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Pittsburgh Shooting, Brazil, Germany: Your Monday Briefing

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Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
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Good morning.
Here’s the latest: Violence shakes the United States, a populist wins in Brazil and voters show grievances in Germany.
• Hate-fueled violence rocks the U. S.
A gunman shouting anti-Semitic slurs opened fire at a synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, killing at least 11 people — among them a 97-year-old woman and a couple in their 80s. It was one of the deadliest assaults ever on the Jewish community in the U. S. Above, a scene near the synagogue on Sunday.
A suspect, Robert Bowers, surrendered to the authorities and was charged with hate crimes and murder. An official said 21 guns were registered under his name.
The mass shooting came a day after the arrest of Cesar Sayoc, a Floridian seething with political rage. He was charged with sending at least a dozen explosive packages to prominent critics of President Trump, including former President Barack Obama.
Both cases reflect the country’s deep, bitter divisions a little more than a week before the midterm elections, which are widely considered a referendum on the Trump presidency.
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• Populism continues to surge around the world.
On Sunday, voters in Brazil elected the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, above, as their next president. Over the years, Mr. Bolsonaro has exalted the country’s military dictatorship, advocated torture and threatened to destroy, jail or drive into exile his political opponents.
In Italy, Matteo Salvini, the populist government’s strongman and leader of the anti-immigrant League party, has used the arrests of African migrants in the death of a teenage girl in Rome to deepen his political inroads there.
Mr. Salvini’s support has grown so strong around Italy that he appears to have started thinking the unthinkable: conquering Rome with a League candidate for mayor. The incumbent, Virginia Raggi, is under fire for her failure to halt the city’s decline.
Meanwhile, the E. U. is concerned about how to handle Italy’s budget crisis, worrying that the bloc’s rejection of the country’s expansionary draft budget will further fuel a euroskeptic wave across the Continent before elections for a new European Parliament in May.
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• From the center to the fringes in Germany.
In a state election in Hesse, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats have emerged as the leading vote recipients, but did not do so unscathed.
Voters punished Ms. Merkel’s conservatives and their coalition partners in the national government for infighting since they took power in March. Parties on the left and right gained ground, meanwhile, repeating an outcome seen two weeks ago in the southern state of Bavaria. Above, members of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party celebrating after the election on Sunday.
The vote was seen as yet another barometer of Ms. Merkel and her party’s standing just six weeks before a party congress. Analysts said that strong showings by fringe parties in Hesse could reverberate in Berlin and potentially cause the collapse of Ms. Merkel’s government.
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• Global challenges to the Catholic Church.
After a nearly monthlong international gathering at the Vatican, Roman Catholic bishops on Saturday presented a document to Pope Francis, above center, calling for a more inclusive role for women in church decision-making and greater participation of young people.
The appeal followed protests this month and a petition with more than 9,000 signatures asking that female religious superiors at the assembly, known as the Synod of Bishops, be allowed to “vote as equals alongside their brothers in Christ.”
Separately, the U. N. Committee Against Torture has agreed to hear allegations of systematic human rights violations from Elizabeth Coppin, 69, who says she endured years of abuse by nuns as a child in Ireland’s notorious industrial schools and Magdalene laundries.
And the U. S. Department of Justice has sent requests to every Roman Catholic diocese in the nation to retain documents related to the handling of child sexual abuse, suggesting that federal investigators are casting a wide net.
• #MeToo in Britain: The country’s privacy laws are under scrutiny after a lawmaker used his parliamentary privilege to reveal that Sir Philip Green, above, the British billionaire and Topshop owner, had been accused of sexual misconduct.
• IBM, seeking an edge in cloud computing, is acquiring Red Hat, the largest distributor of the popular open-source operating system Linux, for $34 billion.
• Coming this week: New figures on growth in the eurozone, third-quarter earnings at Apple and Facebook and a turnaround plan at General Electric.
• Disappointing earnings reports from the tech giants Amazon and Alphabet on Friday helped drag the benchmark S. & P. 500 stock market index briefly into a correction. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.
• The Thai billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, above, was killed Saturday night when his helicopter crashed outside the stadium of his Leicester City soccer team. The soccer club said no one on board survived. [ The New York Times]
• A passenger plane flying over Indonesia with 189 people on board crashed into the sea on Monday. [ The New York Times]
• Uighur Muslims who have managed to escape China’s omnipresent surveillance and arbitrary detentions in the western region of Xinjiang face increasing threats of being sent back from countries like Sweden. [ The New York Times]
• Saudi Arabia rejected requests for a Turkish trial for suspects in the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and denounced international outrage over the episode as “fairly hysterical.” [ The New York Times]
• In Greece, the decade-long financial crisis has left no profession unscathed, but it has been especially brutal on the sex trade. [ The New York Times]
• Ireland re-elected its leftist president, Michael D. Higgins, despite a late surge by a former reality television star whose support grew after he criticized an ethnic minority group. [ The New York Times]
Tips for a more fulfilling life.
• Want to help the environment and save some money at the same time? Be careful about the pet food you buy .
• Let’s talk about crying at work .
• Recipe of the day: Start the week with a comforting recipe for squash and wild mushroom curry .
• The uniquely savory, salty licorice that Finland just can’t quit: salmiakki, above.
• Can Bruno Latour, the post-truth philosopher who has spent decades deconstructing the ways that scientists claim their authority, help them regain that authority today?
• The Boston Red Sox defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the World Series, capping a dominant season with their fourth title in 15 years.
• In memoriam: Gilberto Benetton, 77, who drove the expansion of his family’s Italian clothing business into infrastructure, real estate and more.

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