Atlanta spa shootings: suspect charged with murder after eight people killed – as it happened

• Suspect charged with eight counts of murder
• Six of the eight victims were of Asian descent
• Suspect may have planned to carry out additional attacks, police say
• US on alert over possible anti-Asian American motive
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11.54pm GMT

We're wrapping up our liveblog for the day. Thanks for following along with us. You can catch up on all our latest coverage here, here and here.

And here's a recap of the afternoon's developments, via my colleague Adam Gabbatt:

11.47pm GMT

My colleague Vivian Ho reported this week on a new study from Stop AAPI Hate, a not-for-profit coalition, that tracked violence against Asian Americans, which has been on the rise during the pandemic.

It found that Asian Americans have reported nearly 3,800 hate-related incidents between March 2020 and February 2021. More than 68% of the abuse was verbal harassment and name calling, while more than 11% of it was physical, the report found.

Related: Asian Americans reported 3,800 hate-related incidents during the pandemic, report finds