labored for state authorities had been sexually harassed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the course of an eight-year interval, a civil rights settlement introduced right this moment by the Division of Justice discovered.
The findings, which concluded Cuomo retaliated in opposition to 4 of the ladies, are the most recent allegations leveled in opposition to the previous three-term governor who has not dominated out one other run for elected workplace.
The settlement with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s workplace discovered the governor’s workplace below her predecessor violated federal Title VII guidelines in opposition to discrimination and retaliation.
Cuomo “repeatedly subjected” ladies in his workplace to sexual contact that wasn’t consensual, ogled them and gave them gender-based nicknames.
The Justice Division’s findings had been a part of a broader settlement with Hochul to develop her workplace’s human assets division and create new insurance policies and procedures for reporting.
Hochul had beforehand made a sequence of adjustments after taking workplace in August 2021, and she or he touted the efforts to handle sexual harassment within the office.
“The second I took workplace, I knew I wanted to root out the tradition of harassment that had beforehand plagued the Govt Chamber and implement sturdy insurance policies to advertise a secure office for all staff, and took instant motion to take action,” Hochul stated in an announcement.
“I’m happy that the U.S. Division of Justice has acknowledged the importance of these efforts, and look ahead to partnering with them as we proceed to construct upon that success.”
Cuomo lawyer Rita Glavin blasted the DOJ’s settlement announcement and insisted he by no means sexually harassed anybody.
“The DOJ ‘investigation’ was primarily based totally on the NYS Legal professional Common’s deeply flawed, inaccurate, biased, and deceptive report,” she stated. “At no level did DOJ even contact Governor Cuomo regarding these issues. That is nothing greater than a political settlement with no investigation.”
And Cuomo spokesperson Wealthy Azzopardi in a separate assertion blamed “Chuck Schumer’s handpicked U.S. Legal professional for the Japanese District” and known as the settlement “not definitely worth the paper it’s printed on.”
Nonetheless, it’s not clear what parts of James’ report had been utilized by the Division of Justice to achieve its personal conclusions. Particulars of the allegations in opposition to Cuomo weren’t launched.
Further questions stay: The 13 ladies the DOJ discovered had been sexually harassed by Cuomo had been all state staff. James’ report concluded 11 ladies had been subjected to sexual harassment or inappropriate habits; two didn’t work for the state.
“In the present day, the U.S. Division of Justice discovered that Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed a number of ladies and created a hostile work surroundings, confirming what the New York Legal professional Common’s impartial report discovered over two years in the past,” James’ workplace stated in an announcement.
“Andrew Cuomo can proceed to disclaim the reality and assault these ladies, however the information don’t lie.”
Lindsey Boylan, the primary alleged sufferer to come back ahead publicly about Cuomo, wrote on X in regards to the new report: “These items occurred. These items occurred to me and different ladies. After which an enormous paperwork tried to bury us for telling the reality. By no means once more will I ever let anybody or any system hurt me and different ladies that approach.”
An official rendering of the brand new Buffalo Payments’ Highmark stadium. It will likely be in a position to maintain 60,000 followers. | Official rendering from Architectural agency Populous
BILLS STADIUM UPDATE: Hochul joined Buffalo Payments proprietor Terry Pegula and Erie County native officers to announce new milestones within the development of the Payments’ new stadium.
The power, which can maintain 60,000 individuals and is being designed by the Payments and the architectural agency Populous, is prepped to now obtain large-scale structural metal work.
“The primary beam hoisted into place will signify the spectacular progress happening on the website of the brand new Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park,” based on a press launch from Hochul’s workplace.
“This main development milestone is a testomony to the union labor and native employees who’ve made this undertaking doable. By creating hundreds of jobs, this stadium has already confirmed to be an engine for regional financial growth,” Hochul added.
Practically 25,000 tons of metal — sufficient to construct roughly three Eiffel towers — might be put in place by over 800 laborers engaged on the undertaking.
The development is about to be accomplished by 2026. — Shawn Ness
CANNABIS CASE: Officers from the state Workplace of Hashish Administration, together with chief fairness officer Damian Fagon, coverage director John Kagia and basic counsel Linda Baldwin, had been noticed on an early morning Amtrak prepare from New York Metropolis to Albany.
The event? A listening to in a case in search of to halt the state’s hashish licensing course of but once more.
Keep in mind, the state has already handled two injunctions which have stalled its troubled rollout of the adult-use marijuana market. Now, a brand new lawsuit is asking the court docket for an additional preliminary injunction on the hashish licensing course of.
The argument is that New York’s licensing course of discriminates in opposition to out-of-state residents, violating the dormant Commerce Clause. Whereas New York doesn’t have a residency requirement, different federal courts have utilized the dormant Commerce Clause to state marijuana markets.
New York’s hashish licensing guidelines give further precedence to candidates who meet sure standards, together with having a previous hashish conviction in New York. People who find themselves residents of New York usually tend to have such a conviction, argued Jeffrey Jensen, an lawyer for the plaintiffs.
District Choose Anne Nardacci methodically questioned each Jensen and assistant lawyer basic Ryan Hickey, who was representing the state’s hashish regulators on the listening to.
A OCM spokesperson declined to touch upon pending litigation.
So what’s subsequent? Nardacci, a Biden appointee, didn’t rule from the bench, although an order is predicted quickly. It’s laborious to say which approach she was leaning by her cautious questioning of either side throughout the listening to.
But when Baldwin’s smile on the finish was any indication, the state could be feeling good about its probabilities of avoiding one other injunction. — Mona Zhang
Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams spoke on WNYC to debate Mayor Eric Adams’ police stops invoice. | John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit
ON THE RECORD: WNYC has run an advert marketing campaign jokingly calling itself “within the pocket of huge fact.”
So when Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams spoke on “The Brian Lehrer Present” right this moment, she framed it as setting the document straight on the police stops invoice in opposition to Mayor Eric Adams’ “misinformation.”
“It’s patently false that this regulation requires the NYPD to report each single encounter,” she stated. “Girls and gents: informal conversations and interactions are usually not stage one stops.”
The mayor vetoed the so-called How Many Stops Act, however has stated he’d again a invoice that exempted some or the entire lowest-level investigative encounters between cops and the general public — often called stage one — from reporting necessities. The speaker stated once more: She’s achieved negotiating.
“If we do away with stage one on this invoice, the entire invoice is gutted. It’s destroyed,” she stated. “It is senseless.”
Speaker Adams has stated she has the votes to override the mayor’s veto. She stated the mayor’s complaints that the regulation would waste officers’ time aren’t the council’s challenge to repair, however the NYPD’s.
“If the administration decides to deliberately create the end result that’s most burdensome for officers, that might be at their arms.” – Jeff Coltin
GOP Home candidate Mazi Pilip accused former Rep. Tom Suozzi of being linked to an individual Pilip says is antisemitic. | Jason Beeferman/POLITICO
MORE MUDSLINGING IN NY-03: GOP Home candidate Mazi Pilip is accusing her opponent, former Rep. Tom Suozzi, of associating with a person Pilip claims is antisemitic and anti-Zionist.
Pilip claims the person is listed as one in every of 12 hosts for a Feb. 3 Suozzi fundraiser in Queens. Neither Pilip nor anybody on her marketing campaign stated the person’s title out loud throughout right this moment’s press convention revealing the accusation.
Suozzi’s marketing campaign known as the accusation a “distraction” that “denigrates our frequent trigger to fight antisemitism and help Israel.”
“I condemn all antisemitism. I’m unequivocally pro-Israel. My voting document displays each,” Suozzi stated. “I’m not conscious of the feedback referenced by my opponent, but when I discover them to be antisemitic, I’ll condemn them as I’ve all through my public life.”
Pilip’s marketing campaign alleges the Suozzi-linked “fundraising surrogate” reposted a video on Fb that includes a rabbi from the Neturei Karta, a fringe sect of Orthodox Judaism whose members reject the state of Israel and sometimes accompany pro-Palestinian protesters at marches. Pilip says the video was antisemitic and denies Jews a proper to self-determination.
“I served within the IDF to assist shield Israel from terrorism, and I got here to this nation looking for (the) American Dream,” Pilip stated right this moment in Nice Neck, the place she was flanked by Lengthy Island Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito.
“But antisemitism continues to be right here, and we’re feeling it, and it’s unlucky it has made its solution to this race for Congress.”
Pilip is asking on Suozzi to boycott the Queens fundraiser, “rebuke” the alleged host and donate any of the funds raised on the occasion to a pro-Israel nonprofit.
The accusation that the person — who the Pilip asserts is “a member of Group Suozzi” — is antisemitic, appeared to rely solely on the person’s Fb repost.
The occasion is simply the most recent instance of the 2 candidates alleging an opponent is attacking their ethnicity.
Final week, Suozzi, an Italian-American, known as on Pilip to cease utilizing language that evokes the Mafia or different Italian aspersions after Pilip’s marketing campaign spokesperson known as Suozzi the “godfather of the border disaster.” – Jason Beeferman
REPEAT AFTER ME: No person in politics is extra disciplined of their phrases than Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries — and he’s asking fellow Democrats and others to comply with his lead on the subject of speaking about abortion.
“There are a lot of of my colleagues on the opposite facet of the aisle who wish to enact a nationwide abortion ban. That’s why reproductive freedom goes to be on the presidential poll,” and the Home and Senate races’ poll too, Jeffries stated at an Affiliation for a Higher New York breakfast right this moment in Midtown Manhattan.
However in campaigning, “We wish to take the abortion care challenge and anchor it in a price: freedom. That is among the the reason why it has change into so powerfully resonant throughout the nation,” he stated.
So Jeffries appealed to the group of politically linked New Yorkers, most of them Democrats.
“These of us who stand, I imagine, on the precise facet of this challenge, once we’re speaking it, at all times use the liberty body,” he stated. “And that provides us one of the best alternative, not simply to achieve individuals on the progressive facet, however definitely moderates, centrist, swing voters. It will likely be core in figuring out this election.” – Jeff Coltin
Dennis Walcott was chosen to fill the empty seat on the Unbiased Redistricting Committee. | Mike Groll/AP Photograph
REDISTRICTING SPOT FILLED: Senate Majority Chief Andrea Stewart-Cousins picked Dennis Walcott to fill a vacant spot on the Unbiased Redistricting Fee as it really works to finish the subsequent draft of New York’s congressional maps.
Walcott had prime roles in New York Metropolis’s colleges for twenty years, together with a stint as chancellor below Michael Bloomberg. He’s at the moment the Queens Public Library’s president. In 2022, he led the fee that drew new maps for the New York Metropolis Council.
He takes over for Medgar Evers professor John Flateau, who died in December.
“We’re assured that Mr. Walcott will serve with the identical dedication and integrity that marked Dr. Flateau’s tenure, and might be a helpful asset within the fee’s ongoing work to make sure honest and efficient illustration for all New Yorkers,” Stewart-Cousins stated in an announcement. – Invoice Mahoney
FISCALLY STRESSED SCHOOLS COULD SEE CUTS: State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli flagged 16 college districts for monetary stress, half of that are slated to obtain cuts in Hochul’s college assist proposal.
The report sheds gentle on what colleges are struggling to cowl bills or repay money owed. And whereas Hochul’s proposal for varsity assist is meant to mirror district wants and adjustments to enrollment, a number of districts within the report are going through cuts.
Mount Vernon – which fell below the very best class of fiscal stress – was one of many districts that might see a $2.9 million reduce in Hochul’s proposal. When requested in regards to the college assist runs, Hohcul harassed that general college assist is rising by $825 million. – Katelyn Cordero
STATUS OF TEACHER EVALUATION NEGOTIATIONS: Consensus over transition the state to a revamped trainer analysis system wasn’t agreed to late within the legislative session final 12 months. This 12 months, NYSUT president Melinda Individual stated she feels they’re near hanging a deal, presumably even earlier than the price range is accredited in April.
Whereas there’s been settlement on the broad sweeping particulars of what the brand new system will appear like, transfer from the state’s previous system to the brand new has been the sticking level in negotiations.
Questions on the timeline and logistics surrounding implementation are nonetheless being ironed out. Individual stated she want to see laws handed earlier than the price range is finished, or presumably as a part of the price range.
“Everybody agrees on what the brand new plan is – which is the laborious half – now it’s simply the, ‘How can we get from Level A to Level B,’” Individual instructed Playbook. – Katelyn Cordero
— An errant electronic mail has led to collusion accusations and subpoenas within the battle for a New York on line casino license. (New York Instances)
— Donald Trump walked out whereas a jury was listening to proof throughout his defamation trial. (POLITICO)
— NRA chief Wayne LaPierre testified in a civil corruption case in New York Metropolis in regards to the group spending giant portions of cash on non-public jets. (New York Instances)
Extra woes for Cuomo – POLITICO
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