Evening Briefing: Cuomo’s decade-long run ends in disgrace

August 10, 2021

By Remy Tumin

Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Tuesday.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's resignation speech was broadcast in Times Square.Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

1. Andrew Cuomo is stepping down as governor of New York, ending a decade-long run in disgrace amid a harassment scandal and the threat of impeachment.

Cuomo said his resignation would take effect in 14 days. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will take his place, becoming the first woman to lead the state.

Cuomo's resignation marks an astonishing reversal of fortune for the leader who emerged as the face of the pandemic response in America's first epicenter. His announcement comes after a searing report found that he sexually harassed multiple women in violation of state and federal laws. Cuomo still faces legal threats from ongoing criminal investigations.

In a 21-minute speech, Cuomo decried the effort to remove him but said "given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing."

The governor said he took "full responsibility for his actions" as he denied touching anyone inappropriately. He framed the allegations by 11 women as stemming from generational differences. "In my mind, I have never crossed the line with anyone," Cuomo said. "But I didn't realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn."

Read his full remarks and watch highlights here.

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Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, voted in favor of the infrastructure bill.Tom Brenner for The New York Times

2. The Senate passed the long-awaited bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill, a key part of President Biden's agenda. The vote was 69-30.

The bill would provide the largest infusion of new federal aid into infrastructure projects in a more than a decade, touching nearly every facet of the American economy and fortifying the nation's response to the warming of the planet. Here's what's in the bill.

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But the legislation faces a tricky path in the House, where Democrats have linked passage to a $3.5 trillion social policy bill. On that item, the Senate will begin a "vote-a-rama," dealing with dozens of nonbinding amendments.

A drive-through vaccination site in Forest, Miss., in June.Elijah Baylis for The New York Times

3. Serious coronavirus infections among vaccinated people have been uncommon since the start of the vaccination campaign, a Times analysis of 40 states found.

Fully vaccinated people have made up less than 5 percent of those hospitalized with the virus in those states, and less than 6 percent of those who have died. There is still a lot we do not know as the more transmissible Delta variant surges, but the current data show that vaccines have done a remarkable job at protecting a vast majority of people from serious illness.

Coronavirus misinformation has spiked online in recent weeks, experts say, as people who peddle falsehoods have seized on the Delta surge. Twitter suspended Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for seven days after she posted misinformation about vaccines.

Peter Fuchs, 87, tried to travel from Germany to the U.S. in May but was stopped mid-journey.Gordon Welters for The New York Times

4. Nearly two months after the E.U. recommended its member countries open their borders to Americans, the decision has not been reciprocated, frustrating some Europeans who haven't seen their loved ones in a year and a half.

American borders remain closed to most European travelers, including those who are vaccinated, even as Europe has overtaken the U.S. in vaccinations. The same is true for Canadians, whose country opened its border to Americans this week. Officials in Europe have gone so far as to say they may reimpose travel restrictions against U.S. travelers.

In other international virus updates, cases are surging in Mexico amid slow vaccinations. Saudi Arabia lifted a ban on foreign pilgrims heading to Mecca as long as they are vaccinated.

The main bazaar in Farah city in Afghanistan in 2017.Bryan Denton for The New York Times

5. Two more provincial capitals all but fell to the Taliban on Tuesday, local officials said, marking the seventh and eighth to be overrun in under a week.

The Taliban had been encroaching on Farah city, as the province of the same name was a focal point for its offensive operations in the country's west for years. And in the north, the monthslong Taliban stranglehold on the capital of Baghlan Province, Pul-i-Khumri, finally succeeded. The city is on a highway that connects to Kabul, putting the insurgents even closer to the country's capital.

About 20,000 Afghans have applied to move to the U.S. through the Special Immigrant Visa program. Video calls provide a rare, intimate look into the daily life of one applicant.

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Crowds heading toward the Thursday night farmers' market in Bentonville, Ark., in June.

6. Immigrants helped make places like Northwest Arkansas economic dynamos. But their dwindling numbers could have long-term repercussions.

As much of the U.S. economy comes back from the pandemic, the decades-long influx of immigrants that fueled an enormous expansion has begun to stall. Business leaders are hoping that President Biden will make good on his pledge to overhaul the immigration system and establish a legal pipeline for foreign workers to take jobs in places that depend on them.

In other economic news, the pandemic led to a surprising U.S. productivity boom. Here's why it's happening and what could come next.

Researchers are piecing together the history of Stasi spying in Germany.Mustafah Abdulaziz for The New York Times

7. "Puzzlers" are attempting to reassemble millions of records that the East German secret police tried to destroy — scrap by scrap.

When pro-democracy protesters stormed precincts of the Stasi in 1989 and 1990, they found officers trying to destroy the surveillance records it had collected over four decades of spying on its own citizens. Researchers have since been working to reconstruct the 40 to 55 million documents by hand.

Some 500 sacks containing shredded documents have already been reconstructed, with 15,500 left to go. The central principle of the archive is to "help people understand how the Stasi interfered in their lives," one researcher said.

Lionel Messi in Paris on Tuesday.Yves Herman/Reuters

8. Lionel Messi signed a two-year contract with Paris St.-Germain, a deal that shows the growing gap between soccer's rich and its superrich.

The agreement between the Argentine star and the French soccer powerhouse comes days after Messi bid a tearful farewell to the financially troubled F.C. Barcelona, the club where he had spent his entire professional career. P.S.G., which is bankrolled by the state of Qatar, has become a fixture in the late stages of Europe's Champions League.

With the Tokyo Paralympics set to begin Aug. 24, some American athletes and their advocates, including members of Congress, are criticizing the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee for failing to provide personal assistants to some competitors, a support many athletes consider necessary.

The opening night of The Rady Shell included a burst of orchestral music.John Francis Peters for The New York Times

9. The Rady Shell, a sleek new outdoor venue on the San Diego waterfront, was supposed to put the city on the national cultural map. Its opening came with a bonus.

The dazzling $85 million concert hall, the city's answer to the Hollywood Bowl, was intended as a summer home for the San Diego Symphony, the state's oldest orchestra. With the coronavirus still spreading, the orchestra now plans to stay through the fall.

In New York (and, in part, online), the International Puppet Fringe Festival returns. Just don't call it a kiddie celebration. "The wrong perception in the United States is that puppetry is just for children or to be used for education," the festival's artistic director said. "That's something I'm fighting every single day."

For those who've tired of salads, this pizza will have them reconsidering.Bryan Gardner for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

10. And finally, the endless pleasures of vegetarian cooking.

By trade, our California restaurant critic Tejal Rao is an omnivore. "The only food rule I follow is that I eat everything, because anything can lead to deliciousness," she writes. But when she cooks at home, she gravitates toward vegetables. Rao already knew that the world of vegetarian cooking was vast and diverse, but she wanted a place to celebrate it.

Enter The Veggie, a new weekly newsletter. You can sign up here. "I'm energized by cooks who coax the best out of vegetables," writes Rao, adding that the thing about a good vegetarian recipe is that "it leads you to a delicious meal, then makes hundreds more possible."

Bon appétit!

Erin Kelly compiled photos for this briefing.

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