04 October 2020
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Sunday a plan to close nonessential businesses and schools in nine zip codes in Brooklyn and Queens, NBC New York reports.
Why it matters: It will mark the first time the city has backpedaled on reopening since the spring, when New York was the epicenter of the virus.
The big picture: The nine neighborhoods listed by de Blasio had a testing positivity rate of more than 3% over the week, per the New York Times, amid an uptick in cases in the city and state.
- Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted that localities in the state "have not done an effective job of enforcement," and he said the state would begin conducting "aggressive enforcement."
- Cuomo must approve de Blasio's plan before it can go into effect.
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.