Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Thursday, March 18th. I'm Nyla Buddha. Here's

what you need to know today. And the race to get all adults vaccinated are the most vulnerable

being left behind. Plus, Volkswagen takes on Tesla. But first, today's one big thing,

the murders in Atlanta. A man has been arrested and charged after a mass shooting at three

Atlanta area spas that killed eight people. Six of the victims were identified as Asian,

seven were women. The gunman told police he had a sex addiction and the murders weren't

racially motivated. But his confession has done nothing to quiet fears and anxieties of

Asian Americans. According to one California State University study, hate crimes against

Asian Americans in major cities jumped nearly 150 percent last year. Shana Chen has been covering

the story for Axios and she joins us now. Shana, there's a lot we don't know about what

happened in Atlanta. Can you tell us what we do know? Yes, police arrested the gunman

who has confessed yesterday after three shootings in Atlanta area massage parlors. The gunman

is a 21 year old white man. He told investigators reportedly that the motive for the attack was

because of his sex addiction and that these massage parlors were a temptation he needed

to eliminate. Investigators have said that he denied that the attacks were racially motivated.

It's still too early to rule out that it wasn't a hate crime. And what do we know about

the victims? Six Asian women died in these shootings and the South Korean foreign ministry

has confirmed that at least four of these women are ethnically Korean. Reports also show

that at least one of the massage parlors was an Asian owned business. Of course, there's

a lot we don't know yet, but I wonder if you can explain a little bit of the context of

what it looks like when we talk about hate crimes in the Asian-American community over the past

year all across the country. Anti-Asian racism isn't new as we both know. The reporting center

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