By Helen Regan, Brett McKeehan, Rob Picheta, Peter Wilkinson, Fernando Alfonso III and Amir Vera, CNN
In Seattle, Washington, police and protesters are clashing near Capitol Hill.
Police, standing on the other side of a fence, appear to be trying to clear protesters by using flash bangs on the street. There is smoke hanging in the air.
This comes after the Seattle police chief ordered the suspension of tear gas in crowd management on Friday.
Earlier today in Atlanta, the marches saw pockets of joy, as protesters danced to blaring music on the crowded streets.
They danced to Childish Gambino's "This is America," and did the electric slide dance near Centennial Olympic Park in the city's downtown.
The mood was light, with cheering and applause. Families marched with children; at one point, a live band even played on top of a parking garage.
“Music has completely changed the atmosphere, as you can see," the band director told CNN. "As soon as we started playing, the crowd just immediately came this way. We just want justice. We understand what’s going on. Music will bring togetherness and everybody is here now."
CNN Correspondent Martin Savidge said: "We went from a street protest to what is now a party in the street -- but still with the consciousness of what this is all about. You can dance and still chant 'Black Lives Matter.'"
It's a stark contrast to just a week ago. Last Friday, there was chaos on the streets of Atlanta, when demonstrators lit a car on fire and broke windows at the CNN Center. Protesters threw firecrackers at police and smoke bombs into buildings.
Watch:
It's past curfew in the city of Buffalo, in upstate New York, but there is still a small group of protesters on the street.
They're gathered in Niagara Square, in the city's downtown -- where police officers pushed over and injured a 75-year-old man, Martin Gugino, during protests on Thursday night.
Video of the demonstration shows a row of officers walking toward Gugino and two pushing him. His head bleeds onto the sidewalk as officers walk past him, some looking down at him.
Gugino was hospitalized with a head injury.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the incident "wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful," and said on Twitter that "police officers must enforce — NOT ABUSE — the law."
Officers plea not guilty: The two officers were suspended without pay, and pleaded not guilty earlier today to charges of assault in the second degree.
Following their suspension, 57 Buffalo police officers resigned from the force's emergency response team. They did not resign from the force.
It's about 10:30 p.m. in New York and Washington, DC, and 7:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, but big crowds are still out on the streets in both cities, and spirits are high.
In New York, protesters are marching through Greenwich Village in downtown Manhattan. Curfew was at 8 p.m., but there isn't a heavy police presence tonight, and police haven't been enforcing the curfew with arrests like earlier this week.
The protesters have been marching for hours now. Some of the organizers and leaders keep morale up with call-and-response chants like "Do not engage, we are united, we are peaceful" and "United, the people will never be defeated."
"The system is not going to win," one protester told CNN. "The people have a voice now and they're listening to us. They're listening to us because we are united. They're listening to us because stuff like this happens in the middle of Manhattan, where thousands upon thousands of people don't have to let injustice happen anymore."
In Washington, DC, crowds are massive tonight -- perhaps the biggest since they began, said CNN Correspondent Alex Marquadt on the scene.
Curfew was lifted earlier this week, and protests remain peaceful. People are gathering on the edge of Lafayette Park, close to the White House, taking photos with a new street sign that reads "Black Lives Matter Plaza."
There are some members of law enforcement and National Guard troops in sight -- but nowhere near the aggressive numbers seen earlier in the week, Marquadt said.
In Los Angeles, curfew has also been lifted and protests remain peaceful, with the mood light tonight.
The marchers, numbering at least 1,000, is diverse, said CNN reporter Lucy Kafanov on the scene. She described seeing "members of the Asian community, Latino community, white people, black people, LGBTQ, everyone."
"The community vibe is really notable," she said. "There's a lot of folks walking around handing out snacks, masks, hand sanitizer, food for the demonstrators ... One of the beautiful things on a human level we've seen is, as they go past various apartment buildings, people come out to their balconies, start clapping pot and pans in solidarity of the protest."
The Black Lives Matter movement and ongoing US protests have struck a chord with many around the world -- perhaps most notably in Paris, where protesters have been demonstrating throughout the week, and are on the streets again on Saturday.
The Paris protesters are marching in solidarity with those in the United States -- but also to protest racial injustice and police brutality in their own country.
At least 20,000 people demonstrated in Paris on Tuesday, in support of the family of Adama Traoré, a black man who died in 2016 in Paris police custody.
Traoré died on his 24th birthday after he was taken into police custody for fleeing an identity check.
His sister, Assa Traoré, says police told her his final words were "I can't breathe."
Adama and George Floyd "died in the exact same way. They carried the weight of ... three cops on them. They had the same words," she told CNN.
The protests on Saturday: Earlier in the day, several thousand people demonstrated in Paris as well as other French cities.
Traoré's name appears often in these protests, on signs and in chants -- but protesters here have also adopted some of the slogans from their counterparts in the US, like "No justice, no peace."
"You really sense this is a movement that's been given inspiration," said CNN Correspondent Melissa Bell at the scene.
The protests are seeing large crowds gather in close quarters across the country -- and, experts warn, could lead to a second wave of Covid-19 infections.
"Honestly, I am worried about a new spike. But I was worried about this new spike well before there were protests," said epidemiologist and former Detroit health commissioner Abdul El-Sayed.
But, he added, "I don't want to folks to think that we're pitting public health against the protests -- because we know that in excess of 83,000 black Americans die every year because of racism and that itself is also a public health issue."
Instead of framing it as a choice between protesting and coronavirus, here are some things he suggested protesters do to keep themselves as safe as possible:
Authorities have a responsibility to address these concerns too, he said: keeping people tightly packed together in vans or cells can be dangerous for potential infection.
From CNN’s Ryan Browne
The Commander of the Washington, DC National Guard told CNN in an exclusive interview today that some of the nearly 4,000 additional National Guard forces brought to DC from other states could leave as early as Monday.
The presence of approximately 3,900 out-of-state National Guard members has been a major point of contention between DC officials and the Trump administration.
“They will be redeploying this week. Probably as early as Monday,” said Maj. Gen. William Walker, the commanding general of the DC National Guard, told CNN in the interview.
He said that the out-of-state National Guard forces, hailing from 11 states, had been requested by the Defense Department to bolster the 1,200-strong DC contingent that had been activated.
He added that National Guard troops were not involved in using force to clear Lafayette Park on Monday night -- an action that caused many former military officers to criticize the Trump administration’s handling of the protests. Walker said that National Guard personnel held their positions and did not advance on the protesters.
He also denied that the controversial low overflights of helicopters on Monday night were directed by the Pentagon leadership, as the New York Times reported Saturday. Walker said the incident is under investigation.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told CNN in a separate exclusive interview that the possibility of sending out of state National Guard troops home is under serious consideration due to the peaceful nature of the ongoing protests.
“Well, we're looking very hard at that. I think that if we look at the trend that we're on right now we're in very good shape and we're looking at that option very closely,” McCarthy said, adding that the crowds today were large “but very peaceful.”
In New York City, night has fallen and it's now past the 8 p.m. curfew, but crowds are still marching through the city.
It's been a relatively quiet night, with smaller crowds than earlier in the week, said CNN Correspondent Bill Weir. One group is marching down Manhattan toward the Manhattan Bridge, which would cross into Brooklyn.
Though crowds are smaller, they're also more festive and peaceful, said Weir.
"People (have been) handing out free water and sign-making materials to protesters. And as we saw most of the day, the crowds were really diverse, families were out marching ... There was a musical second line New Orleans-style procession that went all around the city, led by Jon Batiste, the band leader from Stephen Colbert's "Late Show." And people singing along to Whitney Houston songs and "When the Saints Go Marching In," Weir said.
"It was a very different attitude emotionally than we've seen all week."
Police have also taken a more hands-off approach, Weir said. It seems like "the tactic tonight is to just let the crowd move as they want to and let it dissipate on their own," rather than arrest and detain people for being out past curfew as seen earlier in the week.
As evening approaches in Los Angeles, there are multiple protests taking place across the city.
In downtown Los Angeles, hundreds, if not thousands, of people are gathered on the steps of City Hall, by the courthouse. Protesters have been gathering there nearly every day this week -- and they say they will continue to until they see the change they demand.
The atmosphere is peaceful and spirited, with protesters chanting slogans like "Defund the Police" and gathering to listen to speakers. It's a diverse crowd, with people from all ethnicities and backgrounds, said CNN reporter Lucy Kafanov.
"The atmosphere here is passionate," she said. "There's also a sense of community feeling here. There's a lot of folks handing out masks and water and snacks, making sure that the demonstrators are well fed, well watered, have everything that they need."
There aren't many police or law enforcement in the area, she added -- there are some officers on the steps of City Hall, but no National Guard members or police in riot gear.
It's "another visible effort by the city to deescalate the tensions and prevent the scenes that we saw last weekend that involved a lot of difficult and heavy clashes," Kafanov said. "This is a very different atmosphere."
Elsewhere in Los Angeles, in the Fairfax district, protesters are peacefully demonstrating -- there's even a dance-off between participants. Here, too, police are nowhere to be seen.