Police say the women first struck one of the security barriers near the White House. Then Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier says the woman sped off toward the Capitol building with police close behind. 

 

“This was a lengthy pursuit. There were multiple vehicles that were rammed. There were officers that were struck, and two security perimeters that were attempted to be breached.” 

 

When the woman backed into a police car near the Capitol, Lanier says officers began shooting to try to stop her. She managed to get away but then crashed her car at a nearby security barrier. Officers there opened fire and she was pronounced dead at the scene. The child who was with the woman was not hurt and is in protective custody. Craig Windham, NPR News, Washington. 

 

Congress is at a standstill and still there is no end in sight to the government shutdown. As NPR's Tamara Keith reports, the House spent the day taking votes on bills the Senate has already said it will reject. 

 

First it was World War II veterans not being able to get into monuments, then children with cancer being turned away from clinic trials at the National Institutes of Health. House Republicans donned white lab coats to press the Senate to take up a bill to reopen NIH. Renee Ellmers is a North Carolina Republican, who was a nurse before entering Congress. 

 

“We have taken that hope away, and we need to replace it, and I say to Harry Reid in the Senate: Bring this up for a vote.” 

 

Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, says he doesn't plan to. The solution to all of the awful effects of the government shutdown, he says, is to reopen the government. House Republicans are still insisting on changes to the Affordable Care Act as a condition to passing a government funding bill. Tamara Keith, NPR News, the Capitol. 

 

Undocumented immigrants living in the state of California may be able to get a driver's license despite their status under a measure signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. The move (is) the latest in a string of recent victories for immigrants living in the country's most populous state. José Gomez is a Los Angeles archbishop. 

 

“It will make it easier for them to get to work, to go to school, to go to the store, to get to church. This bill will make our families, our communities, our economy stronger.”

 

The bill, which had cleared both the Senate and the California Assembly, is expected to result in a wave of applications -- possibly as many as 1.4 million over the next three years. 

 

Federal Emergency Management Agency announced dates recalling some of its employees furloughed by the government shutdown as the US Gulf Coast braces with Tropical Storm Karen. The storm, which formed in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, is expected to make landfall somewhere between the Florida Panhandle and Louisiana. 

 

On Wall Street today, the Dow was down 136 points, the NASDAQ fell 40 points. This is NPR. 

 

International inspectors in Syria say they’ve made encouraging progress as they get to work on dismantling that country's chemical weapons. The joint team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations say documents handed over by Syria's government look promising. They say further analysis be needed. Inspectors in the statement said they hope (to) begin physical on-site inspections and initial disabling of equipment by next week. Inspectors arrived in Syria earlier this week. 

 

National security experts say the US needs to do more to counter propaganda from the terrorist group al-Shabaab. The group carried out last month's deadly attack at the Westgate mall in Nairobi, where many Westerners were wounded and killed. NPR's Carrie Johnson reports there’s still no sign al-Shabaab is targeting American soil. 

 

Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee repeatedly asked witnesses if al-Shabaab had the capacity to mount brutal attacks on the US homeland. The consensus seem to be “no” for now. But Richard Downie of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says a leader of the group, Amid Katani, has been ruthless of late. 

 

“Just in the last few months, he seems to have three assassinations and other disappearances of potential rivals. Some of who disagreed with his methods has consolidated his power.” 

 

Al-Shabaab has attracted dozens of young men to travel from the US to fight in Africa. That remains a top concern for the FBI and intelligence officials. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington. 

 

You might want to check the surge protectors in your home, not to necessarily see whether they are working, but to check where they come from. The government is recalling APC-branded models made in either China or the Philippines because of overheating. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says in 55 cases there was property damage.