10 things you need to know today: October 30, 2018

1. Trump heads to Pittsburgh as funerals for synagogue shooting victims start

President Trump is heading to Pittsburgh on Tuesday to honor the 11 people killed in Saturday's mass shooting in the Tree of Life synagogue. His visit comes on the day of the first of many funerals. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump and first lady Melania Trump would visit to "express the support of the American people and grieve with the Pittsburgh community." Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto had urged Trump to wait until after the funerals, which continue through Friday, to avoid creating a distraction. A group of Jewish activists said Trump would not be welcome, but Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who survived the attack, said Trump was welcome. "I'm a citizen. He's my president. He is certainly welcome," Myers said.

CNN

2. Synagogue massacre suspect makes first court appearance

The man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue made his first appearance in court on Monday, two days after the massacre. Robert Bowers, who was treated for wounds sustained in a shootout with police, sat in a wheelchair as he was denied bail pending trial on more than two dozen federal charges, including hate crimes. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty. Bowers allegedly told authorities after his arrest that his goal was to kill Jews. Magistrate Judge Robert C. Mitchell read the charges, including obstruction of exercise of religious belief resulting in death. Bowers said little, but answered "yes" when the judge asked whether he understood the charges and had requested a public defender.

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The Washington Post

3. Trump administration orders more than 5,200 troops to border

The Trump administration said Monday that it planned to send more than 5,200 troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border. The deployment is far larger than the 800 to 1,000 troops expected. General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, the head of U.S. Northern Command, said 800 U.S. troops are on the way to the southern border in Texas, and more soldiers were being sent to California and Arizona. "The president has made it clear that border security is national security," he said. President Trump has vowed to prevent thousands of people in a caravan of Central American migrants from entering the U.S., even if it takes closing the border. The migrants are in Mexico and have weeks of travel before reaching the border, but Trump has made the issue a focus ahead of next week's midterm elections.

Reuters

4. Giuliani says Trump may answer Mueller questions after election

President Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said Monday that written responses to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's questions have been prepared, and several dozen may be submitted after the midterm elections. However, the answers will only be provided to Mueller if the two parties are able to agree on the terms of the questioning, Giuliani says. Giuliani insisted that Trump will not answer any questions about obstruction of justice. Instead, the answers will only concern questions about whether the campaign colluded with Russian interference during the 2016 election. A face-to-face meeting between Mueller and Trump is currently off the table, Giuliani added, but is not totally ruled out.

Bloomberg

5. Hillary Clinton says she doesn't plan to run but would 'like to be president'

Hillary Clinton has given mixed signals on whether she might mount another presidential campaign. Asked during a Friday taping of the Recode Decode podcast with Kara Swisher whether she wanted to run again, the 2016 Democratic nominee initially said "no," then paused and said "no" again. Swisher noted the hesitation, and Clinton said: "Well, I'd like to be president. The work would be work that I feel very well prepared for." After reports of the comments sparked a flurry of posts on Twitter, Swisher tweeted Monday: "Tweeps, simmer down! While it perhaps sounded like @HillaryClinton refused to rule it out, my take is she was basically implying she wishes she were president but doesn't relish running again."

The New York Times

6. Jimmy Carter urges Georgia gubernatorial candidate to let others oversee election

Former President Jimmy Carter sent a letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor, urging him to hand over the duties of overseeing the November election to a "neutral authority," The Associated Press reported Monday. Kemp has delayed 53,000 voter registrations over minor discrepancies. The Associated Press found that 70 percent of those affected were African Americans statistically more likely to back Democrats. Kemp's opponent, Stacey Abrams, is vying to become the first black female governor in U.S. history. Kemp has said he is just trying to prevent fraud. Carter said Kemp's decision to run an election in which he is a candidate "runs counter to the most fundamental principle of democratic elections," impartiality.

The Associated Press NPR

7. Khashoggi's fiancée calls on Trump to be tougher on Saudi Arabia

The fiancée of Jamal Khashoggi, Hatice Cengiz, on Monday criticized President Trump's handling of the Saudi dissident journalist's killing. Trump has limited his criticism of Saudi leaders despite evidence of ties between some of the suspected killers and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump has condemned the killing and said the crown prince, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, bears ultimate responsibility. He also has said he does not want the case to endanger a "tremendous order" of $110 billion of weapons Saudi Arabia is supposed to buy from the U.S. Cengiz said Trump should focus on justice and "help reveal the truth." "Let's not let money taint our conscience and compromise our values," she told an audience on a visit to London.

Reuters

8. Report: Trump preparing tariffs on remaining Chinese imports

The Trump administration plans to announce new tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports if November talks between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping fail to ease trade tensions, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing three people familiar with the matter. The product list, covering about $257 billion in Chinese imports left off previous lists, would be unveiled in early December, triggering a 60-day public comment period before the tariffs take effect. Discussions are underway for Trump and Xi to meet during the November Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires, two anonymous sources told Bloomberg. "I think we will make a great deal with China," Trump told Fox News on Monday, "and it has to be great because they've drained our country."

Bloomberg

9. Sam's Club to open Dallas store where customers can avoid cashiers

Sam's Club plans to open a store in Dallas where customers will be able to scan and pay for their groceries using an app, with no cashier or checkout line, according to Monday media reports. The innovation will help the Walmart-owned warehouse store compete with rivals such as Target, Kroger, and Amazon, which are among the retailers experimenting with cashier-free shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. Shoppers at the Sam's Dallas location will use a new "Sam's Club Now" app, a beefed up version of the existing "Shop and Go" app. The 32,000-square-foot store will be a scaled down version of Sam's Club, about a quarter the size of the traditional warehouse, with a focus on food.

CNBC

10. Divers resume search for Lion Air plane's black boxes after crash

Indonesian divers resumed their search Tuesday for the wreckage of Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed into the Java Sea a day earlier with 189 people on board. All are feared dead. Crews used underwater "pinger locators" in an attempt to find the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet's cockpit recorders so that investigators could begin to determine why the nearly new jetliner crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from the airport in Jakarta, the capital. "Hopefully this morning we can find the wreckage or fuselage," Soerjanto Tjahjono, the head of a national transport safety panel, told Reuters. Divers had to pause their work overnight, but sonar vessels and an underwater drone have continued the search.

Reuters