Biden administration suspends oil and gas leases in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
01 June 2021
The Interior Department suspended nearly a dozen oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Tuesday, the agency announced.
Why it matters: The move, which will require a new environmental analysis, will undo former President Trump's most significant environmental actions in his final days in office.
Worth noting: The new analysis could be time consuming and its results may spark a court battle.
Our thought bubble, via Axios' Andrew Freedman: Environmentalists have spent decades trying to protect this area of largely untouched wilderness that's home to thousands of caribou and a key population of polar bears. It's therefore not surprising the Biden administration would move to reverse this action, but it could spark a lengthy court battle.
Flashback: Two weeks before President Biden took office, the Trump administration auctioned off the right to drill in the refuge's coastal plain, an expanse in Alaska that has been subject to political dispute for decades.
- Native Americans and environmentalists had opposed the sale.
- No major oil companies participated in the auction. All but one went to an agency of the state of Alaska.
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.