07 July 2021
President Biden urged immediate actions on climate change on Wednesday, saying "[w]e can't wait any longer to deal with climate crisis" during an event promoting his Build Back Better agenda
Driving the news: The U.S. is currently facing an extreme heat wave and heavy wildfires in the West, a deadly drought and the the earliest fifth-named Atlantic tropical storm on record currently going through the Southeast.
- The calamities playing out across the country may have repercussions in Washington as lawmakers debate potentially huge investments for the country's aging infrastructure, per Axios' Andrew Freedman.
- White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy told Punchbowl News earlier Wednesday that the current climate-related events ravaging the U.S. "are things that remind us that time is running out here."
What he's saying: "Last year ... more than 10 million acres burned in the West, 10 million acres, not counting the lives lost and homes lost," Biden said. "[That is] more land that exists in my home state of Delaware and my neighbor state of Maryland combined. It's as if a fire swept through and took out every single thing in the state of Delaware and Maryland."
- "Extreme weather isn't just in the West. In Illinois, farmers downstate are dealing with more frequent droughts. Two weeks ago, just south of here, you just had a newly unprecedented tornado," the president added.
- "We can't wait any longer to deal with climate crisis, we see with our own eyes, and it's time to act."
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.