Man of Change: Forty-six-year-old George Floyd, whose death at the hands of the Minneapolis police set off weeks of protests all over the country, was buried yesterday in Houston after several memorials and a funeral service. 

  The final service was broken at moments by shouts of “We will breathe!” and “Get your knee off our neck!” As the coffin was lifted into a hearse, attendees chanted, “Say his name! George Floyd! Say his name! George Floyd!”

  The name is now engraved in American history.

  Floyd died with a police officer’s knee compressed into the back of his neck. Some city police departments are moving quickly to ban neck holds and other dangerous restraints. The City Council in Washington outlawed police chokeholds on Tuesday, and police in Phoenix have ended something called the “carotid control” technique, knocking out the suspect by squeezing the major arteries in his neck.

Conspiracy Theory: Sticking to the outrage-a-day plan, President Trump passed along a conspiracy theory that a 75-year-old protester in Buffalo knocked to the ground unconscious by the cops was an antifa agitator trying to jam police communication devices.

  Trump tweeted, “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”

  Could be? Also could be BS. The “OANN” Trump refers to is the One America News Network, a relatively new organization that trades in conspiracies and misinformation and is outfoxing Fox in right wing hysteria.

  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, “If there was ever such a reprehensible dumb comment, and from the President of the United States.”

  Gugino, who’s still in the hospital with a head injury, could be seen approaching a phalanx of riot cops and he did make some strange waving motions with his phone. He has been described as a dedicated peacenik and there’s no evidence that he’s some kind of political radical, or that he was engaging in electronic jamming. Trump never lets facts get in the way.

Police Blotter: All over the country, police officers sent to control protesters appeared with their badge numbers taped over, some with no departmental identification at all, and refusing to say who or what they represented. In the midst of national protests about police behavior, some cops continued to behave their worst and some are being prosecuted.

  New York cops have been accused of being particularly rough handling the protests. A 28-year-old New York police officer has been arrested for assault after shoving a woman protester to the ground, injuring her head. 

  Still, New York’s police union boss Mike O’Meara blew a gasket on the press yesterday, backed by rows of entirely white cops. “Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect,” O’Meara ranted, “We’ve been vilified.”

Voting with Their Feet: Voters in Georgia yesterday, many of them in minority areas, waited hours on line to vote in an election that’s been described as a “catastrophe.” Officials blame short staff and new voting machines.

New Wave: The numbers of coronavirus patients admitted to hospitals has spiked in the two weeks since Memorial Day, The Washington Post reports. The states include Texas, North and South Carolina, California, Oregon, Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Arizona. 

  Also, some of the National Guard troops dispatched to the streets of Washington at the height of the protests have tested positive for the coronavirus, guard officers say.

  One of the fears of health authorities has been that the protests will spread the virus. This morning, 112,006 Americans are dead of the virus, averaging 800 a day over the past 15 days. 

Remains of the Day: Human remains have been found on the Idaho farm of a man whose two stepchildren have been missing since September. Chad Daybell, who with his wife Lori Vallow has refused to tell authorities what happened to the kids or where they might be, was taken into custody.

  Tylee Ryan, 17, and brother Joshua Vallow, 7, were last seen in Yellowstone National Park on Sept. 8.

  Lori Vallow and Daybell were married in Hawaii on Nov. 5^th and the kids were not with them. A search began that month when relatives told authorities they had not heard from Tylee and Joshua. 

 Vallow and Daybell are under suspicion in the deaths of both their former spouses. Vallow has been reported to believe that the Biblical end times are coming.

The Bulletin Board: Swedish authorities say they have identified the man who assassinated Prime Minister Olaf Palme in 1986. They say it was a graphic designer who killed himself in 2000. — A diesel spill in Russia’s far north released about half as much petroleum as the Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Alaska. The fuel is flowing toward the Arctic Ocean. — President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, the autocrat who ruled the country for 15 years, died of heart failure at 55, just weeks after an election to replace him. — The Trump administration is rolling back hunting regulations regarding big game in the Alaska wilderness. Some of the practices that will no longer be banned include baiting bears, blinding them with spotlights, and shooting swimming caribou from motorboats. 

The Obit Page: Jim Jarvis, who was believed to be the oldest of the last 10 survivors of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis at the end of World War II, has died at age 98. Only 316 of the crew of 1195 survived the 1945 sinking.

  The survivors were in the water for days before they were found. Jarvis said he survived by not drinking the seawater, which killed many other sailors. “I figured, well, somebody will find us,” he told an interviewer.

  Jarvis maintained a sense of black humor about it. He had a t-shirt that said, “USS Indianapolis Swim Team.”

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