Politics

NEW YORK (AP) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appears to have opted against mounting an independent run for his old job — at least for now.

Cuomo, who resigned in August amid allegations he sexually harassed multiple women, had said he was open to running for governor this year, despite the scandal.

But 5 p.m. Tuesday was the deadline for candidates to collect 45,000 voter signatures if they wanted to appear as an independent candidate for governor on the November general election ballot.

That deadline passed without Cuomo’s campaign turning in the required nominating petitions, according to the state Board of Elections.

Cuomo could still get on the ballot if his campaign had collected those signatures and put his petitions in the mail. If that paperwork was to arrive by Thursday, bearing a postmark dated Tuesday or earlier, it would still count, Board of Elections spokesperson Jennifer Wilson said.

Cuomo’s spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, did not respond to requests for comment.

The former governor has been making more public appearances in recent months and suggested in March that he might gather petition signatures to try to get on the ballot.

After giving a speech about gun violence Sunday in Brooklyn, Cuomo did not answer a question about whether he would run. Instead he said he was “speaking as a New Yorker” that day and added: “I don’t have to worry about political correctness.”

Cuomo could still try to mount a long-shot campaign as a write-in candidate in November, but he’d face a nearly impossible task of trying to get millions of people to write in his name instead of the Democratic or Republican nominee.

His former lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul, took over as governor when he resigned in August, promising a clean break from Cuomo’s administration. She has scooped up donors and emerged as a front-runner in the governor’s race. Hochul’s Democratic primary opponents include U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

Cuomo stepped down in his third term, saying at the time that while he denied the allegations of wrongdoing, he was stepping aside to avoid subjecting the state to months of turmoil.

A sheriff in Albany filed criminal charges against Cuomo in connection with an aide’s groping allegations, but those charges were ultimately dropped by the county’s district attorney, who cited a lack of proof.

Cuomo had initially been considering running again for a fourth term and left office with millions in his campaign fundraising account.

Since leaving, he’s used the money partially to fund a series of political TV ads touting his record.

___

This story has been corrected to show Cuomo spoke about gun violence in Brooklyn, not Buffalo.

source

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s first-in-the-nation task force on reparations for African Americans will release a report Wednesday documenting in detail the harms perpetuated by the state and recommending steps to address those wrongs, including expanded voter registration, making it easier to hold violent police accountable and improving Black neighborhoods.

It also recommends the creation of a special office that would, in part, help African Americans descended from free or enslaved Black people in the country at the end of the 19th century document their eligibility for financial restitution.

The report, which runs 500 pages, will be the first government-commissioned study on harms against the African American community since the 1968 Kerner Commission report ordered by then-President Lyndon Johnson, task force Chair Kamilah Moore said.

“I hope that this report is used not only as an educational tool, but an organizing tool for people not only in California but across the U.S. to educate their communities,” she said, adding that the report also highlights “contributions of the African American community and how they made the United States what it is despite ongoing oppression and degradation.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation creating the task force in 2020, making California the only state to move ahead with a study and plan. Cities and universities are taking up the cause with the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, becoming the first U.S. city to make reparations available to Black residents last year.

The task force voted in March to limit reparations to descendants, overruling reparations advocates who want to expand compensation to all Black people in the U.S.

The report, to be released by the state Department of Justice, marks the halfway point for the two-year task force’s work. The draft report does not provide a comprehensive reparations plan, which is due to lawmakers next year.

The report is expected to lay out how California supported slavery before it was technically abolished and oppressed Black residents through discriminatory laws and practices in education, home ownership, employment and the courts.

African Americans make up nearly 6% of California’s population yet they are overrepresented in jails and prisons. They were nearly 9% of people living below the poverty level and made up 30% of people experiencing homelessness in 2019, according to state figures.

Despite it being a “free” state, an estimated 1,500 enslaved African Americans lived in California in 1852, according to the draft report. The Ku Klux Klan flourished in California with members holding positions in law enforcement and city government. African American families were forced to live in segregated neighborhoods that were more likely to be polluted.

Moore said that a state Office of African American or American Freedmen Affairs could help African American residents file claims and trace their lineage to prove eligibility for individual restitution.

The task force in its draft report also recommends compensating people who were forced out of their homes for construction projects such as parks and highways and general renewal, as happened to San Francisco’s historically Black and once-thriving Fillmore neighborhood.

“Other groups that have suffered exclusion, oppression, and downright destruction of human existence have received reparations, and we should have no less,” said the Rev. Amos Brown, the committee’s vice chair and pastor of Third Baptist Church in the Fillmore District.

source

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the counting of some mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, an order that could affect the tight Republican Senate primary between former hedge fund CEO David McCormick and celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz.

An order from Justice Samuel Alito paused a lower-court ruling in a lawsuit over a disputed 2021 local court election that would have allowed the counting of mail-in ballots that lacked a handwritten date.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia had ruled that the state election law’s requirement of a date next to the voter’s signature on the outside of return envelopes was “immaterial.”

Based on that ruling, the state had advised counties to count those ballots in the race between McCormick and Oz.

As McCormick scrounges for ballots to make up the gap with Oz, Alito’s order also could freeze a separate federal lawsuit in Pennsylvania in which McCormick is fighting to force counties to count the ballots.

The high court’s action, called an administrative stay, freezes the matter until the court can give it further consideration.

The state law requires voters to write a date on the envelope in which they mail in their ballots. However, the envelope is postmarked by the post office and timestamped by counties when they receive it.

source

(Reuters) – A total of 10 bills have been introduced in the New York State Legislature intended to tighten gun control, including one that would raise the minimum age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21, Governor Kathy Hochul said on Tuesday.

State lawmakers will consider the proposals following two mass shootings in the past month: at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in which 10 people were slain and at school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. In both cases, the alleged gunman was 18 years old.

“Within the last month, two horrific mass shootings in Buffalo and in Texas have rattled this nation to our core and shed a new light on the urgent need for action to prevent future tragedies,” Hochul said in a statement.

The first funeral services for victims of the Uvalde shooting rampage were scheduled for Tuesday, for a pair of 10-year-old girls killed in the attack.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

source

HONOLULU (AP) — A U.S. judge last week sentenced a former elected Hawaii official to 20 years in prison for leading a drug-trafficking ring.

Arthur Brun said last year he sold methamphetamine to support his drug habit even while serving as a member of the county council on the island of Kauai. He pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, assault of a law enforcement officer, witness tampering and other charges.

Prosecutors said Brun, 50, conspired with a gang leader, requested sexual favors as payment for drugs and assaulted a law enforcement officer.

He was indicted with 11 others, who have all pleaded guilty to various charges, according to prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson sentenced Brun last Thursday. In March, Watson rejected a deal between Brun and prosecutors for a 15-year sentence.

When Brun was arrested in 2020, he was vice chair of the council’s Public Safety and Human Services Committee. His term ended later that year, while he was incarcerated without bail.

In 2019, a Kauai police officer pulled over Brun after the then-councilman received more than a pound of methamphetamine from a gang leader, prosecutors said. Brun sped off while the officer tried to remove the keys from the ignition in Brun’s car.

Brun said he threw the drugs out of the car’s window so that authorities would not find it.

source

By Jarrett Renshaw and Gabriella Borter

UVALDE, Texas (Reuters) -President Joe Biden landed in the Texas town of Uvalde on Sunday to comfort families ripped apart by the worst U.S. school shooting in a decade as the public demands answers about why local police failed to act swiftly.

There was mounting anger over the decision by local law enforcement agencies in Uvalde to allow the shooter to remain in a classroom for nearly an hour while officers waited in the hallway and children inside the room made panicked 911 calls for help.

Biden will meet with victims’ families, survivors and first responders, attend a church service and visit a memorial erected at the Robb Elementary School where the gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.

Julian Moreno, who was attending Sunday services at Primera Iglesia Bautista where he previously served as pastor, said the police had made “a huge mistake” but that he did not hold it against them.

“I feel sorry for them because they have to live with that mistake of just standing by,” Moreno, whose great-granddaughter was among those killed in Tuesday’s shooting, told Reuters.

Police say the gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, entered the school with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle after earlier killing his grandmother at the house they shared.

Official accounts of how police responded to the shooting have flip-flopped wildly, with calls mounting for an independent probe.

Biden, a Democrat, has repeatedly called for major changes to America’s gun laws but has been powerless to stop mass shootings or convince Republicans that stricter controls could stem the carnage.

The Texas visit is his third presidential trip to a mass shooting site, including earlier this month when he visited Buffalo, New York, after a gunman killed 10 Black people in a Saturday afternoon attack at a grocery store.

The Uvalde shooting has once again put gun control at the top of the nation’s agenda, months ahead of the November midterm elections, with supporters of stronger gun laws arguing that the latest bloodshed represents a tipping point.

“The president has a real opportunity. The country is desperately asking for a leader to stop the slaughter from gun violence,” said Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America.

‘WEAPON OF WAR’

Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on assault-style weapons during a trip to Buffalo on Saturday, saying that in the wake of the two back-to-back mass shootings such arms are “a weapon of war” with “no place in a civil society.”

White House aides and close allies say Biden is unlikely to wade into specific policy proposals or take executive action to crack down on firearms because that could disrupt delicate negotiations in the divided Senate.

Senate Democrats have also dialed down the rhetoric as negotiations continued during the chamber’s Memorial Day holiday recess this week.

“We’ve got to be realistic about what we can achieve,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday. Durbin’s fellow Democrats narrowly control the 50-50 split Senate but need 60 votes to pass most legislation.

Leading Republicans like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former President Donald Trump have rejected calls for new gun control measures and instead suggested investing in mental health care or tightening school security.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, denied that newly enacted Texas gun laws, including a controversial measure removing licensing requirements for carrying a concealed weapon, were relevant to Tuesday’s bloodshed and instead also pointed to mental illness.

Ramos, a high school dropout, had no criminal record and no history of mental illness but did post threatening messages on social media ahead of the shooting.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Gabriella Borter and Brad Brooks in Uvalde, Texas; additional reporting by Heather Timmons in Washington; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Kieran Murray and Lisa Shumaker)

source

By Gabriella Borter and Jarrett Renshaw

UVALDE, Texas (Reuters) -President Joe Biden flew to the Texas town of Uvalde on Sunday to comfort families ripped apart by the worst U.S. school shooting in a decade as the public demands answers about why local police failed to act swiftly.

There was mounting anger over the decision by local law enforcement agencies in Uvalde to allow the shooter to remain in a classroom for nearly an hour while officers waited in the hallway and children inside the room made panicked 911 calls for help.

Biden will meet with victims’ families, survivors and first responders, attend a church service and visit a memorial erected at the Robb Elementary School where the gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.

“Too much violence, too much fear, too much grief,” Biden told graduates in a commencement speech on Saturday at the University of Delaware. “We cannot outlaw tragedy, I know, but we can make America safer. We can finally do what we have to do to protect the lives of the people and of our children.”

Biden, a Democrat, has repeatedly called for major changes to America’s gun laws but has been powerless to stop mass shootings or convince Republicans that stricter controls could stem the carnage.

The Texas visit will be his third presidential trip to a mass shooting site, including earlier this month when he visited Buffalo, New York, after a gunman killed 10 Black people in a Saturday afternoon attack at a grocery store.

The Uvalde shooting has once again put gun control at the top of the nation’s agenda, months ahead of the November midterm elections, with supporters of stronger gun laws arguing that the latest bloodshed represents a tipping point.

“The president has a real opportunity. The country is desperately asking for a leader to stop the slaughter from gun violence,” said Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America.

Volsky urged Biden to enlist a senior official to tackle the country’s gun problem and pressure Congress to pass meaningful gun reform, saying Biden had promised to be a deal maker and to tackle gun violence.

‘WEAPON OF WAR’

Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on assault-style weapons during a trip to Buffalo on Saturday, saying that in the wake of the two back-to-back mass shootings such arms are “a weapon of war” with “no place in a civil society.”

White House aides and close allies say Biden is unlikely to wade into specific policy proposals to avoid disrupting delicate gun control negotiations in the divided Senate.

He is also unlikely to take executive action to crack down on firearms because that could send Republican lawmakers otherwise open to negotiations back to their corners.

Senate Democrats have also dialed down the rhetoric as negotiations continued during the chamber’s Memorial Day holiday recess this week.

“We’ve got to be realistic about what we can achieve,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday. Durbin’s fellow Democrats narrowly control the 50-50 split Senate but need 60 votes to pass most legislation.

Leading Republicans like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former President Donald Trump have rejected calls for new gun control measures and instead suggested investing in mental health care or tightening security at the nation’s schools.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, denied that newly enacted Texas gun laws, including a controversial measure removing licensing requirements for carrying a concealed weapon, had “any relevancy” to Tuesday’s bloodshed.

He suggested state lawmakers focus renewed attention on addressing mental illness.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw aboard Air Force One; Gabriella and Brad Brooks in Uvalde, Texas; additional reporting by Heather Timmons in Washington; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Kieran Murray and Lisa Shumaker)

source

By Jarrett Renshaw

WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Sunday headed to a Texas town to comfort families ripped apart by the largest U.S. school shooting in a decade amid lingering questions about whether law enforcement’s failure to act swiftly contributed to the death toll.

Biden’s familiar role as consoler-in-chief will be complicated by local anger over a decision by law enforcement in Uvalde, Texas, to allow the shooter to remain in a classroom for nearly an hour while officers waited in the hallway and children in the room made panicked 911 calls for help.

Investigators on Saturday were seeking to determine how critical mistakes were made in the response to the shooting that left 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School dead, and some are calling on the FBI to look into police actions.

Biden is scheduled to visit a memorial erected at the school, and meet with victims’ families, survivors and first responders.

“He has to stay focused on the pain and grief of the families and the community and understand that all of this has been compounded by the fact that we still don’t know exactly what happened. The more we learn, the more it seems the children were poorly served,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist and a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The Democratic president also confronts the stark reality that he has been relatively powerless to stop American mass shootings or convince Republicans that stronger gun controls could stem the carnage.

The Texas visit will be his third presidential trip to a mass shooting site, including earlier this month when he visited Buffalo, New York, after a shooting that left 10 Black people at a supermarket dead.

“Too much violence, too much fear, too much grief,” Biden told graduates in a commencement speech Saturday at the University of Delaware. “We cannot outlaw tragedy, I know, but we can make America safer. We can finally do what we have to do to protect the lives of the people and of our children.”

The Uvalde shooting has once again put gun control at the top of the nation’s agenda, months ahead of the November midterm elections, with supporters of stronger gun laws arguing that the latest bloodshed represents a tipping point.

“The president has a real opportunity. The country is desperately asking for a leader to stop the slaughter from gun violence,” said Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America.

He urged Biden to immediately enlist a senior official to tackle the country’s gun problem and crisscross the United States to pressure Congress to pass meaningful gun reform, saying Biden promised to be a deal maker and to tackle guns.

Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on assault-style weapons during a trip to Buffalo on Saturday, saying that in the wake of two back-to-back mass shootings such arms are “a weapon of war” with “no place in a civil society.”

White House aides and close allies say Biden is unlikely to wade into specific policy proposals to avoid disrupting delicate gun control negotiations in the Senate. He is also unlikely to immediately take executive action to crack down on firearms, sending Republican lawmakers otherwise open to negotiating back to their corners, aides say.

Meanwhile, leading Republicans like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former President Donald Trump rejected calls for new gun control measures and instead suggested investing in mental health care or tightening security at the nation’s schools.

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott denied that newly enacted Texas gun laws, including a controversial measure removing licensing requirements for carrying a concealed weapon, had “any relevancy” to Tuesday’s bloodshed. He suggested state lawmakers focus renewed attention on addressing mental illness.

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw and Heather Timmons; additional writing by Susan Heavey; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Hugh Lawson)

source

WASHINGTON (AP) — A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to charges that he stormed the U.S. Capitol last year to disrupt Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote, court filings show.

Matthew Mark Wood pleaded guilty on Friday to all six counts in his March 2021 indictment, including a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding. The other five counts are all misdemeanors.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta is scheduled to sentence Wood on Sept. 23.

A day before the riot, Wood drove from North Carolina to Washington, D.C., with his grandmother and another relative. Less than a week earlier, Wood sent a text message to another person that said, “If they want to raid Congress, sign me up,” according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea.

After the riot erupted, Wood entered the Capitol by climbing through a window. He followed others on a path toward the Senate chamber but left the area without entering it.

After rioters breached a police line in the Capitol Crypt, Wood followed others up a staircase and into the House Speaker’s office suite. He left the Capitol through a door more than an hour after he entered the building, the filing says.

In a text message to somebody a day after the riot, Wood said he “took a stand” but called it “extremely inappropriate.”

“I can’t believe I participated in such chaos,” he added.

The riot disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

Wood was arrested in Winston Salem, North Carolina, last year.

At a separate hearing on Friday, a Maryland man pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge stemming from the Capitol riot. Matthew Joseph Buckler is scheduled to be sentenced on July 21 after pleading guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Buckler, of La Plata, Maryland, entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 by climbing through a broken window.

More than 800 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. At least 300 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors, and nearly 200 of them have been sentenced. Approximately 100 others have trial dates.

source

By Arathy Somasekhar and Kanishka Singh

HOUSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump on Friday argued the United States should make it easier to confine “deranged” people and eliminate gun-free school zones after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers this week at a Texas school.

“Clearly, we need to make it far easier to confine the violent and mentally deranged into mental institutions,” Trump said in a speech at a convention in Houston of the National Rifle Association, a gun rights advocacy group.

Tuesday’s fatal shooting of 19 pupils and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, by an 18-year-old gunman equipped with an AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle again focused attention on the NRA, a major donor to Congress members, mostly Republicans.

On suggestions to improve the security of schools, Trump said every school should have a single point of entry, strong fencing and metal detectors, adding there should also be a police official or an armed guard at all times in every school.

“This is not a matter of money. This is a matter of will. If the United States has $40 billion to send to Ukraine, we can do this,” he said, referring to Washington’s financial and military support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February.

The former U.S. president also called for eliminating gun-free school zones, adding that such zones leave victims with no means to defend themselves in case of an attack by an armed person.

“As the age-old saying goes, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Trump added.

“The existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.”

Video images of the main auditorium in Houston, which holds about 3,600 people, showed it to be about half-full as Trump took the stage on Friday afternoon.

(Reporting by Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington; writing by Kanishka Singh; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)

source