U.S. expands evacuation outposts to Middle East, Europe
20 August 2021
The Biden administration on Friday announced that its evacuation flights from Kabul can now land throughout the Middle East and Europe as Qatar has reached capacity, resulting in temporarily halted flights.
State of play: With the U.S. military's efforts to evacuate American citizens and at-risk Afghans from the country ramping up, and Qatar's al-Udeid air base at maximum capacity, the U.S. was scrambling for more places to take evacuees.
- Bahrain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Tajikistan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan "have been or will soon be transiting Americans or in some circumstances, others, through their territories to safety," the State Department said on Friday.
- No U.S. flights left Kabul for eight hours on Thursday afternoon as Qatar had reached capacity.
The big picture: Evacuation efforts are speeding up as the original Aug. 31 deadline approaches. President Biden already said that U.S. troops will stay until every American is evacuated, even if that means staying longer than expected.
Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout as more news becomes available.
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.