Hundreds of people packed a sweltering Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston yesterday as it re-opened to worshippers just days after a 21-year-old white gunman shot dead nine black church members.

A childhood friend of the man accused of shooting dead nine people inside a black church in South Carolina said he told him a few weeks ago he had “a plan”.

A grey sky and spitting rain has greeted the replica famine ship Jeanie Johnston at a dock on Charleston Harbour, South Carolina.