A service to commemorate George Floyd, the first of three planned memorials, is being held in Minneapolis.

Here are some early images from today's service.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

The memorial for George Floyd, who died on 25 May in Minneapolis, Minnesota aged 46, has begun. A Gospel choir sings as mourners have gathered at the private event, lived streamed on BBC.

Image source, Getty Images

The George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis is due to begin in a few minutes. You can follow along live on BBC here.

Veteran civil rights campaigner Reverend Al Sharpton is expected to deliver a eulogy during George Floyd's memorial service later today.

"Out of all the years that I've been marching and protesting and doing eulogies and speeches, I'm more hopeful going to this service than I have been in a long time,"Rev Sharpton said on MSNBC's Morning Joe programme, external.

"Because I see more Americans of different races and different ages standing up together, marching together, raising their voices together... That makes me know we're on the brink of real change."

The Baptist minister is a colourful and controversial figure in the African American community. He ran as a Democrat presidential candidate in 2004. He is also head of National Action Network, a civil rights group promoting affirmative action and reparations for African Americans for the enslavement of their ancestors.

Attorney General William Barr has told reporters that 114 federal law enforcement officials have been injured and 22 hospitalised during protests in Washington, DC.

It is unclear how many officials were deployed to the capital, but nearly a dozen agencies were present including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Prisons, US Marshals, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Image source, Family photo

Meanwhile in Georgia, we've heard updates on the case of Ahmaud Arbery: an unarmed black man who was shot and killed by a white man while jogging.

On 23 February, Arbery was out for a run in Brunswick when he was chased down by Travis McMichael and his father Gregory.

Leaked footage of the incident caused national outrage and led to a state investigation and arrests.

A court has just heard an investigator say during a preliminary hearing that Travis used a racial slur after shooting Arbery, while the jogger was on the ground.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent said William Bryan - who filmed the shooting - heard him use the slur.

Both the McMichaels and Bryan are facing murder charges.

Follow our coverage of this breaking news story here.

Image source, Getty Images

An end to police brutality is undoubtedly at the forefront of protests nationwide.

But it isn’t the only concern. Repeated incidents of police brutality may have become the flashpoint, but issues with law enforcement are emblematic of the wider problem of systemic racism and inequality.

On social media and on the streets, those in support of the movement have called on elected officials to address these longstanding inequalities, from law enforcement to mass incarceration to healthcare.

Black Americans are jailed at five times the rate of white Americans and they are sentenced for drug offences six times more, often despite equal rates of drug use, according to the NAACP. Black mothers die in childbirth at over twice the rate of white mothers, according to national health data.

Decades of government-sanctioned segregation have also seen inequalities across school systems, housing and other public resources.

A 2019 Pew Research Center study found more than eight-in-ten black adults say the legacy of slavery still affects black Americans’ position today. Half say it is unlikely America will ever see true racial equality.

As demonstrator Kyla Berges told BBC Minute: “The system has failed me for 300 plus years, so what do I have to do to make it change?”

US Attorney General Barr has repeated an assertion that "extremist groups" and "agitators" like the activists known as antifa, a loose affiliation of mainly far-left protesters, have been "hijacking" the protests.

"We have evidence that antifa and other similar extremist groups as well as actors of a variety of different political persuasions have been involved in instigating and participating in the violent activity," Barr said, but did not elaborate further.

Barr also noted there is evidence that foreign actors are amplifying tensions.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed the "radical left" and "antifa-led anarchists" for the unrest, though he has not provided evidence. It remains unclear what caused some peaceful protests to spiral into riots.

On Wednesday, three men with ties to right-wing extremists were arrested in Nevada on terrorism-related charges for allegedly scheming to engender violence during the Floyd protests.

• Misleading footage and conspiracy theories spread online
• Why do some protests turn violent?

US Attorney General William Barr has said that federal agencies have arrested 51 people so far for violence and rioting.

In a press conference addressing the recent unrest, Barr admitted that there is an "undeniable" sense that many black Americans do not have confidence in the US criminal justice system.

He also acknowledged that, while the majority of protests had been peaceful, some protests have become violent.

He blamed "extremist agitators" who he said were "hijacking" demonstrations.

Barr also said there was evidence of foreign actors were “playing all sides to exacerbate the violence”.

The Duchess of Sussex has issued a personal message about the impact of George Floyd's death in the United States, saying his life "mattered".

Addressing students graduating from her former school in Los Angeles, California, Meghan called on young people and students at the school to come together to rebuild society.

Since protests began last week, several videos have emerged showing police officers placing their knees on people’s necks during arrests. The practice has been widely condemned as the cause of George Floyd’s death.

A Seattle police officer was filmed with his knee on a man’s neck during protests in the city on Saturday. After calls from nearby demonstrators, the officer’s colleague moved his knee while they were detaining the man.

The following day, an officer in Chicago placed his knee on a woman's neck as she was pulled from out of her car.

Footage of a similar incident in Sarasota, Florida - dated from 18 March - has also been made public in recent days. Local police have since launched an investigation and the offending officer has been placed on administrative leave.

A memorial service will be held at 1300 local time in Minneapolis today for the man whose death has set off more than a week of unrest in the US.

But who was the man?

Before the image of George Floyd lying under the knee of a policeman set off shock, anger and protests across the US, the arch of his life crossed crests and troughs.

There were highs, as when he, as a teenager in Houston, played American football for the 1992 Texas state champion runners-up Yates High School Lions.

There were lows, as when he was arrested for robbery in 2007 and served five years in prison.

But mostly, it would seem that Floyd, who was 46 when he died in Minneapolis on 25 May, 2020, was simply trying to live life as any other American, in search of betterment in the face of both personal and societal challenges.

Read more about George Floyd here.

Image source, Reuters

We are resuming our live coverage of the US protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in the Midwestern city of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

A memorial service for Floyd is being held in Minneapolis today.

Three sacked police officers who were charged yesterday with aiding and abetting in Floyd’s murder are expected to make their first court appearance today as well.

Here's a round-up of the main developments from Wednesday:

• Ex-officer Derek Chauvin, who has already been booked into jail and is awaiting trial, has seen the charges against him upgraded to second-degree murder; the other three officers are also in custody
• Many US cities and states were under curfew again, which officials say help law enforcement separate looters and criminals from peaceful protesters
• Peaceful protests are continuing throughout the country, and officials say the number of arrests have largely declined

• US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he disagrees with President Donald Trump's suggestion that he could invoke an early 19th Century law to send the military into states and cities
• But after a meeting at the White House, Esper abruptly reversed plans to withdraw some of the active-duty army soldiers who have been deployed to Washington DC
• Meanwhile, Trump's ex-defence chief, retired-general Jim Mattis, has penned an op-ed calling his old boss a threat to democracy who makes no effort to unify the country