“A former aide of Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he asked her if she had a boyfriend, called her sweetheart, touched her on her lower back at a reception and once kissed her hand when she rose from her desk,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Ana Liss, now 35 years old, served as a policy and operations aide to Mr. Cuomo between 2013 and 2015. She said the actions by Mr. Cuomo were unsolicited and occurred in the first year while she sat at her desk, which was near his office in the Executive Chamber of the New York State Capitol in Albany.”

Liss is the third former Cuomo aide to describe inappropriate workplace treatment by the Governor.

Washington Post: “The newest accounts of Cuomo’s workplace behavior by former aides in interviews with The Washington Post come after several women have publicly accused the New York governor of inappropriate personal comments or unwelcome physical contact. The allegations have engulfed one of the country’s top Democratic officials in crisis and put a sharp focus on the workplace culture he has fostered during his three decades in public office.”

“What Cuomo has touted as an ‘aggressive’ style goes far beyond that behind the scenes, according to more than 20 people who have worked with him from the 1990s to the present. Many former aides and advisers described to The Post a toxic culture in which the governor unleashes searing verbal attacks on subordinates. Some said he seemed to delight in humiliating his employees, particularly in group meetings, and would mock male aides for not being tough enough.”

The Albany Times Union called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to resign, but not for the sexual harassment allegations lodged against him:

“First Gov. Andrew Cuomo hid the truth about deaths of nursing home residents from the public. Then his administration lied about why. Then, pretending to come clean, it lied about why it lied.”

“Enough. Mr. Cuomo has squandered the public’s trust at a time when it’s needed more than ever. Amid an enduring pandemic, it is vital that people can believe what their governor and their government are telling them, and that the rules they’re asked to follow and the sacrifices they’re asked to make are truly in the interest of public health. It is time for Mr. Cuomo to resign, and for those who helped him deceive the public to go, too.”

“Democrats in the New York Legislature on Friday took their most concrete step against an increasingly embattled Gov. Andrew Cuomo, passing a bill that imposes some limits on his king-like emergency powers as they grow increasingly frustrated with the leader of their party,” Politico reports.

This is quite a story from the Detroit Free Press:

“A confidential FBI informant testified Friday in a Jackson court about being embedded for months alongside leaders of a group accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.”

“The informant’s identity was concealed for his safety. Introduced only as ‘Dan,’ an online video feed of Friday’s hearing was cut off during his testimony so court observers only could hear him.”

“Dan described learning of the group — known as the Wolverine Watchmen — through a Facebook algorithm that he believed made the suggestion based on his interactions with other Facebook pages that support the Second Amendment and firearms training.”

“Two more aides to Andrew Cuomo have left their jobs as the New York governor faces dual scandals over sexual-harassment claims and accusations his administration covered up nursing-home Covid deaths,” Bloomberg reports.

“Press secretary Caitlin Girouard and interim policy adviser Erin Hammond have left, the administration said on Friday. The two aides are the latest staffers to leave the governor’s office following the scandals, which have prompted bipartisan calls for him to resign.”

“A former employee of the Missouri House of Representatives filed a lawsuit this week alleging he was fired for raising concerns to legislative leadership about the lack of a statehouse mask mandate,” the Kansas City Star reports.

“The governor’s trying to sleep with me.”

— Charlotte Bennett, recalling Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) sexual harassment in a CBS News interview.

Los Angeles Times: “The missteps and aloofness that now have California Gov. Gavin Newsom facing the threat of recall from office have been overshadowed by the sexual harassment scandal that has rapidly engulfed his counterpart in New York, Andrew Cuomo. The two men took very different paths in their descent from favorites of liberal voters to the targets of scathing parody on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ but both share problems so big they are stealing oxygen from a party that doesn’t have much to spare.”

“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top advisers successfully pushed state health officials to strip a public report of data showing that more nursing-home residents had died of Covid-19 than the administration had acknowledged,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The July report, which examined the factors that led to the spread of the virus in nursing homes, focused only on residents who died inside long-term-care facilities, leaving out those who had died in hospitals after becoming sick in nursing homes. As a result, the report said 6,432 nursing-home residents had died—a significant undercount of the death toll attributed to the state’s most vulnerable population.”

New York Times: “The extraordinary intervention, which came just as Mr. Cuomo was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements, was the earliest act yet known in what critics have called a monthslong effort by the governor and his aides to obscure the full scope of nursing home deaths.”

“In an unprecedented move, the North Dakota House of Representatives has booted embattled Rep. Luke Simons (R) over recently surfaced sexual harassment allegations,” the Fargo Forum reports.

“Simons is the first lawmaker to be expelled from the Legislature since North Dakota became a state, according to legislative officials.”

After 17 years together, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and partner Marlon Reis will be getting married, the Colorado Sun reports.

Former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) made a $250,000 campaign contribution to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last week after seniors in the uber-wealthy Florida Keys enclave where Rauner owns a home were among the first in the state to receive COVID-19 vaccinations in January, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Three of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) four coronavirus medical advisers told the Texas Tribune they weren’t directly consulted prior to lifting mask mandate.

The fourth said he couldn’t say whether the move was a good idea.

Idaho state Rep. Karey Hanks (R) said she has “done some research” and concluded that face masks can cause injuries to “even our souls,” KTVB reports.