At a rally in New York earlier this week, a Trump-supporting comedian called the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico a “floating pile of trash,” sparking such outrage that the campaign issued a rare statement denouncing the retracted comment.

In the Pacific Northwest, incendiary devices were set off at two ballot boxes, destroying hundreds of ballots.

The early morning mailbox fire in Portland, Oregon, was quickly extinguished thanks to a suppression system in the mailbox and a nearby security guard, police said. Only three ballot papers were damaged there.

But within hours, another fire was discovered in a mailbox at a transit center across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington.

In Pennsylvania, one of the most hotly contested swing states, a district attorney filed a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk and his pro-Trump Political Action Committee (or “PAC”) from giving $1 million a day to a random person registered voters donate to a US swing state.

He called the action an “illegal lottery” and also said it could jeopardize the integrity of the elections.

es/kb (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)