World News | Brian Benjamin is Sworn in as New York Lieutenant Governor

New York, Sep 9 (AP) New York Lt Gov Brian Benjamin thanked Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul for choosing him as he was sworn in Thursday to join her two-week-old administration.

“You asking me to join the administration is making it abundantly clear that you want upstate and downstate, every ethnicity, every culture to feel included,” Brian, formerly a state senator from Harlem, said after taking the oath of office at Hochul's New York City office.

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Hochul, the state's former lieutenant governor, took over as governor on August 24 following Andrew Cuomo's resignation over sexual harassment allegations that he has denied.

Hochul is the first woman to serve as the state's governor and a Democrat from western New York. She pledged to choose someone from New York City to be her lieutenant governor. She announced her choice of Benjamin on August 26.

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Benjamin, the Harlem-born son of Caribbean immigrants, is New York's second Black lieutenant governor. David Paterson, also a former state senator from Harlem, was elected lieutenant governor in 2006 and took over as governor in 2007 when Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in prostitution scandal.

Hochul praised the 44-year-old Benjamin as an example of the American dream, saying he “started out with little, rose to where he is today but now turns back and doesn't think about himself, he thinks about how he can serve not just his senatorial district but now he'll be helping me serve 20 million New Yorkers.”

Benjamin said Hochul has asked him to focus on areas including boosting COVID-19 vaccination rates and upgrading conditions in New York City's public housing system.

Benjamin said Hochul “wants to make sure that I am part of the team that goes around the state to make sure that people know that the vaccine is the answer and that if we're going to get through this COVID epidemic we're going to do it together and the vaccine is the key”. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)