NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
➊ Ricin package: A Canadian woman accused of mailing a package containing ricin to the White House included a threatening letter in which she told President Trump to “give up and remove your application for this election,” according to court papers filed Tuesday. Pascale Ferrier, of Quebec, was arrested Sunday at the U.S.Canada border and made her first court appearance Tuesday in federal court in Buffalo, N.Y. She faces a charge of threatening the president. The envelope containing the toxic substance and the threatening letter was addressed to the White House but intercepted at a mail sorting facility Friday.
➋ Tropical storm: Beta weakened to a tropical depression Tuesday as it parked itself over the Texas coast, raising concerns of extensive flooding in Houston and areas farther inland. Beta made landfall Monday as a tropical storm just north of Port O’Connor, Texas. By midmorning Tuesday, Beta had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm is expected to stall inland over Texas through Wednesday. The National Weather Service said areas south and east of Houston received 10 inches or more of rain.
➌ Kansas shooting: Authorities have identified a child killed in a triple shooting in Kansas City, Mo., as a 1yearold boy, making him the city’s youngest homicide victim this year, police said. Tyron Payton was in the back seat of a car with three other adults when someone opened fire on their vehicle Monday afternoon, police said. The child’s death is the 148th homicide this year in Kansas City. At this time last year, 114 homicides had been recorded. The Kansas City Star, which keeps data on homicides in the city, reported that 13 people who were 18 or younger have died in homicides this year, with Tyron being the youngest. All 13 died in shootings.
➍ Ranked voting: Ranked choice voting will be used for the first time in a presidential race in the U.S. under a ruling Tuesday by the Maine Supreme Court, which concluded a GOP petition drive intended to stymie its use this November came up short. The Supreme Judicial Court concluded that the Maine Republican Party failed to reach the threshold of signatures needed for a referendum aimed at rejecting a state law that expands ranked choice voting to the presidential election. Under the system, voters are allowed to rank all candidates on the ballot. If no one wins a majority of firstplace votes, then there are additional tabulations in which lastplace finishers are eliminated and votes reallocated based on secondplace choices.
➎ Shutdown averted: Ina sweeping bipartisan vote that takes a government shutdown off the table, the House passed a temporary governmentwide funding bill Tuesday night, shortly after President Trump prevailed in a behindthescenes fight over his farm bailout. The stopgap measure will keep federal agencies fully up and running into December. The final agreement gives the administration continued immediate authority to dole out Agriculture Department subsidies. In return, Speaker Nancy Pelosi won COVIDrelated food aid for the poor.