Cuomo legal woes continue, could cost public at least $9.5M
Resigning from office probably didn’t end former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s legal problems, and no matter what happens next, taxpayers are likely to wind up with a hefty bill.
The state has already agreed to pay up to $9.5 million to lawyers representing and investigating Cuomo and his administration over sexual harassment allegations and other matters, according to The Associated Press’ review of available contracts.
That figure — which represents the maximum amount that could be spent, not actual bills submitted so far — includes up to $5 million for lawyers who have represented Cuomo’s office, up to $3.5 million for lawyers hired by the state attorney general to investigate sexual harassment allegations against the Democrat, and at least $1 million in bills for lawyers hired by the Legislature as part of an impeachment investigation. It doesn’t include the legal fees of Cuomo’s private attorney, Rita Glavin, whose bills are being paid by his campaign committee.
Cuomo’s successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, can decide whether the state will continue to pay his lawyers.
School board to pay $1.3M in transgender student’s suit
A school board in Virginia has agreed to pay $1.3 million in legal fees to resolve a discrimination lawsuit filed by a former student whose efforts to use the boys’ bathroom put him at the center of a national debate over rights for transgender people.
Gavin Grimm’s battle with the Gloucester County school board began in 2014, when he was a sophomore and his family informed his school that he was transgender. Administrators were supportive at first. But after an uproar from some parents and students, the school board adopted a policy requiring students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms for their “corresponding biological genders.”
Grimm sued the school board. The legal battle pushed him into the national spotlight as Republican-controlled state legislatures introduced a wave of “bathroom bills” requiring transgender people to use public restrooms in government and school buildings that correspond to the gender listed on their birth certificates.
Lobster fishing will face restrictions to try to save whales
America’s lobster fishing industry will face a host of new harvesting restrictions amid a new push from the federal government to try to save a vanishing species of whale.
The new rules, which have loomed over the profitable lobster industry for years and were announced Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are designed to protect the North Atlantic right whale. The whales number only about 360 and are vulnerable to lethal entanglement in fishing gear.
NOAA said it expects the new rules will result in a reduction in nearly 70% of the risk of death and serious injuries.
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