Andrew Cuomo

YONKERS, N.Y. (AP) — Walk-in COVID-19 shots will be available to anyone over 60 at mass vaccination sites run by New York state starting Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday.

“You can just walk in to any of the mass vaccinations sites across the state, and walk in, and they will give you the vaccine,” Cuomo said during a virtual briefing in Yonkers. “You don’t have to go onto the internet. You don’t have to make a phone call. You don’t have to do anything. Just show up at the vaccination site if you’re 60-plus and they will give you vaccine.”

Next year’s race for governor in New York has officially begun.

Republican leaders in New York gathered in Albany Monday to hear from potential gubernatorial nominees, who would go on to compete next year against either Gov. Andrew Cuomo, or whichever Democrat lands on the ticket in his place.

Steps from the state capitol, eight interested Republicans took on the task of convincing their colleagues they could be the first Republican elected statewide since 2002.

State lawmakers in New York could take the first step this year toward scrapping the state’s current ethics agencies and replacing them with a new, more powerful panel less likely to be influenced by elected officials.

Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, said in an interview on New York NOW, that there’s appetite in the state Legislature for an ethics overhaul in Albany, and that it could start this year.

A new poll finds that scandals surrounding Gov. Andrew Cuomo have taken a toll.

While New Yorkers continue to believe the governor did a good job leading the state through the COVID-19 pandemic, most believe the multiple women who have accused Cuomo of sexual harassment and do not think the governor should run for office again.

Large internet service providers will be required to officer plans for high-speed connections at $15 per month to low-income customers starting in the middle of June after legislation on the mandate was signed into law Friday.

New York state will also partner with philanthropic organizations to provide free high-speed internet access to 50,000 students in low-income school districts for one year.

“For America, broadband holds great power,” Cuomo said. “It will either be the great equalizer for society, or it will be the great divider.”

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York will push back its curfew for bars and restaurants an hour to midnight, starting Monday, as the state continues to relax coronavirus-related restrictions, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

The governor also announced during a telephone briefing Wednesday that auto and horse racing events will be able to accommodate spectators at 20% capacity starting April 23. Spectators will be required to wear a mask, social distance and provide proof of a recent negative test or completed vaccinations.

New York paused administering the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday, after the federal Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control recommended halting the doses because a few recipients developed blood clots.

Out of the 6.8 million Americans who have already received the J&J vaccine, six women developed blood clots after receiving the doses. One died, and another was hospitalized in critical condition.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo will appoint three new judges to New York’s highest court this year, and a group of state lawmakers is asking that at least one of them be representative of the LGBTQ+ community after the court’s only openly gay judge retired this year.

Four openly LGBTQ+ state lawmakers are urging a panel that vets potential nominees to the high court to give Cuomo options representative of the LGBTQ+ community.

NEW YORK (AP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin announced his candidacy for governor of New York on Thursday with an attack on incumbent Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the subject of investigations over sexual harassment allegations and COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents.

“The bottom line is this; to save New York, Andrew Cuomo’s gotta go,” Zeldin, a fourth-term Congress member from Long Island, said in a news release.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo commented for the first time on Wednesday about allegations that he gave priority to COVID-19 tests for his family and friends, last spring when the tests were scarce.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — An aide who accused New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of groping her at his official residence told a newspaper in her first public interview it was a frightening physical encounter in which the Democrat slammed a door and said “I don’t care” when she warned someone might see what he was doing.

“It was almost like I felt like a piece of garbage to him. I felt degraded,” she said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill legalizing the adult use of recreational marijuana into law Wednesday, hailing it as an historic moment and saying, in a statement, that it “rights the wrongs of the past by putting an end to harsh prison sentences” and will embrace an industry that will grow the state’s economy.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Lawmakers in New York began debating a bill Tuesday that would legalize marijuana sales to people over the age of 21.

Legislative leaders in the state Senate and Assembly launched hours-long debates Tuesday afternoon, with votes in both chambers expected later on in the evening.

New York would become the 16th state to legalize marijuana sales to adults. New York would become the third state where lawmakers, rather than voters, have approved legalization.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — An upstate New York woman said Monday that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo grabbed her face and kissed her cheek at her home during a visit to inspect local flood damage, becoming the latest woman to accuse the embattled governor of inappropriate behavior.

Survivors of alleged sexual harassment by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, disgraced ex-movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and former Columbia University gynecologist Robert Hadden joined with state lawmakers Friday to call for a law that would give victims a platform to bring their alleged abusers to court. 

Among those speaking at the Zoom news conference was Lindsey Boylan, who has accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, including an unwelcome kiss and a suggestion that they play strip poker while flying in the governor’s private plane.  

Critics of some of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s nursing home policies during the COVID-19 pandemic marked the anniversary of the controversial March 25, 2020 order that required the homes to take back from hospitals residents who were ill with the disease.

They said an ongoing federal probe does not go far enough in investigating all that may have gone wrong in the governor’s management of nursing homes during the pandemic.