Texas resident charged with trying to blow up Confederate statue

REUTERS: Authorities in Houston charged a 25-year-old man on Monday with trying to blow up a Confederate statue, federal prosecutors said, following demonstrations and fierce debate in the United States about race and the legacy of America’s Civil War.

Word of the arrest of Andrew Sch neck came just hours after the University of Texas at Austin said it moved statues tied to the Confederacy at its campus because they had become “symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.”

White nationalists rallied earlier against proposals to take down a similar statue in Charlottesville and one woman was killed when a car crashed into a crowd of counter pro testers.

On Saturday night, a park ranger spotted Sch neck kneeling in bushes in front of the General Dow ling Monument in Houston’ s Her mann Park. In Schneck’s possession were a timer, wires, duct tape and two types of explosives including nitroglycerin, according to the prosecutors . If convicted of trying to maliciously damage or destroy property receiving federal financial assistance, Sch neck faces up to 40 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000.