An eight-year-old boy was seen driving a pick-up truck down a US interstate while his drunken father slept in the passenger seat, Louisiana state police said today.

The retired general who commanded the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division when its tanks led the charge to Baghdad in 2003 says the initial war planning was flawed and probably contributed to the drawn-out conflict with insurgents in Iraq.

With thousands feared dead and the city’s remaining residents told to evacuate for weeks, conditions deteriorated further in submerged New Orleans today as looting spiralled out of control.

Adam Nossiter, New Orleans

A man has been arrested after a hit-and-run crash which killed an Irish exchange student in Mississippi.