Marching on the Capitol he hopes to claim in today's recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger said he sensed "an unbelievable momentum," despite new allegations of sexual harassment and signs of a tightening race.
The embattled incumbent, Governor Gray Davis, signed a law Sunday making California the lar-gest US state to require employer-paid health care.
A poll released over the weekend found Schwarzenegger's lead among replacement candidates waning with news of harassment claims, but the Republican remained ahead of the pack and voters still favored removing Davis from office in today's election.
Schwarzenegger did not address the allegations during his march and rally at the Capitol, his only scheduled public appearance Sunday, but said Davis "has terminated opportunities and now it's time to terminate him."
"Please bring me the broom," the Republican told a rally crowd of nearly 5,000. "We are here to clean house."
Schwarzenegger's opponents and supporters alike held signs referring to the harassment allegations, from "No groper for governor" and "Say no to Predators" to "Gray groped government" and "Gray groped our assets."
Four more women surfaced to accuse Schwarzenegger of groping, spanking or touching them inappropriately, bringing the total to 15 since a Los Angeles Times story Thursday detailed six claims of harassment between 1975 and 2000.
The Times reported Sunday on the latest group, which included an unidentified 51-year-old woman who said Schwarzenegger pinned her to him and spanked her repeatedly three years ago at a West Los Angeles post-production studio.
Three other women named by the Times said Schwarzenegger fondled them in separate incidents outside a Venice gym in the mid-1980s, at a bar in the late 1970s and on the set of the movie Predator in 1986.
In a Dateline NBC interview aired Sunday evening, Schwarzenegger said of the allegations, "a lot of it is made-up stories. I've never grab-bed anyone and pulled up the shirt and grabbed the breast and stuff like that."
But when asked if he denied all the stories about grabbing, he said, "No, not all. But I'm just saying this is not me. What I am is someone that sometimes makes outrageous jokes, someone that is out and says sometimes crazy things that may be offensive because there is a certain atmosphere."
Schwarzenegger said he would not say anything more about the harassment claims until after the election. "I can get into all of the specifics and find out what is really going on," he said. "But right now I'm just really occupied with the campaign."
"This is campaign trickery and it is dirty campaigning," he said in an interviewed aired on ABC's This Week Sunday. "Like, for instance, I despise anything and everything that Hitler stands for."
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was