Authorities are investigating another gunshot killing in a beleaguered Tampa, Florida, neighborhood, police said today, adding that it may be related to October’s unsolved slayings in the same area.

Police early this morning confirmed reports of gunfire and found a gunshot victim in the Seminole Heights neighborhood where three people were shot to death in a span of 11 days last month.

“We are treating it as although it is related until we rule otherwise,” interim Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan told reporters this morning.

Authorities have identified the victim as Ronald Felton, 60, who was supposed to “meet up with someone” when he was apparently targeted and killed in cold blood, Dugan said.

“Someone came up from behind and shot him,” he said. “And he was left in the street.”

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The suspect in this case has been identified as an African-American man wearing a baseball cap and described as having a “thin build” and dressed in all black, authorities said.

“We do have a witness that we have been discussing [what happened],” Dugan said. “When I spoke to her she said, ‘If our officer had been five seconds earlier, he would’ve been able to stop it.’”

Police arrived “within seconds” of the 911 calls that were placed before 5 a.m., Dugan said.

‘This has got to stop’

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn pleaded with the community at this morning’s news conference near where Felton was attacked.

“This has got to stop,” he said. “We will hunt this person down until we find them.”

He hopes police can stop the bloodshed.

“We need to catch this killer before we need to notify one more family that one of their loved ones is dead,” he said.

The Tampa Police Department’s Twitter account alerted the public that an “active investigation” was underway, using the hashtag “#TRAFFIC.”

The homicide follows a string of three unsolved killings within blocks of each other days before Halloween and near a bus-line route where two of the victims had been commuting. Police say they believe those three killings were committed by the same person.

‘Very scary and quite stressful’ for neighbors

Resident Phyllis Gaines and her terrier poodle Buster were stirred awake this morning by what she thought was a neighbor taking out the trash, she said.

But it was deadly gunfire.

“It was maybe three or four [shots],” she told ABC News. “I was in my bedroom and I heard the shoots and I looked out from the living room and there were cops all over the corner.

“All you saw was red and blue lights flashing and the crime scene tape.”

The high school sign language teacher said she was forced “on lockdown” in her own home as police taped off her driveway om the corner of East McBerry Street.

Gaines exchanged text messagea with neighbors who, like her, were in their homes looking on as cops tried to stop the terror outside their doors.

“It’s very scary and quite stressful,” she said. “I think we’re all on edge at this point.”

The other victims

The first victim was 22-year-old Benjamin Mitchell, who attended George S. Middleton High School. He was shot and killed steps from his home while waiting for a bus at North 15th Street at Frierson Avenue Oct. 9.

Two days later, 32-year-old Monica Hoffa, who police say died October 11, was found slain a half-mile from Mitchell, officials confirmed.

Then on Oct. 19, Anthony Naiboa, a 20-year-old man with autism, was killed in the southeast Seminole Heights neighborhood while taking the wrong bus home from work.

The young man, who was waiting at a bus stop located at North 15th Street at Frierson Avenue, died steps away from his home

All three earlier killings remain unsolved.

Early on, police released pixelated photos of a slender individual wearing pants and a hooded windbreaker, initially walking near one of the crime scenes and then picking up the pace to a sprint.

“We believe this is the same person we saw walking just moments earlier,” Dugan, the police chief, said during a news conference last month, adding the person of interest likely has ties to the neighborhood.

“He is running in the other direction … We believe this is the same person, once again, running away from the scene of the shooting.”

In subsequently released surveillance video recordings that were released by police, the same individual is seen flipping and repeatedly staring at a cellphone with the right hand.

The day’s events seemed to harden the resolve of Senate Republicans to avert what they fear would be a nightmare situation going into the midterm elections next year: being associated with a man accused of preying on children.

“It’s drip by drip, cut by cut,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby, Alabama’s senior lawmaker. “It doesn’t look good.”

Mr. Moore responded with fury, not only refusing to quit the race but stating that the person who needed to step aside was Mr. McConnell.

“He has failed conservatives and must be replaced,” said Mr. Moore in a statement, appending President Trump’s trademark: “#draintheswamp.”

Publicly, Mr. McConnell, appearing at a news conference in Louisville, said he was “looking at” drafting a write-in candidate for the Dec. 12 special election. Privately, Mr. McConnell was doing more than merely looking. One idea being discussed, first brought up by two different White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would be for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to run as either a write-in candidate or to be appointed to what was his seat should Mr. Moore win and be immediately removed from office.

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Mr. McConnell is supportive of the idea and discussed it on Monday in a telephone call with Vice President Mike Pence that was chiefly about the Republican tax overhaul proposal, according to party officials briefed on the call. Mr. Sessions remains popular among Alabama Republicans, but his relationship with Mr. Trump has frayed since he recused himself from the investigation of the role that Russia played in last year’s presidential campaign.

The swap would be something of a win-win for Mr. McConnell and Mr. Trump — the senator is eager to rid himself of Mr. Moore and the president has been open about his disappointment with Mr. Sessions.

That they even discussed such a radical maneuver spoke to the desperate straits that Republicans find themselves in. If Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee, wins, it would narrow the Republican advantage in the Senate to a single seat.

But Republicans increasingly believe that enduring such a narrow majority may be a price they are willing to pay if it means keeping Mr. Moore from their ranks.

Should Mr. Moore prevail, Republicans believe the debate over whether he should be allowed to take and keep his seat could drag on for months. The Republicans’ legislative agenda, including on taxes, already faces uncertain prospects and could be swallowed in a maelstrom of controversy around Mr. Moore and his fitness to serve.

The implications for the 2018 elections could be even graver, Republicans fear, with several party strategists predicting that Democrats would brand them as the party of child sex abuse.

For their part, Alabama Republicans are warning of the perils of barring Mr. Moore from the Senate. A write-in campaign, they suggested, would prove fruitless and perhaps help the Democrats, while a move to block or expel Mr. Moore would further poison the relationship between the Republican Party’s leaders and its populist wing.

“If the people of this state go forward and select their U.S. senator as Roy Moore, it will be because there is a deep suspicion of what has been coined as the establishment in D.C.,” said State Senator Phil Williams, whose district includes Mr. Moore’s home county. “And if the establishment then chooses and tries to unseat, or in some way disavow, that candidate, it will create a backlash the likes of which the party has never seen before.”

Democrats, who have been restrained about their prospects in such a conservative state, tried to avoid inserting themselves into the Republican crossfire. But, they said, as more information comes out, Mr. Moore’s case that he is being smeared in a single newspaper article will crumble. By Monday night, an article in The New Yorker asserted that Mr. Moore had been barred from the mall in his hometown, Gadsden, for bothering young women, a memory that many in the town said they shared, though no one has found direct evidence.

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“The more people that come out of the woodwork, the more women with similar stories, the more credible it becomes,” said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster based in Alabama. “It’s going to become easier to see through Roy Moore’s nondenial denials.”

Mr. Jones is also quietly benefiting from the support of national liberals. He is to be in Washington on Tuesday for a $500 per person cocktail reception partly sponsored by a raft of well-known Democrats, including Senator Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, according to an invitation circulating among Democratic lobbyists.

Mr. Jones has been raising substantial money out-of-state — Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut helped him bring in $125,000 with a single email and handful of Twitter messages — and has had Alabama’s airwaves nearly to himself in recent weeks: He has aired nearly $2 million worth of commercials since Mr. Moore won the nomination in September while Mr. Moore has spent only about $300,000 on ads, according to strategists tracking the race.

Mr. Moore, because of his statewide fame, has never had to raise much money. But now that he is fighting for his political life, he urgently needs to recast the race to focus on some of Mr. Jones’s liberal views on guns and abortion.

But he may not have the money to mount any such assault and, with his party leaders shunning him, it is not clear who will fill the gap. Mr. Moore tried one approach Monday afternoon: trying to tap into the grass-roots loathing on the right toward Mr. McConnell.

“Mitch McConnell’s plot to destroy me,” Mr. Moore wrote in the subject line of a fund-raising email.

“Apparently Mitch McConnell and the establishment G.O.P. would rather elect a radical pro-abortion Democrat than a conservative Christian,” he added.

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UCLA freshmen LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, who have been detained in China for the past week on suspicion of shoplifting, are headed back to the United States and are scheduled to arrive later Tuesday in Los Angeles, the Pac-12 confirmed.

The players were seen checking into a Los Angeles-bound Delta flight at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport, airline staff told The Wall Street Journal, who first reported that the players were heading back to the U.S.

Delta’s flight tracker currently shows that two planes departed from Shanghai at around the same time Tuesday night local time, and both are scheduled to arrive at Los Angeles International Airport at around 5 p.m. PT.

Their return came hours after President Donald Trump said he was hopeful that they would be allowed to return home after he had a long conversation with China’s president, Xi Jinping.

“They’re working on it right now,” Trump told reporters in the Philippines as he prepared to return to Washington after a nearly two-week visit to Asia that included an earlier stop in Beijing. “He’s been terrific,” Trump said, in an apparent reference to Xi.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement that “the matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of the Chinese authorities. We are all very pleased that these young men have been allowed to return home to their families and university.

“We are grateful for the role that our Chinese hosts played, and for the courtesy and professionalism of the local authorities. We also want to acknowledge UCLA’s significant efforts on behalf of their student-athletes. Finally, we want to thank the President, the White House and the U.S. State Department for their efforts towards resolution.”

The players were questioned last week about allegedly stealing sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store next to the team’s hotel in Hangzhou, where the Bruins had been staying before leaving for Shanghai to face Georgia Tech on Saturday. They were released on bail early Wednesday morning and have been staying at a lakeside hotel in Hangzhou since then.

Asked about the case Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry said it had no additional comment. On Monday, ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that three American men were being investigated in the eastern city of Hangzhou for alleged theft and that China and the U.S. were in contact over the matter.

An anonymous U.S. official told The Washington Post that charges against the three players have been reduced.

A source told ESPN’s Arash Markazi that there is surveillance footage of the players shoplifting from three stores inside a high-end shopping center, which houses Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Salvatore Ferragamo stores.

UCLA returned to the United States on Saturday without the three freshmen, sources told Markazi. Bruins coach Steve Alford declined to discuss the matter after the team’s win over the Yellow Jackets on Friday.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Emily Tillett

Emily Tillett is a politics reporter and video editor for CBS News Digital

The movement of foreign correspondents is restricted in Iran — travel outside the capital requires a permit from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture — and reporters from abroad were not given clearance to travel to the quake-hit region.

Initial reports from the Kurdish region of Iraq indicated less damage and fewer deaths on that side of the border. In Sulaimaniya, the second-largest city in Iraq’s Kurdish region, residents described feeling heavy tremors but said there was no notable building damage. Residents in the oil-rich town of Kirkuk, roughly 50 miles to the west, reported similar damage.

The earthquake was felt as far as the Mediterranean coast of Israel. Shiite pilgrims in the Iraqi city of Karbala, for the annual religious commemoration of Arba’een, posted videos of people gathering on the streets after the earthquake.

Iran lies on dozens of fault lines and is prone to quakes. In 2012, a double earthquake in the north of the country killed 300 people. When residents learned of the government’s lackluster relief efforts, some started organizing aid groups themselves. After that quake, the United States, which does not maintain normal diplomatic relations with Iran, sent several planeloads of aid.

In 2003, more than 20,000 people were killed and an ancient citadel was destroyed by a quake that struck the southern city of Bam.

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“I’ve been investigated more than any other person in this country,” he said.

Although many of Mr. Moore’s supporters in Alabama share his fury and have expressed it in far harsher tones, Republicans have been abandoning Mr. Moore since The Post published its article, which included allegations of sexual advances from three other women.

Beyond their public condemnations of Mr. Moore, some Republicans have been searching for ways to short-circuit his candidacy. Some had favored pressing Ms. Ivey to move the Dec. 12 special election. But on Saturday, her office abruptly cut off discussion about the idea.

“Governor Ivey is not considering and has no plans to move the special election for U.S. Senate,” a spokesman, Daniel Sparkman, said in an email. This week, Ms. Ivey said that the allegations were “deeply disturbing” and that “the people of Alabama deserve to know the truth and will make their own decisions.”

Although Ms. Ivey’s decision was something of a relief for Mr. Moore, other Republicans criticized or cut ties with him on Twitter on Saturday. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee was unsparing: “Look, I’m sorry, but even before these reports surfaced, Roy Moore’s nomination was a bridge too far.” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana withdrew his support, he said, “based on the allegations against Roy Moore, his response, and what is known.”

Mr. Moore is a popular figure among many Alabama Republicans, but party officials fear that if he is elected, he will be an albatross around the necks of their lawmakers and candidates nationwide for years to come. In Washington, Republicans pleaded for President Trump, who endorsed Mr. Moore’s opponent, Senator Luther Strange, in the primary, to intervene.

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But taking questions from reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to Hanoi, Vietnam, Mr. Trump, who himself has been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment, signaled he was reluctant to reinsert himself in the same Alabama race where his endorsement was so thoroughly disregarded in September.

“I have not seen very much about him, about it,” Mr. Trump said, noting that he had put out a statement through his press secretary on Friday saying that if the allegations were true, Mr. Moore would “do the right thing” and withdraw.

Pressed about the allegations from the four women, Mr. Trump declined to say whether he believed the accounts.

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“Honestly, I’d have to look at it and I’d have to see,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m dealing with the folks over here, so I haven’t devoted — I haven’t been able to devote very much time to it.”

Mr. Trump said he was sticking by his statement, which also said that “a mere allegation,” particularly from many years ago, should not be enough to ruin a person’s life. But he did not rule out abandoning Mr. Moore.

“I have to get back into the country to see what’s happening,” he said.

Ms. Corfman said on Saturday that a firestorm of criticism from Mr. Moore’s supporters — one of them, a state legislator, suggested that she be prosecuted “for lying” — had not deterred her.

“I stand by my story,” she said.

A lawyer for Gloria Thacker Deason, who said she had dated Mr. Moore when she was 18 and he was in his 30s, attacked Mr. Moore’s speech.

“He knows full well why these women did not tell what he did to them before this week,” the lawyer, Paula Cobia, said in an email. “As young teenage girls in the late 1970s, they had no way of knowing their rights, especially against him, considering he was a district attorney at the time.”

Ms. Cobia demanded that Mr. Moore “immediately retract his defamatory statements.”

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MANILA (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump landed in the Philippines on Sunday for a summit of Southeast and East Asian nations, hours after offering to mediate on competing claims to the South China Sea that have long stoked tensions in the region.

It will be the last leg of a marathon Asia tour that, despite Trump’s “America First” policy, may reassure some that his administration remains committed to a region that Beijing sees as its strategic domain.

In Vietnam earlier on Sunday, Trump said he was prepared to mediate in the dispute over the South China Sea, where four Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan contest China’s sweeping claims to the busy waterway.

But Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, host of two days of summit meetings that will bring together Southeast Asian and East Asian nations, said the thorny issue was better left untouched. All the claimants will be at the summit, except for Taiwan.

“We have to be friends, the other hotheads would like us to confront China and the rest of the world on so many issues,” Duterte said at a pre-summit business conference in Manila.

“The South China Sea is better left untouched, nobody can afford to go to war. It can ill-afford a violent confrontation.”

The United States and its former colony, the Philippines, have been strategic allies since World War Two.

Trump is expected to try during the summit to shore up relations, which have been strained by the mercurial Duterte’s notorious anti-U.S. sentiment and his enthusiasm for better ties with Russia and China.

Police used water canon to prevent hundreds of protesters reaching the U.S. embassy in Manila ahead of Trump’s arrival.

Carrying placards declaring “Dump Trump” and “Down with U.S. Imperialism”, the left-wing protesters were blocked by police in riot gear with shields and batons, and then showered with jets of water from a fire engine.

”Trump is the CEO of the imperialist government of the U.S., said 18-year-old student Alexis Danday after the protesters were scattered. “We know he is here to push for unfair treaties between the Philippines and the U.S.”

TRUMP CALLS IT “INDO-PACIFIC”

On a tour that has taken him to Japan, South Korea, China and Vietnam, Trump and his team have repeatedly used the term “Indo-Pacific” instead of “Asia-Pacific” for the region, which some see as an effort to depict it as more than China-dominated.

Pacific Rim nation leaders agreed in Vietnam on Saturday to address “unfair trade practices” and “market distorting subsidies”, a statement that bore the imprint of Trump’s efforts to reshape the global trade landscape.

The summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries in Vietnam put on show the contrasting vision of the “America First” policy with the traditional consensus favoring multinational deals that China now seeks to champion.

Leaders at the Philippines summit will discuss the South China Sea, but mainly to agree on a procedural step to cool tensions.

In August, foreign ministers of Southeast Asia and China adopted a negotiating framework for a code of conduct in the resource-rich waterway, a move they hailed as progress but one seen by critics as a tactic to buy China time to consolidate its power.

The framework seeks to advance a 2002 Declaration of Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the South China Sea. The DOC has mostly been ignored by claimant states, particularly China, which has built seven man-made islands in disputed waters, three of them equipped with runways, surface-to-air missiles and radars.

The framework will be endorsed by China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Monday, a diplomat from one of the regional bloc’s countries said.

Others who will be in Manila for the summit meetings include Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and leaders from Japan, Canada, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales, Enrico dela Cruz and Manolo Serapio; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan