Politics

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he will resign from office after state Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation found he sexually harassed multiple women. He will step down within the next two weeks, ending a decade leading the Empire State. Cuomo promised to oversee a “seamless” transition and noted that New York faces challenges as

As the Polish parliament prepares to debate the controversial foreign media ownership bill on Wednesday, 78 protests against the bill have been planned for Tuesday evening. The protests are led by the Committee for the Defense of Democracy and supported by several press freedom and human rights groups which have actively been fighting to protect

Lee Jae-yong, the de facto boss of the Samsung electronics to entertainment group, is to be released from jail on Friday, South Korea’s Ministry of Justice said. The move is deeply controversial. Lee was imprisoned for bribery in a complex case involving the highest echelons of a previous government and attempts to minimize tax payments

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has denied the sexual harassment allegations from 11 women after Tuesday’s investigation from the state Attorney General was released. Gov. Cuomo spoke at a press conference Tuesday afternoon after Attorney General Letitia James’ months-long investigation found that he sexually harassed multiple women, retaliated against an accuser and fostered a toxic

Independent digital news platform Initium Media announced on Tuesday that it will quit Hong Kong and relocate its headquarters to Singapore. The same day, veteran journalist Steve Vines and contemporary artist Kacey Wong also announced their departure from Hong Kong. Vines has arrived in the U.K. Wong has moved to Taiwan. All pointed to reduced

New York City will require proof of vaccination for people going to indoor activities like restaurants, gym and performances, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday. The program will launch August 16 and will be enforced beginning September 13. The policy is one of the first of its kind in the United States; other large cities,

Cantonese-language singer Anthony Wong Yiu-ming has been formally charged with corruption by Hong Kong authorities. The move relates to alleged crimes in connection with a 2018 election. Wong and former legislator Au Nok-him were charged on Monday by the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Wong had previously been arrested on Thursday and granted bail. Au is

Bill Prady is probably best known as the co-creator of “The Big Bang Theory.” But four years before the launch of that sitcom mega-smash, Prady — on a lark — was among the motley crew of candidates who ran in the 2003 California recall election circus. Now, as California faces another recall drama, this time

Nationalist users on Chinese social media platform Weibo have attacked foreign consulates in the southern capital of Guangzhou for seeking to “bring down China” with an LGBTQ film festival jointly hosted by 17 foreign governments. Such users say they have flooded the platform’s censors with reports that posts about the festival are politically problematic, seeking

Industry members looking to travel to England from the U.S. and the European Union received a shot in the arm on Wednesday, with the U.K. government lifting stringent quarantine requirements. Effective Aug. 2, passengers from countries on the U.K.’s amber list, who have been fully vaccinated in Europe (EU Member States, European Free Trade Association

Top U.S. corporate sponsors of the Beijing 2022 Olympics dodged two hours of questions from a bipartisan U.S. government commission Tuesday to avoid directly condemning China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang. A virtual hearing by Congressional-Executive Commission on China laid bare the hypocrisy of the participating companies. Each in turn described their commitments to human

Los Angeles officials announced Tuesday that city employees must either get vaccinated or submit to regular COVID-19 testing, joining the state of California, New York City and other localities in an effort to goad public workers to take the vaccine as cases surge. Mayor Eric Garcetti and Council President Nury Martinez announced the policy in

Just two months after lifting the COVID-19 mask mandate, the CDC is now recommending that some vaccinated people should resume wearing masks indoors in areas with high or substantial transmission of COVID-19. CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky made the announcement Tuesday as nationwide concern over the delta variant of COVID-19 grows and cases increase. Last

Tom Barrack pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges that he acted as an unregistered agent of the United Arab Emirates and obstructed a federal investigation. Barrack, a real estate investor who once owned the controlling stake in Miramax, was arrested last week and held for three days in a county detention center in San

Tom Barrack, the chair of President Trump’s inaugural committee in 2017, was arrested Tuesday on charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent who sought to influence policy on behalf of the United Arab Emirates, federal prosecutors announced. Barrack and two other men — Matthew Grimes of Colorado and Rashid Sultan Rashid Al Malik Alshahhi

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, will publish a memoir in late 2022 with Penguin Random House. For the first time, Prince Harry will reveal his intimate account of the experiences, adventures, losses and life lessons that have shaped him. The memoir will cover his childhood in the public eye, his two tours in Afghanistan

Scott Borchetta, Big Machine Label Group’s founder and president-CEO, has spoken up in defense of the company’s promotion of a liberal-bashing song by Aaron Lewis, “Am I the Only One,” that trashes Bruce Springsteen and advocates keeping Confederate statues. Borchetta’s words praising the song came in a letter to industry blogger Bob Lefsetz, who had

President Biden took a sharp jab at Facebook and other social networks, saying that they are “killing people” by facilitating the spread of misinformation about coronavirus vaccines. Asked by a reporter at the White House Friday what his message was to platforms like Facebook regarding COVID-19 misinformation, Biden replied: “They’re killing people.” He was addressing

A bill that for the first time establishes a goal to make Hollywood’s workforce more reflective of California’s diversity passed the state Legislature on Thursday and is expected to be signed by the governor. The bill also includes a dramatic expansion of the state’s film and TV tax credit, including a new program to encourage

Jackie Chan has long been one of Hong Kong’s celebrities who most frequently and prominently engages in propaganda efforts for the mainland’s ruling Communist Party, but he recently took his public devotion to the Chinese regime to a new level. Chan declared his admiration for the Party at a symposium organized by the China Film

The California Department of Public Health said on Monday that K-12 students who refuse to wear masks must be kept off campus, but then quickly reversed itself in the face of a backlash. The revised guidelines leave it up to local districts to decide how to enforce the state’s universal mask mandate. The move comes

President Biden has nominated Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to become the next U.S. ambassador to India, which would leave a vacancy in the top job in the nation’s second-largest city. The White House made the announcement Friday. Assuming he is confirmed by the Senate, Garcetti will leave City Hall with more than a year

President Biden is signing an executive order Friday urging federal agencies to more aggressively police conduct by Big Tech — including to more closely review acquisitions that thwart competition. The action comes amid a growing backlash by lawmakers and regulators against massive Silicon Valley firms. Biden’s order doesn’t name the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon

Before the last presidential election cycle, northeast Philadelphia’s Four Seasons Total Landscaping was a go-to business only for shrubbery enthusiasts and great garden maintainers. Then President Trump’s lawyer and campaign representative, Rudy Giuliani, held an oddball press conference regarding possible voter fraud, capturing the attention of the nation and raising the question of whether the

UPDATED: Former U.S. president Donald Trump — evidently still furious about getting kicked off social media platforms over his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — said he plans to file class-action lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and Google and the companies’ CEOs. The lawsuits against the three companies and their chief

Eric Adams has won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, per the Associated Press. Adams, a former police captain, ran a centrist campaign and would be New York City’s second Black mayor if elected this fall. Adams led his closest opponent, Kathryn Garcia, by 8,426 votes, according to the New York Times. Out

Donald Rumsfeld, who served as the United States Secretary of Defense from 1975-1977 and 2001-2006, has died, his family announced in a statement on Wednesday. He was 88. “It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, an American statesman and devoted husband, grandfather and great grandfather. At

A senior journalist at Hong Kong’s recently shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily has been arrested at the airport attempting to leave the city, according to local reports. Editorial writer Fung Wai-kong was halted Sunday and arrested on suspicion of “conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign sources to endanger national security,” a crime punishable

On Monday, the Los Angles County Department of Public Health announced it “strongly recommends everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks indoors in public places as a precautionary measure” in light of the increasingly transmissible Delta variant. The precautionary recommendation comes just two weeks after the full reopening of California’s economy. Across the country, the

China struck back at the U.S. on Friday for President Joe Biden’s condemnation of its shutdown of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper. Meanwhile, American senators on Friday called for an even more hardline U.S. response. Earlier this month, some 500 policemen raided the Apple Daily newsroom and arrested five of its top executives. The