The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, a day after a white man in Atlanta, Georgia was charged in the shooting deaths of 8 people, 7 of them women. The Violence Against Women Act has been reauthorized numerous times but was never able to pass the U.S. Senate. Interestingly it was initially authored by then-Senator Joe Biden in 1994. The bill protects women against sexual violence, assault, domestic violence, and stalking among other things. Only 29 Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the bill. A whopping 172 voted against it. The GOP opposition is in part based on the National Rifle Association’s opposition to the bill because it targets gun violence against women. 

Robert Aaron Long, the suspect in the Atlanta-area murders of mostly Asian woman, was charged on Wednesday with 8 counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. His first court appearance scheduled for Thursday was abruptly cancelled after his lawyer waived his rights to a reading of the charges. Mr. Long apparently blamed a “sex addiction,” and police echoed that claim, in explaining his actions. But experts say, “There is no scientific consensus that such a diagnosis exists.” Captain Jay Baker, a deputy in the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, who has come under fire for suggesting that Long was simply having had, “a really bad day” when he allegedly committed the mass murders, has himself been implicated for having anti-Asian racist beliefs. Baker’s social media posts point to him promoting T-shirts with a racist slogan about COVID-19 being an “imported virus from Chy-na.” Meanwhile, Americans gathered to mourn at vigils in several cities across the country linking the murders of the women to a disturbing spike in anti-Asian racism and hate over the past year. While much focus has been on Long, his Southern Baptist faith, and more, very little so far has emerged about the victims of the shootings. The sole survivor of the shootings is a man named Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz. 

In San Francisco, home to a large population of Asian Americans, a day after the shooting a woman in her 70s was assaulted when a white man in his 30s allegedly punched her in the face. But it was the man who ended up in the hospital after the woman fought back and apparently hit him with a piece of wood. President Joe Biden, addressing the trend of anti-Asian attacks said, “I know Asian-Americans are very concerned. Because as you know I have been speaking about the brutality against Asian-Americans for the last couple months, and I think it’s very, very troubling.” But he refused to condemn the Atlanta-area shootings to racism saying,