Indiana woman charged with federal hate crime in bus attack

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana woman now faces a federal hate crime in the stabbing of an Indiana University student of Chinese descent on a public bus. Fifty-six year-old Billie R. Davis of Bloomington was indicted Thursday on a charge of willfully causing injuries to the victim due to her race and national origin. The white woman is accused of repeatedly stabbing the 18-year-old student from Carmel, Indiana, with a folding knife on Jan. 11. Davis faces state charges of attempted murder and aggravated battery. Racially motivated assaults on Asian Americans increased since the coronavirus pandemic began, and many worry that fraught relations between the U.S. and China could lead to more violence.