Homeland Security News

A young white man has been jailed for 25 years for burning down three historic black churches in the US state of Louisiana last year. Heavy metal musician Holden Matthews, 23, was also ordered to pay $2.7m (£2.1m) in restitution.

He said he had burnt the churches to boost his reputation within his favoured music scene.

At the time of the attacks, Matthews was a member of a band called Vodka Vultures. In a plea hearing, he said he had sought to emulate church burnings carried out by "black metal" music fans in Norway in the 1990s. 

During that period, at least 50 Christian churches in Norway were attacked by arsonists in the name of "black metal", a subgenre of heavy metal music. 

In a statement, Acting US Attorney Alexander Van Hook said Matthews' sentence "should send a clear message that there is a high price to pay for this type of destruction and violence".

Read more: BBC News
 

Four people are dead and at least 14 severely injured after a shooting in Vienna's inner district Monday evening, which was carried out by at least one attacker who was killed by officers, officials said.

Police confirmed early Tuesday that three people had been killed in the attack, and later an Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed that a fourth woman had died.

Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz tweeted on Tuesday morning that 14 people were injured and a law enforcement officer had been shot.

Six crime scenes were under investigation, police have said.

Read more: NBC News

Survivors of a massacre by rebels in western Ethiopia on Sunday counted 54 bodies in a schoolyard, the latest attack in which members of ethnic minorities have been deliberately targeted, Amnesty International said Monday.

Human rights groups are asking why federal soldiers left the area just hours before attackers moved in and targeted ethnic Amharas.

Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, denounced the killing of people based on identity, adding that security forces had been deployed to the area and “started taking measures.”

Ethnic violence in Ethiopia is posing the greatest challenge yet to the prime minister, who was last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner for his sweeping political reforms.

Read more: Washington Post