cherokee county about 30 miles north of atlanta and opened fire, killing four people and injuring another. police say he then drove south to atlanta and shot and killed three people inside the gold spa. he then crossed the street, according to police to the aroma therapy spa and killed another woman there. investigators say surveillance video shows the suspect and his car at all three crime scenes. he was arrested driving south about 150 miles from atlanta. officials say six of the eight victims appear to be asian. this comes amid an increase in attacks on the asian community since the coronavirus pandemic. the new york police department says it will deploy counterterrorism officers to asian communities in the city out of abundance of the caution. a lot going on with this concern about hate crimes, willie. yeah. let s go down to atlanta where we find blane alexander. good morning. are the police saying yet what the motive may be here? obviously people drawing a lot of concl
today, police departments across this country are taking steps to make sure the asian communities remain safe. it s a busy hour on the hill. the government s top doctors are making a house call. they are testifying as we speak. in a few moments, the cdc director s stark warning about one of the covid variants ripping across the country. right now, the secretary of homeland security is testifying before a house committee. his message so far about the increase of migrants crossing our southern border. all of that coming up. we start with that breaking news there in atlanta. police say the suspect, 21-year-old robert long, is likely behind all three shootings in and around atlanta. georgia state troopers arrested long tuesday night driving 125 miles south of atlanta. officials say it appears he was going to florida. reporters and analysts with us now. blayne alexander has been on the ground in atlanta. she has the latest on the shootings. tom winter following the investigati
motive. i know that many have received a number of calls about, is this a hate crime. we re still early in this investigation, so we cannot make that determination at this moment. again, we are very early in this investigation. even though we have made an arrest, there is still a lot more work to be done. he made indicators that he has some issues, potentially sexual addiction, and may have frequented some of these places in the past. he claims that these as the chief said, it s still early, but he does claim it was not racially motivated. he apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction, and sees these locations as something that allows him to go to these places, and it s a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate. to be clear, that is what the suspect is telling police. there is still a lot that we do not know. atlanta s lance bottoms provided a little more detail that plils police have determined he was on his way to florida when he was captu
at our southwest border now. the homeland security department out with this dire warning. at this rate we could encounter more people there than we have in the last 20 years. we re going to dig into what s being done to deal with it including a total transformation of a major city s convention center. but we start on this tuesday with our reporters following the biden administration s push to sell that covid relief package. nbc s chief white house correspondent kristen welker is there at the white house, and priscilla thompson is in delaware county, where president biden will be visiting today. she is in chester, which is a suburb of philadelphia. kristen, let me start with you. help us understand why president biden is focusing on pennsylvania s small businesses today with promoting this covid relief deal. reporter: he s doing two things, craig. one, president biden trying to now sell and explain that sweeping $1.9 trillion covid relief package. so he s going to talk about
there is more evidence that the uk variant is spread something widely in the u.s. beaches are full with few masks in sight. there won t reach immunity until people get shots. in a new cbc poll, a third of republicans say they would not get vaccinated while another 20% said they were not sure. yesterday president biden asked for help i discussed it with my team and they said things that would have more impact than anything trump would say the to the maga folks, would be what the local doctors say. today on morning joe, dr. fauci said he has not had contact to the former president. i have not reached out directly to him. but i do it so many ways indirectly including the conversation you and i are having right now about what the importance is of getting the overwhelming majority of the population vaccinated. joining me now is kristen welker and jonathan. what is the president s strategy? he is heading to delaware county. those five counties around philadelphia were b