Judge blocks Trump admin plan to cut food stamps to 70,000 unemployed Americans
19 October 2020
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Sunday called Trump administration plans to cut food stamp benefits for almost 700,000 jobless Americans "arbitrary and capricious" as she blocked the move, per the Washington Post.
Details: The rule at issue "radically and abruptly alters decades of regulatory practice, leaving states scrambling and exponentially increasing food insecurity for tens of thousands of Americans," said Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell, of D.C., CNN notes.
- The Agriculture Department had been "icily silent" on how many people would have been denied Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits had the changes been in effect, she added.
The big picture: A coalition of 19 states sued the Agriculture Department over the move to increase work requirements for food stamp recipients — the first of three planned efforts to limit the federal food safety net and applies to able-bodied adults without children or dependents.
- The Agriculture Department did not immediately return Axios' request for comment
Go deeper: Coronavirus pandemic prompts record food stamp spending
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.