New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said his behavior towards women had been "misinterpreted as unwanted flirtation" after allegations of sexual harassment had been made against him.
In a statement released on Sunday, Cuomo said he never inappropriately touched or propositioned anyone, but said he made jokes that he thought were funny, both in public and in private.
"I have teased people about their personal lives, their relationships, about getting married or not getting married. I mean no offense and only attempt to add some levity and banter to what is a very serious business," he wrote.
Cuomo added: "I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended. I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that."
On Friday, Lindsey Boylan, another former staffer, alleged that starting in 2016, Cuomo made unwanted sexual advances toward her. In a Medium blog post, Boylan said she resigned in 2018 after the governor kissed her on the lips without her consent.
Cuomo has denied both of the allegations.
In a press release, Cuomo's office said they would ask New York Attorney General Letitia James and Janet DiFiore, the chief judge on the highest court in New York, to name "a jointly select an independent and qualified lawyer in private practice without political affiliation to conduct a thorough review of the matter and issue a public report."
The plan to place DiFiore on the investigation was criticized by state and federal lawmakers because the judge had ties to a longtime Cuomo ally. He had also nominated her to her current role.
James also took issue with Cuomo's proposal to have DiFiore involved in the investigation.
"To clarify, I do not accept the governor's proposal. The state's Executive Law clearly gives my office the authority to investigate this matter once the governor provides a referral," James said in a statement. "While I have deep respect for Chief Judge DiFiore, I am the duly elected attorney general and it is my responsibility to carry out this task, per Executive Law. The governor must provide this referral so an independent investigation with subpoena power can be conducted."
Later on Sunday, Cuomo accepted James' demands that she control the investigation, a move that she welcomed.
"We expect to receive a 63(8) referral with subpoena power to investigate allegations of sexual harassment against the governor, in line with our demands and New York state law. The referral would be made solely to the attorney general's office. This is not a responsibility we take lightly. We will hire a law firm, deputize them as attorneys of our office, and oversee a rigorous and independent investigation," she said in a subsequent statement.
Insider has reached out to Cuomo, James, and DiFiore's offices for comment.
During his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, former President Donald Trump encouraged states to "punish" big tech if they "silence conservative voices."
Trump spoke on the final day of CPAC in Orlando, Florida. It was his first public speech since leaving the White House last month.
"All of the election integrity measures in the world will mean nothing if we don't have free speech," Trump said. "If republicans can be censored for speaking the truth and calling out corruption, we will not have democracy and we will only have left-wing tyranny."
Trump has frequently accused tech companies of censorship over his removal from both Facebook and Twitter for violating their policies.
"The time has come to break up big tech monopolies and restore fair competition," Trump said, adding that section 230 - a piece of internet legislation passed into law as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 - must be repealed.
Section 230 gives websites the ability to regulate the content that appears on their platforms. It also protects sites from being legally liable for content shared by users.
"If the federal government refuses to act then every state in the union where we have the votes - which is a lot of them - big tech giants like Twitter, Google, and Facebook should be punished with major sanctions whenever they silence conservative voices," Trump said.
Trump cited Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who announced new proposals earlier this month aimed at social media companies. One proposal aims to block the suspension of accounts of political candidates and would impose fines for each day said account is blocked.
It's unclear if the state would have the authority to enforce such laws, the Associated Press reported.
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday firmly shut down the rumors of him possibly creating a new political party outside of the GOP.
In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had discussed launching a new party, the "Patriot Party," with several close aides and trusted friends.
However, the former president threw cold water on such talk at the outset of his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Florida.
"We're not starting new parties," Trump said. "You know, they kept saying, 'He's going to start a brand new party.' That was fake news. Fake News. Wouldn't that be brilliant? Let's start a new party. Let's divide our vote so that we can never win."
He emphasized: "No, we're not interested in that. We have the Republican Party. It's going to unite and be stronger than ever before. I am not starting a new party."
In a CPAC straw poll of the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Trump came in first place, garnering 55% of the vote. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second place with 21% of the vote.
However, only 68% of the straw poll respondents indicated that they wanted Trump to run again in 2024, while 95% of respondents want the party to support the former president's policies.
While alluding to a possible 2024 presidential campaign, Trump still refused to acknowledge his election loss, which he spent months trying to overturn through various election pressure campaigns against GOP officials across the country.
Former President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
During his speech at CPAC, Trump took aim at transgender athletes competing in women's sports.
"If this does not change, women's sports as we know it will die," Trump said.
Many US states are weighing legislation that would restrict transgender youth from competing in sports.
During his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, former President Donald Trump said women's sports will "die" if trans athletes are allowed to compete.
"Joe Biden and the Democrats are even pushing policies that would destroy women sports," Trump said, apparently in reference to the Equality Act, which seeks to expand protections for the LGBTQ community and was passed in the House last week.
"A lot of new records are being broken in women's sports - hate to say that ladies - but got a lot of new records that are being shattered."
While referring to weightlifting, Trump said "every ounce is like a big deal for many years," as he pretended to lift an invisible bar. "All of a sudden somebody comes along and beats it by a hundred pounds," he said.
Trump continued: "Young girls and women are incensed that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males. It's not good for women. it's not good for women's sports which worked for so long and so hard to get to where they are."
"What coach, as an example, wants to recruit a young woman to compete if her record can easily be broken by somebody who was born a man?" Trump asked.
He added, "If this does not change, women's sports as we know it will die."
Trump spoke during the final day of the conservative conference in Orlando, Florida, in his first public speech since leaving the White House last month.
Many US states are currently considering legislation that would restrict the participation of transgender youth in sports.
However, such bills could contradict an executive order signed by President Joe Biden on his first day in office that reversed Trump's definition of gender as the one a person was assigned at birth.
WESTMINSTER, CA - OCTOBER 16: Physicians assistant Tom Bui administers a COVID-19 test at Temple Dieu Ngu in Westminster, CA, on Friday, October 16, 2020. The Orange County Health Care Agency has contracted with the OC Asian American Pacific Island COVID-19 Taskforce to increase testing in these disproportionately affected communities. Together, they are launching the API Testing Strike Team with testing locations county-wide offering testing three times a week through December 31, 2020.
Photo by Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
Testing sites across the country are closing due to limited demand for COVID-19 tests.
The trend comes as cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have been in decline.
Experts are concerned that without testing, cases can rise, especially as variants spread.
Limited demand for coronavirus tests is prompting sites across the country to shut down, which has experts worried about another rise in cases.
Earlier this week, Georgia permanently closed testing sites in 10 of its northwest counties because of a decline in demand and limited resources, WRCBTV reported.
Some testing sites in South Carolina rolled back their hours of operation as demand also declined in the state, WIS10 reported.
On Friday, the Associated Press reported that in Los Angeles County, the largest in the country, more than 180 sites were only working at a third of their capacity.
On January 15, the US was averaging over 2 million tests per day, a peak that has since dropped by more than 28%, the AP found.
Officials told the AP that the decline in cases, as well as the winter weather, pandemic fatigue, and the growing vaccination effort, are contributing to the lack of interest in testing.
"When you combine all those together you see this decrease," Dr. Richard Pescatore of the health department in Delaware told the AP. "People just aren't going to go out to testing sites." The state has seen a more than 40% drop in testing.
Experts say testing is critical to preventing another surge, especially as the risk of new and more transmissible variants remains on the horizon. A strain discovered in the United Kingdom is expected to become the most dominant variant in many states by next month.
"We need to use testing to continue the downward trend," Dr. Jonathan Quick of the Rockefeller Foundation, told the AP. "We need to have it there to catch surges from the variants."
On Friday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that in recent days there was a rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Meanwhile, health officials are worried that the progress is "stalling" and say that it's too soon for the US to let its guard down.
"Over the last few weeks, cases and hospital admissions in the United States had been coming down since early January and deaths had been declining in the past week," Walensky said. "But the latest data suggests that these declines may be stalling, potentially leveling off at, still, a very high number."
A study by researchers at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and the University of Colorado Boulder released in November found that more testing, even with less reliable rapid tests, could help quell the pandemic.
Researchers found that if half the population was tested weekly and those who tested positive were isolated, it could significantly reduce the spread of the virus.
President Joe Biden justified his decision to strike Syria in a letter to congressional leadership on Saturday.
On Thursday night, Biden directed airstrikes against the assets of "Iranian-backed militant groups" in Syria.
In his letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President pro tempore of the Senate Patrick Leahy, Biden said the strike was "pursuant to the United States' inherent right of self-defense as reflected in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter."
The Pentagon said the move came after a series of recent attacks against US and coalition forces in Iraq. Last week, a contractor was killed and others were injured after militants fired rockets at an Iraqi airbase used by the US military.
Biden referenced the attack to justify the strike.
"In response, I directed this military action to protect and defend our personnel and our partners against these attacks and future such attacks," he wrote. "The United States always stands ready to take necessary and proportionate action in self-defense, including when, as is the case here, the government of the state where the threat is located is unwilling or unable to prevent the use of its territory by non-state militia groups responsible for such attacks.
Biden also said he was providing the report as part of his "efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution," which says presidents have 48 hours after taking military action to inform Congress.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, tweeted: "We ran on ending wars, not escalating conflicts in the Middle East. Our foreign policy needs to be rooted in diplomacy & the rule of law, not retaliatory air strikes without Congressional authorization."
Members of Congress have previously pushed to repeal the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force (AUMFs), which were enacted after 9/11 and gave presidents the authority to wage war around the world, Insider's John Haltiwanger and Ryan Pickrell previously reported.
