In brief: Australia raises threat level to ‘high’ for first time

CANBERRA, Australia – The Australian government today elevated its terrorism threat level to the second-highest warning in response to the domestic threat posed by Islamic State movement supporters.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the increase from “medium” to “high” on a four-tier scale on the advice of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization.

The domestic spy agency’s Director-General David Irvine warned this week that the terrorist threat level had been rising in Australia over the past year, due in part to Australians joining Islamic State to fight in Syria and Iraq.

It is the first time that the threat level has been elevated above medium since the scale was introduced in 2003.

Man, 24, convicted in deaths of four

PRINCE GEORGE, British Columbia – A 24-year-old man was convicted Thursday of killing three women and a teenage girl in northern British Columbia, making him one of Canada’s youngest serial killers.

Cody Legebokoff was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder after a trial that heard gruesome details about the circumstances of the victims’ deaths and testimony from Legebokoff himself.

He was convicted of killing Jill Stuchenko, 35; Cynthia Maas, 35; Natasha Montgomery, 23; and Loren Leslie, 15.

Legebokoff was just 19 years old when he killed his first victim in Prince George. British Columbia has a dark history of serial killers including Clifford Olson and Robert Pickton. Olson was convicted in the sex slayings of 11 children in the Vancouver area in the early 1980s. Pickton was charged with the murders of 26 women but only tried and convicted for six.

Venezuela may join Security Council

BOGOTA, Colombia – Venezuela’s socialist government has quietly secured the backing of Latin America and the Caribbean to obtain a diplomatic trophy that long eluded the late Hugo Chavez: a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

The unanimous endorsement of Venezuela’s candidacy to represent the region on the Security Council came at a closed-door meeting July 23 in New York, according to Amin Cruz, a diplomat at the U.N. from the Dominican Republic, which chaired the meeting.

When Chavez last tried for a seat in 2006, the United States succeeded in torpedoing his campaign. This year, Washington has been mum.

While Venezuela must still muster a two-thirds majority in a secret ballot of 193 member nations at the U.N. General Assembly next month, the lack so far of a rival candidate from the region means the chances of its candidacy being derailed are slim, analysts say.