A troop of New Black Panther Party members - one brandishing a gun - marched with their fists raised through the streets of Baton Rouge on Sunday afternoon, sparking a tense stand-off between riot police and the ranks of beret-clad protesters.

The Louisiana city remained a focal point for nationwide protests for the second night running, after the killing of a black man, Alton Sterling, last week by white officers who pinned him to the floor.

And across the United States hundreds of people were arrested late on Saturday and in the early hours of Sunday, as protests organised by Black Lives Matter continued to rock the nation.

From Florida to New York, from Philadelphia to San Francisco, from Los Angeles to Rhode Island, thousands took to the streets in anger at the deaths of the two black men – Sterling and Philando Castile, who was shot by a Hispanic officer in Minnesota last week.

The murder of five police officers in Dallas on Thursday - condemned by BLM organisers - was motivated by Micah Johnson's anger at the shooting of young black men by white officers.