Tuesday morning news: October 30, 2018

Pittsburgh mourns after synagogue massacre; suspect appears in court » AUDIO: [Synagogue memorial sound]

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers heard there leading a service on Monday to mourn those who died in Saturday’s massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Vice President Mike Pence, speaking in Michigan, said America stands with everyone impacted by the attack.

PENCE: What happened in Pittsburgh was not just a criminal act. It was evil. It was an attack on innocent Americans and it was an assault on freedom of religion. 

The White House announced Monday that President Trump and the first lady will visit Pittsburgh today “to express the support of the American people and to grieve with” the community.

Meantime, the alleged gunman in the attack has been released from the hospital. Doctors treated 46-year-old truck driver Robert Gregory Bowers for wounds sustained in his gun battle with police.  

Hours later, he was wheeled into a federal courtroom. A judge ordered him held without bail for a preliminary hearing on Thursday.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania Scott Brady told reporters:

BRADY: We will have the opportunity to present evidence demonstrating that Robert Bowers murdered 11 people who were exercising their religious beliefs, and that he shot or injured six others, including four of whom were police officers responding to the shooting. 

Bowers has not yet entered a plea.

The massacre was the deadliest on Jews in U.S. history.

Another suspicious package addressed to CNN; suspect charged » The FBI is investigating another suspicious package found at a post office in Atlanta. WORLD Radio’s Leigh Jones reports.

LEIGH JONES, NEWS EDITOR: The package was addressed to CNN’s headquarters in downtown Atlanta. Investigators say it was similar in appearance to packages sent to prominent critics of President Trump each contained a crude explosive device. CNN President Jeff Zucker said Monday that no one at the network’s headquarters was ever in danger.

The suspect in the mail bomb scare, Cesar Sayoc, made his first appearance in court Monday. A judge charged him with five federal crimes, including illegal mailing of explosives and making criminal threats against others.

Sayoc faces more than 50 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

The FBI has also reportedly found a hit list of additional names and addresses in his possession. And in accordance with the bureau’s “duty to warn,” it is now notifying everyone on that list.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Leigh Jones.

5,200 troops heading to southern U.S. border »

More than 5,000 troops are heading to the southern U.S. border.

The Defense Department says it is sending 5,200 active duty troops to “harden” the border against a migrant caravan making its way through Mexico.

Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy said 800 soldiers were en route on Monday, and the remainder would arrive by the end of the week.

He said the new troops will provide “mission enhancing capabilities” and will be armed.

O’SHAUGHNESSY: Our concept of operations is to flow in our military assets with the priority to build up southern Texas, then Arizona and then California. We’ll reinforce along priority points of entry, so as to enhance CBP’s ability to harden and secure the border.

More than 2,000 members of the National Guard are already assisting authorities at the border.

In explaining the need for more reinforcements, officials point to clashes between police and migrants at Mexico’s border with Guatemala. A group looking to follow in the steps of the first caravan broke down the metal gates at a border bridge. A 26-year-old Honduran migrant died Sunday after being struck in the head with a rubber bullet.

Indonesia plane crash » In Indonesia, rescuers in inflatable boats retrieved human remains from the Java Sea near Jakarta after a commercial jet carrying nearly 200 people crashed just after takeoff on Monday.

The jet was a brand new Boeing 737 belonging to the low cost carrier Lion Air.

Aviation expert Stephen Wright said he was surprised to hear the airline admit that that particular plane had a technical issue in its previous flight.

WRIGHT: The chief exec has announced this plane yesterday had a problem flying back from Bali. And when it got back to its base in Jakarta they had to do some maintenance. Now, I haven’t heard a chief exec make this sort of statement for quite some time.

That from Sky News.

Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait said the plane’s unspecified “technical issues” had been resolved “according to procedure.”

The BBC reports a technical log from the plane’s prior flight “suggests that the airspeed reading on the captain’s instrument was unreliable, and the altitude readings differed on the captain’s and first officer’s instruments.”

German chancellor says current term will be her last » Angela Merkel announced Monday that this will be her final term as Germany’s chancellor. WORLD Radio’s Sarah Schweinsberg has that story.  

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: After meeting with the leadership of her party, the Christian Democratic Union, Merkel also said she would step down as its leader.

The announcement came after the party lost significant ground in a regional election Sunday.

Merkel has served as chancellor of Germany since 2005, making her the European Union’s longest-serving leader. She says she has no plans to run for any office when she leaves at the end of her term in 2021.

Merkel’s party and its political allies, dubbed the “grand coalition,” faced serious voter backlash over the weekend after months of infighting. Merkel’s term as party leader will end in December.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: good news about the rates of divorce in the U.S. And commentary from Cal Thomas. This is The World and Everything in It.

(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) A woman places a stone, Monday Oct. 29, 2018, on a memorial outside the Tree of Life Synagogue, to one of the 11 people killed when a gunman opened fire during worship at the temple on Saturday Oct 27, 2018 in Pittsburgh. 

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