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Human Rights Campaign president fired for alleged role in Cuomo scandal

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the U.S., was terminated Monday night for allegedly helping former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his response to sexual harassment allegations.

Alphonso David, a former lawyer for Cuomo, was voted out by the Human Rights Campaign and its foundation boards of directors “for cause, effective immediately, for violations of his contract.”

The Aug.3 New York Attorney General report, which alleged Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, alleged David sent files relating to accuser Lindsey Boylan’s employment history to Cuomo staff at the request of Cuomo’s then-secretary Melissa DeRosa in December 2020. The files were later shared with several journalists after Boylan tweeted that the Governor had sexually harassed her, the report said.

David, who worked as chief counsel to the governor from April 2015 until becoming president of the HRC in August 2019, was not working for the Cuomo administration at the time he sent the files.

Further, the report stated that the governor and a group of advisors worked on a draft letter in response to Boylan’s sexual harassment allegations. David reportedly received a draft of that letter. When the governor suggested to put signatures on the letter, “Mr. David testified that he told Ms. DeRosa that he was not signing the letter but was willing to reach out to others to see if they would sign it,” the AG report stated.

HRC and its boards of directors announced an investigation into his actions related to the AG report last month.

“As outlined in the New York Attorney General report, Mr. David engaged in a number of activities in December 2020, while HRC President, to assist Governor Cuomo’s team in responding to allegations by Ms. Boylan of sexual harassment,” Morgan Cox and Jodie Patterson, Human Rights Campaign and Foundation Board Chairs, said in a statement.

“This conduct in assisting Governor Cuomo’s team, while president of HRC, was in violation of HRC’s Conflict of Interest policy and the mission of HRC,” they added.

After news of his firing, David shared a statement on social media stating, “Expect a legal challenge.”

“After I demanded truth and transparency, the HRC board co-chairs who should stand for human rights elected to hide in darkness. They unjustly provided notice of termination to me in order to end my fight for the integrity of the review process and for what is right. I asked for the report, they refused. They lied about producing the report,” he said.

“As a Black, gay man who has spent his whole life fighting for civil and human rights, they cannot shut me up,” he added.

In a statement shared on his social media Sunday he said, “I was shocked and sick to my stomach and immediately called on Governor Cuomo to resign,” adding “I was also the one who called for HRC to conduct an independent review, and I participated in it fully.”

Joni Madison, the current chief operating officer and chief staff of the HRC will serve as interim president as the board search for a replacement.

His exit is the latest fallout from the report that also led Roberta A. Kaplan, the co-founder of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which fights for sexual harassment victims, to resign after the report named Kaplan as allegedly being involved in an effort to discredit one of Cuomo’s accusers. She resigned despite contesting the claim that she counseled Cuomo in responding to an accuser.

DeRosa, one of Cuomo’s top aides, also resigned last month after state investigators alleged she was part of the “retaliation” against one of his accusers.

Cuomo resigned last month after the damning report and amid a mounting chorus of calls for him to step down. He has consistently denied all allegations of sexual harassment.

Pop star Selena Gomez recalls her “surreal moment” with Sting on set of ‘Only Murders in the Building’

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Pop star Selena Gomez isn’t the only chart-topping musician in the new Hulu series Only Murders in the Building: Sting also has a role. In fact, the former Police frontman rock legend is starting to look like the prime suspect in the murder that the characters played by Selena and her co-stars Steve Martin and Martin Short are investigating. But despite the fact that they’re both musicians, Selena said talking shop with the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer was the last thing on her mind while filming the show.

“Oh, gosh, no, no, no!” Selena tells ABC Audio when asked if she and Sting discussed collaborating. “But I will say this: [There] was a very cool moment.”

As Selena recalls, “There was a piano on set and I was just playing piano and all of a sudden I hear Sting playing exactly what I’m playing, on the guitar! And I’m like, ‘O.K., this is a surreal moment I’m going to remember for the rest of my life.’ ‘Cause…like, I don’t bother [other stars] with anything; I just wanted them to have a great experience.”

More about Sting and his motivations will be revealed in the fourth episode of the show, which arrives today on Hulu. It’s called “The Sting,” and in it, we’ll find out that there’s a definite connection between the rocker and the victim, Tim Kono, played by Julian Cihi.

Like Selena, Sting has had an acting career running parallel to his music career for years. But according to Entertainment Weekly, the reason Sting is in Only Murders is because he’s been friends with Steve Martin and the show’s casting director, Bernard Telsey, for a long time.

Surveys show we spend more than a hundred days of our lives choosing what to watch

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

If you’re overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices you have in picking something to watch from a host of options these days, you’re not alone. A new survey out of the U.K. certainly rings true on our side of The Pond: adults there spend more than 100 days of their lives deciding on what to watch.

The survey of 2,000 Britons, which was commissioned by the cable service NOW, reveals adults will spend time flicking through eight TV channels and nine film titles before making a final decision.

This works out to an average of 24 minutes and 24 seconds spent deciding on TV shows and 25 minutes choosing movies — or 55 days across an adult lifetime for TV choices and 57 days trying to pick a movie.

As staggering as this may seem, it’s higher for people in the U.S. Vox reported back in 2019 that Americans spend 45 hours per year choosing what to watch next — and that was before Tiger King was a thing.

So using those numbers as an example, someone who’s 18 will spend 116 days deciding what to watch by the time they turn 80.

The UK survey also noted who usually makes up their minds for the house: women more commonly got the final say.

That said, 41% “shop” for a show or movie by genre, 37% look to who’s in it, and 28% say the length of the movie is a key factor. Similarly, 23% said a TV show’s length influences their decision.

Another thing you may have in common with your British counterparts? Forty-mine percent in that U.K. survey say they get so overwhelmed with deciding what to watch that they ultimately decide to not watch anything.

Blinken denies Taliban holding Americans ‘hostage’ as US struggles to help those left behind

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — There are a “small number” of U.S. citizens in the northern Afghan city Mazar-e-Sharif who have been unable to evacuate on chartered flights, Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed Tuesday, but he said the Taliban had grounded the aircraft because others manifested for these flights did not have valid travel documents.

The chartered flights for approximately 600 people have been held at Mazar-e-Sharif’s airport for over a week now, according to sources who helped organize them, with at least 19 U.S. citizens waiting in the city to board and flee Afghanistan.

A top Republican lawmaker said Sunday these Americans and at-risk Afghans were essentially being held hostage by the Taliban – something that Blinken dismissed Tuesday.

The Taliban have publicly said they will allow safe passage for those who want to leave, but without international flights yet and with overland journeys dangerous, it’s been intensely difficult for those that were left behind by President Joe Biden’s evacuation operations.

Among them are at least 100 U.S. citizens, Blinken said Tuesday, adding that the State Department has been “in direct contact with virtually all of them. We have case-management teams assigned to them to make sure that those who want to leave can in fact do so.”

Four of those Americans were able to evacuate over land to a neighboring country, a senior State Department official confirmed to ABC News Monday, saying the department helped facilitate their travel.

The Taliban were aware and did not impede their transit, the official added. They declined to say which country the family of four arrived in, but said local U.S. embassy officials met them at the border and said they were in “good condition.”

Hours later, however, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, who served as former President Donald Trump’s White House doctor, accused the State Department of “lying,” saying the agency “didn’t do a damn thing for these people for 12 days except almost get them killed repeatedly.”

“This is an attempt to save face by the administration for the Americans they left behind. This is a woman with three children from age 15 all the way down to two-years-old, and they did nothing to try to expedite this,” Curt Mills, a U.S. Army veteran and Trump appointee at the Pentagon, told Fox News. “It’s like we carried the ball to the 99-and-a-half yard line, and them taking it that last half yard and being like, ‘Look what we did.'”

The State Department declined to comment in response.

But Blinken said Tuesday the agency has been “working around the clock with NGOs, with members of Congress, and advocacy groups” and “conducting a great deal of diplomacy on this,” including with Taliban leaders.

That includes with the NGO Ascend, a Washington-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering women and girls through mountain climbing. Its CEO Marina LeGree told ABC News Sunday that its Afghan members are “among hundreds of individuals — including some American citizens — who have been blocked by the Taliban from leaving Mazar-e-Sharif by charter plane for six days” at that point — now going on eight.

Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, went further, telling Fox News Sunday that the Taliban had created a “hostage situation where they’re not going to allow American citizens to leave until they get full recognition from the United States of America.”

Blinken confirmed the State Department had identified “a relatively small number of Americans” in Mazar-e-Sharif with families trying to evacuate, but he denied there was “any hostage-like situation” or anyone held on aircraft or at the airport.

“It’s my understanding that the Taliban has not denied exit to anyone holding a valid document, but they have said that those without valid documents at this point can’t leave – but because all of these people are grouped together, that’s meant that flights have not been allowed to go,” he added.

Some critics have rejected that, saying the Biden administration must do more to get these flights off the ground and help these U.S. citizens and vulnerable Afghans. But Blinken said while they’re “doing all we can to clear any roadblocks… to make sure that charter flights carrying Americans or others to whom we have a special responsibility can depart Afghanistan safely,” the U.S. has limited ability to help.

“Without personnel on the ground, we can’t verify the accuracy of manifests, the identities of passengers, flight plans, or aviation security protocols, so this is a challenge, but one we are determined to work through,” he said Tuesday in Qatar, visiting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to thank the Qatari government for its help hosting tens of thousands of evacuees.

Qatari teams have flown into Kabul late last week to make repairs at the international airport and negotiate with the Taliban to reopen it securely. Speaking alongside Blinken and Austin, Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told reporters the airport had resumed chartered flights for aid groups and United Nations officials, including the top U.N. aid official Martin Griffiths who visited and met with Taliban leaders Sunday.

“We are about to get everything operational very soon,” Al Thani added, saying negotiations were ongoing with the Taliban to ensure the airport’s management and security — less than two weeks after ISIS-K, the terror group’s branch in Afghanistan, said it attacked a gate and killed at least 182 people, including 13 U.S. service members.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs GOP-backed ‘election integrity’ bill into law

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(TEXAS) — Three months and two special sessions after Texas House Democrats engaged in the first of three quorum breaks over the Republican-backed legislative priority of “election integrity,” the final version of the bill officially became law on Tuesday.

In its final form, Senate Bill 1 revises the state’s election laws to tighten ballot access and administration. Some of the provisions outlined in the legislation also appear to be responses to efforts taken by Houston-area officials in Harris County to broaden ballot access during the 2020 general election amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Although there was no evidence of widespread fraud across Texas following the 2020 election, Republican proponents of the legislation claim it seeks to restore voter confidence in the state’s election parameters.

“One thing that all Texans can agree [on], and that is that we must have trust and confidence in our elections. The bill that I’m about to sign, helps to achieve that goal,” Gov. Greg Abbott said at Tuesday’s bill signing ceremony in Tyler, Texas.

Republican supporters of the legislation — including the state’s Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — also praised the bill as a tool for deterring “cheaters” from casting fraudulent ballots.

“Texas turns out voters because they have confidence that our elections are always going to be fair and Senate Bill 1 will give them even more confidence. We want to see more people vote, we want to see them vote fairly and we don’t want the cheaters to undermine our elections,” Patrick said during the bill signing ceremony.

The bill’s transcendence into law signals a political win for Abbott, who made “election integrity” a priority over the course of two special legislative sessions. The move also echoes Abbott’s political alignment with former President Donald Trump, who baselessly attacked the nation’s election processes after his presidential loss in November.

Meanwhile, Texas Democrats insist they will continue to push back politically.

“The signing of this harmful bill will only make us more determined,” Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement Tuesday.

Democrats in the state legislature had been battling the legislation for months. After first engaging in a final-hour quorum break in May to prevent the first iteration of the bill from passing, House Democrats fled to Washington, D.C. ahead of a subsequent July special session in hopes of working with federal lawmakers to push for national voting rights legislation.

Their exit brought the legislature to a halt until Abbott called for a second special session in August. Faced with a reemerging COVID-19 crisis at home, enough Democrat lawmakers returned to Austin to clear a quorum and watch the Republican majority put the bill over the finish line.

The legislation goes into effect in December, three months following the end of the latest special session, at which point it will officially ban drive-through and 24-hour voting sites, both of which were widely utilized in the populous and diverse Harris County — one of the state’s few deeply blue political areas.

The new law will also make it a state jail felony for election officials to proactively send applications for mail ballot requests to voters if the voters themselves did not request the documents. During the 2020 campaign season, Harris County election officials attempted to send mail ballot applications to millions of the county’s registered voters, but the effort was halted by the Texas Supreme Court.

Under the new law, poll watchers will have “free movement” within polling places. They will also have the ability to “observe all election activities” including the closing of polling places and the transfer of election materials. Although the provision prohibits poll watchers from observing voters as they fill out ballots, the legislation makes it a criminal offense if an election official “knowingly prevents a watcher from observing an activity” or prohibits officials from refusing to accept watchers into a polling place.

Voting rights advocates consistently criticized these provisions as creating ballot access hurdles for people of color. In response, Republicans frequently touted the new law’s expansion of early voting hours, which will mandate that counties with populations of 55,000 people or more provide at least 12 hours of early voting during the second week of the early voting period.

Upon signing the bill into law, Abbott praised the new law’s expansion of in-person early voting while drawing an inaccurate comparison to the voting parameters in President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware, which Abbott said does not have an early voting period. Although Delaware did not have early voting in the 2020 campaign cycle, it will have an early voting period implemented in 2022, which would coincide with when S.B. 1 going into effect.

Republicans also removed a highly controversial provision that was outlined in a failed version of a “voter integrity” bill during the first special session, which limited the start of Sunday early voting hours. That provision was seen as a direct response to “souls to the polls” voting mobilization traditions in Black churchgoing communities and was often cited in criticisms from Democrats throughout their second quorum break. The ensuing fallout of the now-defunct provision spurred lawmakers to add an hour to the early voting time frame on Sundays to the bill signed by Abbott.

The effects of S.B 1 would play out just as the 2022 midterm election cycle gears up across one of the nation’s emerging political battlegrounds, but at least two federal lawsuits filed in Austin and San Antonio were already contesting the law’s legitimacy before Abbott signed the bill into law.

Meanwhile, Texas Democrats — many of whom hoped to stall the legislation in July by breaking quorum and camping out in Washington, D.C. — continue to put pressure on federal lawmakers to act.

“Senate Bill 1 will go into effect on December 3rd. With the deliberate barriers to voting created by this legislation and redistricting just around the corner, we need the U.S. Senate to act immediately on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Our democracy depends on it,” Texas House Democratic Chair Chris Turner said in a statement.

Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson and more celebrate Beyoncé’s 40th birthday

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Beyoncé celebrated her 40th birthday Saturday, and numerous stars paid tribute to Queen Bey in a special Harper’s Bazaar video.

Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson, Kerry Washington, Issa Rae, Wyclef Jean and Congresswomen Maxine Waters were among the many personalities praising the 28-time Grammy winner.

“You are such a gift to this world,” Washington said. “Thank you for being an inspiration to me, to my kids, to brown skin girls all over the world, to non-brown skin girls all over the world. you are magic.”

Oprah added, “The 40s are everything you have been waiting for.”

Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Lawson, expressed her love for her daughter in an emotional Instagram post.

“I love your sense of humor & how much you love to laugh until your eyes close especially the sound of your laugh,” she wrote. “I love how you never did, still don’t, and never will take yourself too serious.”

“I love how much you love your family & you embrace your close friends like family. I love watching you be a wife and the most loving & patient mom,” Lawson continued. “I loved yesterday 9/4/21 will 4 ever be one of our most Beautiful memory that none of us will ever 4 get. Happy 40th Birthday. You truly are a real Queen. Your mom is the president of the Bey Hive & I’ll 4ever & proudly be your Vice President.”

Last week at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, it was revealed that a new Beyoncé song, “Be Alive,” will close the upcoming film King Richard, starring Will Smith, according to the Los Angeles Times. The movie tells the true story of Richard Williams, father of tennis superstar Serena and Venus Williams. King Richard debuts in theaters and on HBO Max on November 19.

Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil & Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell taking part in Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Soundgarden‘s Kim Thayil and Alice in Chains‘ Jerry Cantrell are taking part in the latest edition of Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp.

The special seminar, dubbed “Sounds of Seattle,” is set to take place February 17-20, 2022 in Los Angeles. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from and jam with Thayil and Cantrell, who will prep you for public performances at the iconic Viper Room and Whisky a Go Go LA venues.

“The past few years have been unusually difficult and at times truly bizarre for the nation and world in general, and for the music industry and rock bands in particular,” Thayil says. “I am super excited about the opportunity to connect and re-engage with fellow musicians and fans at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp.”

Thayil and Cantrell will also be joined by another grunge mainstay, original Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen. Additionally, artists including Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction and Nickelback‘s Mike Kroeger are among the camp’s guest mentors.

For more info, visit RockCamp.com.

ABBA’s new singles on pace to become band’s first top-10 UK hits in 40 years

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Last Thursday, ABBA thrilled fans by announcing plans to release their first new album in 40 years, Voyage, while debuting two tracks from the forthcoming record: “I Still Have Faith in You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down.”

Now comes word that the songs are both on pace to debut in the top 10 of the next U.K. Official Singles Chart. As of Saturday, “I Still Have Faith in You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down” sat at #6 and #7, respectively, on the Official Chart: First Look list.

If the songs hold their positions, they will become the Swedish pop legends’ first top-10 hits in the U.K. since “One of Us” in December 1981.

Both tracks are available now on vinyl, CD and digital formats. As of Saturday, “Don’t Shut Me Down” was the most downloaded song in the U.K. during the past week.

OfficialCharts.com also reports that more than 80,000 copies of the Voyage album, which is due out November 5, have been pre-ordered already, breaking a record for the most pre-orders ever for an album on ABBA’s longtime label, Universal Music UK.

As previously reported, Voyage was created in tandem with a concert experience that will see digital avatars of ABBA’s members — Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus — performing virtually with a live 10-piece band, in a purpose-built, 3,000-person capacity arena in London. The Voyage shows premiere May 27, 2022, and tickets for the concerts went on sale to the general public today. Visit ABBAVoyage.com for more details.

ABBA’s last studio album, The Visitors, was released in November 1981.

Ida latest: 71 dead in 8 states, power slowly returns after storm

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(LA.) — The nation is still grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which made landfall Aug. 29 and knocked out power to more than 1 million in Louisiana.

At least 71 people have died due to the storm — which hit Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane — as well as the devastation it left across eight states

In Louisiana, 15 have died due to the storm’s wrath. The Louisiana Health Department confirmed two more storm-related deaths Tuesday in St. Tammany Parish: a 68-year-old man who fell off a roof while making repairs to damage caused by Ida and a 71-year-old man who died due to a lack of oxygen during an extended power outage.

In the Northeast, at least 52 have died. The Harrison Police Department in Westchester County, New York, confirmed on Monday the recovery of a woman’s body who went missing during last week’s flooding.

President Joe Biden will survey the damage of Ida’s remnants in New York and New Jersey on Tuesday.

“Just days after visiting Louisiana to see the damage from the storm there, President Biden will also highlight how one in three Americans live in counties that have been impacted by severe weather events in recent months,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “Just over the summer, 100 million Americans have been impacted by extreme weather, obviously in the Northeast, out West with wildfires, and then in the Gulf Coast.”

Biden has touted the extreme weather as a critical reason why Congress should pass his infrastructure package.

Recovery efforts continue in the South, where 60% of the 948,000 Entergy utility customers who lost power finally had it restored, the company said Tuesday.

In Louisiana, 54% of customers who lost power have had lights return, but 322,000 remain with outages, and in New Orleans, 73% of customers who lost power had it restored and 55,000 customers remain in the dark, Entergy said.

A team of 26,000 workers are restoring downed and damaged power lines. However, some hard-hit areas including Lafourche Parish and Plaquemines Parish aren’t forecast to have power restored until Sept. 29, according to the company’s estimation.

In Louisiana and Mississippi, 30,679 poles, 36,469 spans of wire and 5,959 transformers were damaged or destroyed — that’s more than Katrina, Ike, Delta and Zeta combined.

Access to water remains a major problem in the state, with boil water advisories still in place in the parishes of Jefferson, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. Tammany, St. John the Baptist, Plaquemines and Tangipahoa.

More rain will is forecast to come down in Louisiana, further inundating the already saturated soil, with temperatures in the upper 80s, according to the National Weather Service.

Tuesday marks the last day for locals to evacuate to Ida shelters in northern Louisiana. Locals in need of shelter can go to one of eight pick-up locations for bus transportation.

About 14,000 people in Lafourche Parish were left homeless after Ida razed through and destroyed 75% of structures there.

“We are working feverishly, as hard as we can to get all people what they need to keep their lives going and to rebuild our community,” Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson said to CNN on Monday.

Nursing home deaths are also a mounting concern in the state.

Among those who died in Louisiana, seven were nursing home residents who were transferred to a warehouse in Independence and later died. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has opened an investigation into the deaths. The Louisiana Health Department is also investigating nursing homes that transferred patients there and ordered all of them to shut down Saturday. Only five of the seven deaths were confirmed by the state to be storm-related.

On Saturday, during wellness checks at eight New Orleans facilities, five nursing home residents were found dead, the city said in a news release. None of those have been confirmed to be storm-related. In response, the city determined all eight facilities were “unfit” and evacuated nearly 600 residents to hospitals and shelters.

Also in Louisiana, at least four people have died and 141 were treated in hospitals for carbon monoxide poisoning in the wake of Ida, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, prompting officials to urge the public for safe generator use.

Officials advise placing generators at least 20 feet away from a home and assure all air entry points near the unit and home are properly sealed.

Ida latest: 69 dead in eight states, power slowly returns after storm

September 7, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(LA.) — The nation is still grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which made landfall Aug. 29 and knocked out power to more than 1 million in Louisiana.

At least 69 people have died due to the storm — which hit Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane — as well as the devastation it left across eight states

In Louisiana, 13 have died due to the storm’s wrath. In the Northeast, at least 52 have died.