Free Republic

A Georgia man is suspected of gunning down eight people in three mass shootings at massage parlors that are primarily staffed by Asian women in Atlanta and a nearby suburb on Tuesday evening, police said. The suspected gunman, Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock, GA, was captured Tuesday night about 150 miles south of Atlanta following a statewide police manhunt. Authorities believe Long opened fire on five people shortly before 5 p.m. in Young’s Asian Massage Parlor near Acworth in Georgia’s Cherokee County, officials said. Four of the victims of that shooting died, according to the local sheriff’s office. Less...

Three major cities accounted for more than half of the rise in the national murder rate between 2014 and 2015, a new report shows. Though overall crime rates were stagnant in America’s 30 largest cities the murder rate rose 13.3 percent, according to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice. The violent crime rate also rose by 3.1% in those major cities, lead by increases in Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Charlotte.

Mitt Romney is shifting to the center to attract important voting blocs that he may have alienated in the bruising Republican presidential primary.Romney has recently sought to ingratiate himself with voters in industry-heavy Ohio, women, Hispanics and college students by softening his tone on a range of issues. “Romney is starting to shift to the center. He knows he needs to get independent voters in November, and if he doesn’t he’s going to lose,” said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. Campaign aides, wary of the flip-flopper label that plagued Romney during the...