Ferguson: Riot police hurled tear gas and marched on rioters in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, wracked by race riots since police shot dead an unarmed black teenager. Police in body armor, gas masks and marching with armored vehicles moved in to disperse the mob of mostly young people about three hours before the midnight curfew came into effect.

Some of the youths carried signs protesting police brutality, TV images showed. Many had their hands up in the air, and others taunted police and threw back tear gas canisters. "#Ferguson very tense at command centre tear gas fired search for people under way," wrote St Louis Post-Dispatch reporter David Carson on Twitter.