Fifteen people protesting against a decision not to indict the police officer who fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown have been arrested outside the Ferguson police department.

For more than four years, Shawn Hornbeck seemed to have had every chance to escape, left alone for hours to ride his bike, play video games and walk past missing-child posters showing his own age-progressed image.

The White House reaffirmed President George Bush’s support of his embattled Defence Secretary today as pressure mounted on him to sack Donald Rumsfeld over the military’s abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Escalating criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners raised new questions today as to whether US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would hold on to his job.