SENATE CONFIRMS PERDUE AS AGRICULTURE SECRETARY

The Senate on Monday confirmed former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue to be Agriculture secretary in President Trump’s administration as the farming industry looks to Washington for help amid a market downturn.

Perdue won confirmation on a vote of 87-11, as several Democrats backed a Trump nominee after razor-thin outcomes for his choices earlier this year. Perdue’s cousin, Sen. David Perdue, R- Ga., voted “present” but presided over the vote.

Sonny Perdue will be the first Southerner in the post in more than two decades. He has owned several agricultural businesses, but isn’t related to the food company Perdue or the poultry producer Perdue Farms.

ALSO ...

Arkansas executed one of two killers scheduled to die by lethal injection Monday — and attorneys claim the execution was botched, causing the inmate to gasp desperately for air as he died. A federal judge in Little Rock temporarily halted the execution of Marcel Williams after his attorneys questioned whether the night’s earlier execution of Jack Harold Jones, 52, went properly.