Biden taps former EPA head Gina McCarthy as climate czar
16 December 2020
President-elect Joe Biden will tap Gina McCarthy, who led the Environmental Protection Agency under former President Obama, as White House climate czar, according to a person familiar with the news and multiple reports.
Driving the news: McCarthy will manage domestic climate policy alongside her deputy, Ali Zaidi, New York's current deputy secretary for energy and environment, as first reported by the Washington Post.
Our thought bubble: McCarthy brings a wealth of familiar experience at the federal level given that she pursued Obama's regulatory plan on climate change as his second-term administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Zaidi, meanwhile, also served in the Obama administration, but has since implemented New York state's aggressive climate plan as a top adviser to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The intrigue: Though popular with Democrats, McCarthy will be controversial among Republicans given her role as president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has sued the Trump administration more than 100 times for attempts to delay energy efficiency.
Between the lines: These picks, paired with several others, show just how much Biden is leaning on Obama alumni to implement his agenda, on climate change and other issues.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.