The rampage at a Virginia Beach city government building was the latest in a string of high-profile mass shootings nationwide, between the high school killings in Parkland, Florida, and the Walmart massacre in El Paso, Texas. As the tragedy nears its one-year anniversary Sunday, some victims’ family members feel it has effectively been forgotten after the national spotlight moved on to other mass killings, and more recently has been all but eclipsed by the coronavirus pandemic. That leaves less pressure on authorities to provide definitive answers about why their loved ones died, they say, with the shooter’s motive officially still a mystery a year after he shot dead 12 people at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center before being killed by police.

New York City is on track to begin reopening June 8 as the state gradually loosens restrictions put in place during the coronavirus crisis, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday. Cuomo said the city was meeting goals set for hospital rates and testing, will “stockpile” personal protective equipment and will focus on infection rates in hot spots by ZIP code. “We believe all of these things can be done next week,” the Democratic governor said at his daily briefing. The state saw 67 new deaths, a number he called the “lowest ever.” Also Friday, Cuomo cleared a large swath of upstate New York to reopen hair salons, retail shops and offices under strict guidelines.

The white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck was arrested and charged with murder Friday, and authorities imposed an overnight curfew to try to stem three nights of often-violent protests that left dozens of stores burned and looted. Derek Chauvin, 44, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the case. He was also accused of ignoring another officer at the scene who expressed concerns about the black man as he lay handcuffed on the ground, pleading that he could not breathe. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit bill at a small grocery store. An attorney for Floyd’s family welcomed the arrest, but said he expected a more serious murder charge and wants all four officers involved to be arrested.

Street protests rocked New York City for a third straight day Saturday, even as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded for calm after a demonstration the previous night left people bloodied and vehicles burned. A large crowd marched through Harlem, chanted outside a police precinct then blocked traffic on the highway along Manhattan’s East River. Farther south in Manhattan, thousands of demonstrators paraded around Union Square. Other groups marched through Brooklyn and Queens. Demonstrations during daylight hours were mostly peaceful, but as evening fell protesters hurled objects at officers, set numerous fires, torched and smashed police vehicles and blocked roads with garbage and wreckage. Dangerous confrontations flared repeatedly.

A Fox News reporter was pummeled and chased by protesters who had gathered outside the White House early Saturday as part of nationwide unrest following the death of George Floyd. For several journalists across the country, the demonstrations were taking an ominous, dangerous turn. A television reporter in Columbia, S.C., was hurt by a thrown rock Saturday and a journalist in Minneapolis was shot in the thigh by a rubber bullet. Demonstrators also broke windows and vandalized the Atlanta office building where CNN is headquartered, and police in Louisville, Kentucky, apologized after an officer fired what appeared to be pepper bullets at a television news crew. Fox’s Leland Vittert was rattled following the Washington attack that he said was clearly targeted at his news organization.

A rocket ship built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company thundered away from Earth with two Americans on Saturday, ushering in a new era in commercial space travel and putting the United States back in the business of launching astronauts into orbit from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly a decade. NASA’s Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken rode skyward aboard a white-and-black, bullet-shaped Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, lifting off at 3:22 p.m. from the same launch pad used to send Apollo crews to the moon a half-century ago. Minutes later, they slipped safely into orbit. “Let’s light this candle,” Hurley said just before ignition, borrowing the words used by Alan Shepard on America’s first human spaceflight, in 1961.

Protesters set police cars ablaze, smashed businesses’ windows and skirmished with baton-wielding officers in streets from Atlanta to Los Angeles, as anger over George Floyd’s death spread across the country. Authorities were bracing for more violence Saturday, with some calling in the National Guard to beef up overwhelmed forces. In Minneapolis, the city where Floyd died Monday after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck and kept it there for more than eight minutes, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz fully mobilized the state’s National Guard and promised a massive show of force to help quell unrest that has grown increasingly destructive. “The situation in Minneapolis is no longer in any way about the murder of George Floyd,” Walz said.

An initially peaceful demonstration in New York City over the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by police in Minnesota, spiraled into chaos as night fell Friday, as protesters skirmished with police officers, destroyed police vehicles and set fires. In Brooklyn, activists who had marched from Manhattan chanted insults at officers lined up outside the Barclays Center and pelted them with water bottles. Police sprayed an eye-irritating chemical into the diverse crowd multiple times, then cleared the plaza. Video posted to social media showed officers using batons and shoving protesters as they took people into custody and cleared streets. One video showed on officer slam a woman to the ground as he walked past her in the street.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill Saturday granting death benefits to the families of police officers, public health workers and other front-line workers who have died of the coronavirus. “You gave your lives for us, we will be there for your families going forward,” Cuomo said as he signed the legislation at his daily briefing on the virus. The bill passed by state lawmakers this past week provides an accidental death benefit that is more substantial than the regular death benefit that public workers’ families receive. Dozens of police officers, public health workers, transit workers and paramedics have died of COVID-19 in the months since New York became the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States.

Fires burned unchecked and thousands protesting the police killing of George Floyd ignored a curfew as unrest overwhelmed authorities for another night in Minneapolis, and the governor acknowledged Saturday that he didn’t have enough manpower to contain the chaos. The new round of tumult — which has also spread to other cities — came despite Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz vowing Friday to show a more forceful response than city leaders had the day before. But by early Saturday morning, Walz said he didn’t have enough troops, even with some 500 National Guardsmen. “We do not have the numbers,” Walz said.

Pages