Man, 21, charged over US shootings

A 21-year-old white man has been charged with nine counts of murder for an attack on a historic black South Carolina church, with media reporting that he had hoped his actions would incite a race war in the US.

Dylann Roof was also charged with possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, the Charleston Police Department said.

The charges came after his arrest in North Carolina, 350km north of the nearly 200-year-old Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he shot dead nine black worshippers.