Amid tensions over widespread protest against police brutality and racism, the supporters of US President Donald Trump have reportedly engaged in a clash with Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland City on Saturday.

Law enforcers found a bullet-hit man on the spot who was later declared dead by health officials, reports BBC.

Images from the scene showed medics trying to save a person who appeared to be a white man.

The shooting came amid fights between the Trump supporters and BLM protesters in the city centre.

Read Also: Thousands throng Washington to protest police brutality, racism

Tension rose after a convoy of some 600 vehicles flying flags and carrying an estimated 1,000 Trump backers gathered at a mall in Clackamas county on the outskirts before entering Portland's downtown.

Video showed some people firing what local media described as pepper spray and pellets at BLM groups who had tried to prevent them entering the city by blocking streets.

Portland police said they heard sounds of gunfire from the area of Southeast 3rd Avenue and Southwest Alder Street.

They responded and located a victim with a gunshot wound to the chest. Later, health officials determined that the victim was deceased, they added.

The man was wearing a hat linked to far-right group Patriot Prayer.

However, no disclosure was made whether the shooting was directly related to the clashes in a downtown area.

Portland's streets have witnessed frequent protests in recent weeks. The city has become a focus for demonstrations against police brutality and racism since the police killing of African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Washington DC on Friday to protest police brutality and racism on George Floyd. 

The protest programme was called marking the 57th anniversary of American civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech.

A series of speakers addressed thousands of protesters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial of the city.

Addressing the rally, Martin Luther King III said "we're marching to overcome what my father called the triple evils of poverty, racism, and violence", reports Xinhua.

He said those "evils" have exacerbated four major challenges - the coronavirus pandemic, unemployment, police brutality and gun violence, and voting rights - that currently face the US.

The event, dubbed the "Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks," came after 46-year-old African American George Floyd died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May.

Floyd's death sparked weeks-long protests and social unrest across the US. Public anger has been reignited in the wake of the Aug 23 police shooting of 29-year-old African American Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which has led to consecutive days of protests and violence at times in the city.

"I wish George were here to see this right now," George Floyd's brother Philonise Floyd told protesters on Friday. "That's who I'm marching for. I'm marching for George ... and anybody else who lost their lives."

Also read: Protests spread in wake of George Floyd death in US

Jacob Blake Sr, father of Blake who was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer, also spoke to the crowds.

Hurricane Laura made landfall in southwestern Louisiana as a ferocious Category 4 monster with 150 mph winds early Thursday, swamping a low-lying coast with ocean water that forecasters said could be 20 feet deep and unsurvivable.

The National Hurricane Center said the storm, which intensified rapidly Wednesday before plowing into land, came ashore at 1 a.m. CDT near Cameron, a 400-person community about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of the Texas border, reports AP.

“Potentially catastrophic impacts will continue,” forecasters said.

Winds gusted above hurricane force to 127 mph (204 kph) while Laura's northern eyewall moved onshore over Cameron Parish. Forecasters said even stronger winds were possible that could rip apart buildings, level trees and toss vehicles like toys.

Authorities had implored coastal residents of Texas and Louisiana to evacuate, but not everyone did before howling winds began buffeting trees back and forth in an area that was devastated by Rita in 2005.

Video and photos on social media showed torrents of rain flying sideways past street lights in Lake Charles, and streets covered with water closer to the coast. A sudden storm surge knocked over cameras meant to capture the hurricane’s effects.

With hours of violent weather ahead, officials said the extent of destruction likely wouldn't be clear until daybreak, when search and rescue missions will begin.

Drawing energy from the warm Gulf of Mexico, the system arrived early Thursday during high tide as the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. so far this year.

“It looks like it’s in full beast mode, which is not what you want to see if you’re in its way," University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said.

Hurricane-force winds extending 60 miles (95 kilometers) from the storm’s center neared the coast, forecasters said, and bands of heavy rain fell 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the beach in Lake Charles.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards fretted that the dire predictions were not resonating despite authorities putting more than 500,000 coastal residents under mandatory evacuation orders.

Officials said at least 150 people refused pleas to leave and planned to weather the storm in everything from elevated homes to recreational vehicles in coastal Cameron Parish, which could be completely covered by ocean water.

“It’s a very sad situation,” said Ashley Buller, assistant director of emergency preparedness. “We did everything we could to encourage them to leave.”

Edwards activated the state’s entire National Guard. In Lake Charles, Guard members drove school buses around neighborhoods, offering to pick up families. Across the state line in Port Arthur, Texas, few stragglers boarded evacuation buses, and city officials announced that two C-130 transport planes offered the last chance to leave.

A Category 4 hurricane can render wide areas uninhabitable for weeks or months and knock out power for just as long. The threat of such devastation posed a new disaster-relief challenge for a government already straining under the coronavirus pandemic. The parts of Louisiana that were under evacuation orders included areas turning up high rates of positive COVID-19 tests.

The National Hurricane Center kept raising its estimate of Laura’s storm surge, from 10 feet (3 meters) just days ago to twice that size — a height that forecasters said would be especially deadly.

On Twitter, President Donald Trump urged coastal residents to heed officials. Hurricane warnings were issued from San Luis Pass, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, and reached inland for 200 miles (322 kilometers). Storm surge warnings extended from Freeport, Texas, to the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The hurricane also threatened a center of the U.S. energy industry as the majority of Gulf oil and natural gas production shut down. Consumers are unlikely to see big price hikes, however, because the pandemic has decimated demand for fuel.

Laura closed in on the U.S. after killing nearly two dozen people on the island of Hispaniola, including 20 in Haiti and three in the Dominican Republic, where it knocked out power and caused intense flooding.

Laura will be the seventh named storm to strike the U.S. this year, setting a new record for U.S. landfalls by the end of August. The old record was six in 1886 and 1916, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

Two people were killed and another was wounded as shots were fired late Tuesday in Kenosha during the third night of unrest in Wisconsin following the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, authorities said.

The shootings were reported at about 11:45 pm in an area where protests have taken place, Kenosha police Lt. Joseph Nosalik said in a news release. It happened after police drove away protesters from in front of a courthouse that had been the site of the main clashes between protesters and authorities.

Kenosha County Sheriff, David Beth said one victim was shot in the head and another was shot in the chest, the Milwaukee Journal Sentine l reported. Beth didn’t know where the other person was shot, but his or her injuries were not believed to be life threatening.

Cellphone video of at least two of the shootings that was posted online shows what appears to be a white man with a semi-automatic rifle jogging down the middle of a street as a crowd and some police officers follow him. Someone in the crowd can be heard asking “What did he do?” and another responds that the man had shot someone.

The man with the gun stumbles and falls, and as he’s approached by people in the crowd, he fires three or four shots from the seated position, hitting at least two people, including one who falls over and another who stumbles away to frantic shouts of “Medic! Medic!”

With the crowd scattering, the shooter stands up and continues walking down the street as police cars arrive. The man puts up his hands and walks toward the squad cars, with someone in the crowd yelling at police that the man just shot someone, but several of the cars drive past him toward the people who had been shot.

The shooting victims have not been identified.

Earlier on Sunday a video footage showed, Jacob Blake walks from the sidewalk around the front of his SUV to his driver-side door as officers follow him with their guns drawn and shout at him. As Blake opens the door and leans into the SUV, an officer grabs his shirt from behind and opens fire. Seven shots can be heard, though it isn’t clear how many struck Blake or how many officers fired.

Police fired tear gas for a third night Tuesday to disperse protesters who had gathered outside Kenosha’s courthouse, where some shook a protective fence and threw water bottles and fireworks at officers lined up behind it. Police then used armored vehicles and officers with shields pushed back the crowd when protesters ignored warnings to leave a nearby park.

Hundreds of people again defied curfew Tuesday in Kenosha, where destruction marred protests the previous night as fires were set and businesses vandalized. There were 34 fires associated with that unrest, with 30 businesses destroyed or damaged along with an unknown number of residences, Kenosha Fire Chief Charles Leipzig told the Kenosha News.

Also read: Protests erupt after Wisconsin police shoot another Black man

Dr Anthony Fauci has warned that the emergency use of authorisation for a potential Covid-19 vaccine could hurt the development of other vaccines.

Speaking to Reuters news agency, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases advised against rushing out a Covid-19 vaccine before it has been proven to be safe and effective, reports BBC.

"The one thing that you would not want to see with a vaccine is getting an EUA before you have a signal of efficacy," he said, noting that one of the potential dangers of prematurely letting a vaccine out is that it would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the other vaccines to enroll people in their trial.

"To me, it's absolutely paramount that you definitively show that a vaccine is safe and effective," he added.

Read Also: UN: Talks with Russia on COVID-19 vaccine under way

Oxford vaccine triggers immune response

The Oxford vaccine is one of dozens currently under development. Major pharmaceutical companies have launched huge trials to test the effectiveness of their drugs in recent weeks.

Previously the FDA issued an EUA for the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus. But in July officials withdrew the EUA, saying clinical studies suggested the anti-malaria drug was ineffective in treating the virus and failed to prevent infection among those exposed to it.

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering plans to put out a vaccine before it has been fully tested. Such a move could boost his chances of re-election in November's presidential election.

Trump has touted the benefits of the medicine, directly contradicting the advice of his medical experts.

The Financial Times reported the Trump administration was exploring granting emergency use authorisation (EUA) to a vaccine currently under development by the University of Oxford and drug manufacturer AstraZeneca.

Some 10,000 people have volunteered for trials of the drug, but US agencies require trials involving 30,000 people for a vaccine to be authorised.

The US has suffered more confirmed cases and deaths from the coronavirus than any other country. According to Johns Hopkins University, it has recorded more than 5.7 million infections and over 177,000 deaths so far.