Midday Roundup: Police arrest man for shooting Ferguson officers

Arrested. Authorities in St. Louis have arrested a suspect in connection with last week’s shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Mo. St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch told reporters Sunday that although the investigation is still ongoing, officers arrested Jeffrey Williams, 20, and charged him with two counts of assault in the first degree. McCulloch said forensic evidence links Williams to the crime. “There’s a weapon recovered, which has been tied to the shell casings that were recovered there, the weapon recovered from him,” McCulloch said. The arrest apparently was the result of a tips received from the public, for which St. Louis Police Chief Jon Belmar was grateful: “The public’s a big deal. You’re going to hear police commanders say this all the time. We cannot do this by ourselves.” Authorities had no update on the condition of the wounded officers, other than that they continue to recover from their wounds.

Wicked weather. Search and rescue teams are still trying to determine the breadth of the destruction wrought by Cyclone Pam when it raked over the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu early Saturday. Although the death toll remains below 10 at this point, officials expect it to rise once crews are able to get to the outlying islands. The storm’s winds clocked out at 168 miles per hour, and the structural destruction is widespread. Officials said initial flyovers of outlying islands showed near total devastation. The islands’ communication and power grids were knocked out, hampering rescue efforts and damage assessments. A majority of homes in the nation’s capital, Port Vila, have been damaged, with many families left homeless, officials said. The airport is closed for commercial flights, but the first air drop of Red Cross aid arrived Sunday. Vanuatu’s close neighbors, Australia and New Zealand, are sending relief supplies.

Busted? An eccentric New York real estate heir is behind bars once again after talking about his alleged crimes in depth during an HBO special that aired last night. Los Angeles officials have charged Robert Durst with murdering his longtime friend, writer Susan Berman, in 2000. Later that year, Durst was arrested and charged with killing his neighbor in Galveston, Texas. He admitted to dismembering Morris Black and dumping his body in Galveston Bay but claimed he killed him in self defense. The jury acquitted him. Durst also was suspected of killing his first wife, Kathleen McCormack, in 1982 but was never charged. During the final episode of HBO’s The Jinx: The life and deaths of Robert Durst, the 71-year-old millionaire was caught on tape mumbling to himself. “There it is. You’re caught,” he said, adding: “What the hell did I do? Killed them all of course.” Durst is estranged from his family, which owns more than 15 skyscrapers in New York City and has a large investment in One World Trade Center.

You’ve got mail. The House Select Committee on Benghazi is calling on Hillary Clinton to release her private email server. Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., told Fox News Sunday the honor system doesn’t work in the case of the former secretary of state’s emails: “I just can’t trust her lawyers to make the determination that the public’s getting everything they’re entitled to.” Clinton has refused to turn the server over to the State Department or congressional investigators looking into the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. But Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who also serves on the Benghazi panel, said members have known about the server since August and the issue is only raised now to hurt Clinton in a possible presidential bid. But many Democrats have admitted the email scandal poses problems for a Clinton White House bid in 2016.

New foreign policy? A senate panel is looking into possible interference by the Obama administration in the Israeli election, scheduled for tomorrow. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations doesn’t comment on ongoing probes, but Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., chastised President Barack Obama for refusing to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two weeks ago while sending “minions” to help influence the race against him. The bipartisan probe is looking into whether U.S. taxpayer dollars paid to send Obama operatives to Israel to help oust Netanyahu in what is expected to be a very close race. The president’s opposition to Netanyahu’s speech before Congress two weeks ago was based largely on its proximity to the Israeli election. Obama said he did not want it to appear as though Americans were “taking sides” in Israeli politics.

WORLD Radio’s Jim Henry contributed to this report.