Thick, toxic smoke hovered over Richmond, Indiana, on Thursday as a relentless industrial fire smouldered at a plastics recycling warehouse in the Midwestern US town where hundreds of people have been forced to evacuate.

Chicago - Pete Buttigieg, the gay, liberal mayor of a small American city in the conservative bastion of Indiana, was expected to officially launch his presidential bid Sunday, joining a crowded field of Democrats vying for their party's nomination in 2020.