THE DEATH of George Floyd at the hands of Derek Chauvin led to nationwide protests.

A sentence of 22.5 years was pronounced Friday on Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of the second degree murder of George Floyd, a Black man in his custody.

OFFICER DEREK CHAUVIN kneeling on George Floyd (Wikipedia).

Judge Peter Cahill said that Chauvin’s “abuse of a position of trust and authority and also the particular cruelty” of his treatment of Floyd influenced the sentence.

In a video taken by a bystander, Chauvin is shown kneeling on the neck of Floyd for over nine minutes. Floyd’s gasping pleas of “I can’t breathe” were ignored by Chauvin. Those words became famous as a rallying cry for Blacks and others calling for police reform.

According to the Associated Press, Chauvin, who is now 45 years old, could qualify – with good behavior – for parole after 15 years. As it was, it was the longest prisons sentence ever imposed on a police officer in Minnesota.

Chauvin’s legal battles are not over. He is also facing a trial in federal court on a charge of violating Floyd’s civil rights.

Floyd died on May 25, 2020. His death ignited both peaceful protests and outbreaks of violence.

Yes, there are UFOs. No, we don’t know much else

A report released on Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on “unidentified aerial phenomena – the modern term for “unidentified flying objects” – conceded that 143 reports of such sightings are unexplained.

According to The New York Times, 21 of those incidents showed technology “unknown to the United States.” The abilities of those objects to accelerate and change directions at  very high speeds are not believed to be from Russian, Chinese or even extraterrestrial science, but they were not ruled out.

The lack of sufficient, consistent data leaves the nine-page report “largely inconclusive.”