Isolated and defiant, Cuomo again refuses to step down
Terps fade in second half, bow out of Big Ten tournament, waiting on likely NCAA invitation
ALBANY, N.Y. — Facing unprecedented political isolation, a defiant New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted Friday that he would not step down in the wake of mounting allegations of sexual harassment and groping even as he condemned the sprawling coalition of Democrats calling for his resignation as “reckless and dangerous.”
Later Friday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand joined the calls on Cuomo to resign, adding the most powerful Democratic voices yet to demands that the governor leave office.
“Confronting and overcoming the Covid crisis requires sure and steady leadership. We commend the brave actions of the individuals who have come forward with serious allegations of abuse and misconduct,” New York’s two U.S. senators said in a joint statement.
“Due to the multiple, credible sexual harassment and misconduct allegations, it is clear that Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners and the people of New York,” they said. “Governor Cuomo should resign.”
Both had earlier said an independent investigation into the allegations by several women against Cuomo was essential.
The three-term Democratic governor, a leading critic of former President Donald Trump’s pandemic response, evoked the Republican president in defending himself against “cancel culture.”
“I’m not going to resign,” Cuomo said during an afternoon phone call with reporters. “I did not do what has been alleged. Period.”
He added: “People know the difference between playing
politics, bowing to cancel culture and the truth.”
The embattled governor’s comments came on a day his party in New York and beyond turned sharply against him in the wake of the harassment allegations and criticism of Cuomo for keeping secret how many nursing home residents died of COVID-19 for months.
Cuomo’s growing list of detractors now covers virtually every region in the state and the political power centers of New York City and Washington. A majority of Democrats in the state legislature and 19 of the state’s 27 U.S. House members have called on him to step down.
Dozens of Democrats had already called out Cuomo this week, but the coalition of critics expanded geographically and politically on Friday to include the likes of New York City progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; the leader of the House Democratic campaign arm, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney; and a group of Long Islandbased state lawmakers who had been considered loyal
Cuomo allies.
“The victims of sexual assault concern me more than politics or other narrow considerations, and I believe Gov. Cuomo must step aside,” said Maloney, a Democrat.
Ocasio-Cortez said she believes the women who have accused the threeterm Democratic governor of wrongdoing.
“After two accounts of sexual assault, four accounts of harassment, the Attorney General’s investigation finding the Governor’s admin hid nursing home data from the legislature and public, we agree with the 55+ members of the New York State legislature that the Governor must resign,” she tweeted.
Cuomo on Friday insisted that he never touched anyone inappropriately and said again that he’s sorry if he ever made anyone uncomfortable by his behavior.
The state Assembly allowed an impeachment investigation into Cuomo on Thursday as lawmakers investigate whether there are grounds for his forcible removal from office.
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The Maryland men’s basketball team entered its quarterfinal game in the Big Ten tournament against Michigan playing freely and with confidence, assured that its body of work in the regular season and an opening-game win over Michigan State was enough to solidify its place in the NCAA tournament.
And after being thoroughly beaten by the Wolverines in two regular-season matchups, the Terps looked like an improved team through one half.
But eighth-seeded Maryland, which led by as many as 12 in the first half, quickly unraveled as it lost to top-seeded Michigan, 79-66, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Friday afternoon.
Wolverines graduate transfer Mike Smith recorded 18 points and 15 assists, a new career-high and a Big Ten tournament record.
“The little point guard was terrific,” Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said of the 5-foot-11 Smith. “He totally controlled the game.”
Eric Ayala led Maryland with 19 points, while Darryl Morsell (16 points) and Aaron Wiggins (11 points) also scored in double figures.
After trailing by 12 in the first half, Michigan (20-3, 15-3 Big Ten) went on a 33-11 run connecting both halves and led by as many as 15 late in the second.
“When you get a team like that down, you’ve got to bury them,” Morsell said. “You got your foot on the neck, you got to leave it on their neck. You can’t give them any confidence.
“End of that first half, they found confidence, they found their rhythm and it just carried over into the second half.
“But I do want to say we played hard. We played all the way to the end. We made them adjust to us. We made them [play more] zone [defense] than they probably play. But they definitely found confidence and they were hitting shots in the second half.”
Maryland (16-13, 10-12), which shot 62.5% from the field in the first half and 5-for-10 from beyond the arc, shot 36.7% from the field in the second and made just 3 of 16 from the 3-point line, including 11 straight misses from deep to begin the half.
“A little disappointed that we didn’t shoot the ball a little bit better,” Turgeon said. “I thought we got some really good looks. We did shoot a little too quickly sometimes, but I thought we got some really good looks out there and we just didn’t make them. When they got looks, they made them. There’s a reason they’re a [projected] one seed [in the NCAA tournament]. They’re a really good basketball team.”
Ayala and Morsell had similar praise for the fourth-ranked Wolverines. Ayala said the only team he has competed against in his three years at Maryland that rivals Michigan is the 2018-19 Virginia team that won the NCAA tournament. Morsell said the Wolverines were among the “top-five teams I’ve ever played in college.”
A one-handed dunk by Wiggins over Franz Wagner was the highlight of the Terps’ short-lived lead and upset bid, part of a first-half surge in which the Terps made eight straight shot attempts.
Michigan ended the half on a 16-2 run over the final 4:15 and Maryland trailed at halftime, 40-38. The Terps were out-rebounded by the Wolverines, 15-10, in the first half and seven offensive rebounds by Michigan led to 10 second-chance points. Maryland, which recorded six offensive rebounds in the entire game, had no second-chance points.
“Those guys are big,” Turgeon said. “Those ball screens are tough. And because they’re so big, you’re not able to switch on them. Then they did a great job of driving the ball, Wagner, and they got downhill and then they made shots. They made some tough ones during the stretch. It was unfortunate. You would like to have the lead at half. I think that would have been big for our confidence.”
Key players from both teams spent much of the first half on the bench with foul trouble. Freshman center Hunter Dickinson (six points), who recorded a then-career-high 26 points in the first meeting between the teams, played just six minutes after picking up two fouls with nine minutes left in the half. Morsell sat the final 7:50 of the half after picking up his second foul.
As Michigan’s high-powered offense pushed its lead greater and stayed in its matchup zone defense, Morsell was the only player to provide a spark for much of the second half. The Baltimore native scored Maryland’s first nine points in the second.
Michigan coach Juwan Howard was given a double technical foul and ejected after both teams exchanged words during the under-12 media timeout. Howard, the 2021 Big Ten Coach of the Year, had to be restrained by his assistants, while Turgeon also received a technical.
Seven total technicals were given out in the first two meetings between the teams, and three additional ones on Friday.
“This has been going on for three games,” Turgeon said. “I’ve been doing this for 34 years and I’ve called the conference office, I’ve called the commissioner about what transpired in the first two games. And I said I wasn’t going to take it the third game. I stood up for my team, I stood up for me. … All I said was don’t talk to me … Never back down, I just stood there and said don’t talk to me.”
Said Howard: “[Turgeon] charged at me. And that right there — I don’t know how you guys were raised but how I was raised by my grandmother and also by Chicago, because I was raised by Chicago and I grew up in the South Side, when guys charge you, it’s time to defend yourself. And especially when a grown man charges you. And that right there, I went into defense mode and forgetting exactly where I’m at. That’s not the right way how to handle the situation when you come at and charge someone. I didn’t charge him. So, when he charged me, I reacted. And I reacted out of defense.”
The spat seemingly sparked the Terps, who responded with five straight points to get within five, 57-52, with 9:49 remaining. But a 9-0 run, including seven points from Smith, gave the Wolverines a 15-point lead with 2:08 left.
Maryland, projected to make the NCAA tournament, will now stay in Indianapolis for Selection Sunday to hear its fate.
NCAA SELECTION SHOW Sunday, 6 p.m.
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BRUSSELS — Millions of coronavirus vaccine doses are in cold storage in the U.S. that can’t be injected in the states because they are not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but the Biden administration is not allowing them to be sent overseas, where American allies are struggling to get enough doses for vulnerable populations.
The two-dose vaccine from AstraZeneca has received emergency approval from the European Union and World Health Organization, but not in the U.S. Now U.S. partners are prodding President Joe Biden to release the supply, noting that the administration has lined up enough doses of the three already-approved vaccines to cover every American adult by the end of May and the entire U.S. population by the end of July.
EU member states’ ambassadors this week discussed the challenge of accessing U.S.-produced doses of the AstraZeneca
shots. The German government said Friday it was in contact with U.S. officials about vaccine supplies, but stressed that the European Commission had the lead when it comes to procuring shots for member states.
Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have directed representatives to discuss supply chains in the vaccine production.
“Hopefully, we will be in a position on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that sufficient quantities of vaccine doses are distributed out in line with the schedule so as to complete the vaccination campaigns,” EU commission chief spokesman Eric Mamer said.
Even though it is not approved in the U.S., well over 10 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine are stockpiled in the country for domestic use and cannot be exported under the terms of the company’s agreement with the federal government.
Drug manufacturers that received federal assistance in developing or expanding vaccine manufacturing of doses were required to sell their first doses to the U.S. In the case of AstraZeneca, whose vaccine was initially expected to be the first to receive federal emergency use authorization, the U.S. government ordered 300 million doses — enough for 150 million Americans — before issues with the vaccine’s clinical trial held up its approval in the U.S.
That policy has also come under criticism from U.S. neighbors like Canada and Mexico, which have been forced to seek vaccine manufactured on a different continent, rather than across the border. Its enforcement comes as the Biden administration has purchased enough doses of Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson to be able to inoculate 150 million more people than its population by the end of the year.
The U.S. has also ordered 110 million doses of vaccine from Novavax, which is expected to file for emergency approval as soon as next month.
“We want to be oversupplied and overprepared,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday, saying Biden wanted contingencies in the event of any unforeseen issues with the existing production timeline.