Briefly

UNITED STATES

Ex-officers sentenced over Floyd case

Two former Minneapolis police officers were sentenced on Wednesday on federal charges stemming from the murder of George Floyd, who was killed when their colleague Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck during an arrest. At a hearing in St. Paul, Minnesota, US District Judge Paul Magnuson sentenced Tou Thao to 3 and half years. Earlier on Wednesday, he sentenced J. Alexander Kueng to three years, said Andrew Luger, US attorney for Minnesota, in a statement. In February, Thao and Kueng, along with a third officer, Thomas Lane, were convicted by a federal jury of depriving Floyd of his civil rights and failing to come to his aid.

SOUTH KOREA

Population logs first decline since 1949

South Korea's population logged the first fall last year due to chronically low childbirths and rapid population aging, statistical office data showed on Thursday. The country's population totaled 51.74 million on Nov 1, 2021, down 91,000 from a year ago, according to Statistics Korea. It has marked the first decline since the statistical agency began to compile the census in 1949. The population fall was attributable to the chronically low birthrate due to the younger generation delaying or giving up getting married or having babies amid soaring housing prices and economic hardships. Aging also contributed to the lower population.

IRAN

At least six dead in floods near Teheran

At least six people were killed in floods near Teheran Thursday, most in a landslide that dumped mud 4 meters deep in a village west of the capital, emergency services said. The flash flooding near the capital, in the foothills of the Alborz mountains, comes less than a week after floods in the normally arid south of Iran left 22 people dead. Footage from the village of Emamzadeh Davoud posted on social media showed a teenager caked in mud clinging to a pole as a roaring spate of debris-filled water rushes past him. A wall is seen collapsing moments later.

Xinhua - Agencies