Murder indictments against a man accused of killing 8 people, mainly Asian-Americans in the Atlanta area. AP correspondent Tim McGuire with more. Grand juries in Fulton and Cherokee countys in Georgia, have indicted Robert Aaron Long on murder charges for a series of shootings at massage businesses in the Atlanta area on March 16th. Fulton County district attorney Bonnie Willis wants a capital trial. “I, along with my staff, have made a determination that this office will seek the death penalty.” The grand jury in Cherokee county has leveled 23 charges against the 22-year-old Long. He faces 19 counts in Fulton County. 6 of the 8 victims were women of Asian descent. Willis said she is also seeking hate-crime charges against Long. There's no word on when Long will be arraigned in either county. I'm Tim McGuire.
Brazil's federal government on Tuesday nationally suspended the vaccination of pregnant women with the AstraZeneca Covid-19 shot after an expectant mother in Rio de Janeiro died from a stroke possibly related to the inoculation. Authorities are investigating the incident.
Meanwhile, health officials in Costa Rica warned on Tuesday that the country's hospitals are struggling to cope with the dramatic increase in Covid-19 cases amid an April surge of Covid-19 infections. Hospital beds are scarce in the tropical country, its infection rate in the last week of April surpassed even tragedy-struck India and Brazil. Given the lack of widespread testing the real figures could be even worse. Local authorities respond by ordering new restrictions on activities and some businesses during the week in May.
US President Donald Trump's acting Defense Secretary during the January 6th Capitol riots plans to tell Congress that he was concerned in the days before the insurrection that sending troops to the building would fan fears of a military coup and could cause a repeat of the deadly Kent State shootings, according to a copy of prepared remarks obtained by the Associated Press. Christopher Miller's testimony is aimed at defending the Pentagon's response of the chaos of the day and rebutting broad criticism that the military forces were too slow to arrive even as pro-Trump rioters violently breach the building and stormed inside.
