USA

NEW YORK (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson endorsed Donald Trump for president on Tuesday, a move that was a symbolic departure from his ousted predecessor leading the House.

Johnson, an ally and defender of the former president, said in an interview on CNBC Tuesday morning, “I have endorsed him wholeheartedly.”

He added a bit later: “I’m all in for President Trump.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Tuesday said it imposed a third round of sanctions on a group of Hamas officials, members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad who work to transfer money from Iran to Gaza, and a Lebanese money exchange service that facilitates the transfers.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Joe Biden is looking to use this week’s summit of Asia-Pacific leaders to show world leaders the United States has the gumption, attention span and money to focus on the region even as it grapples with a multitude of foreign and domestic policy crises.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Illegal border crossings from Mexico fell 14% in October from a month earlier, U.S. authorities said Tuesday, ending a three-month streak of big increases.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation in the United States slowed last month in a sign that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are continuing to cool the consumer price spikes that have bedeviled consumers for the past two years.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The last time Congress tried to fund the government to prevent a federal shutdown, it cost House Speaker Kevin McCarthy his job.

This time, new Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., appears on track for a better outcome Tuesday as the House prepares to vote on a stopgap package to keep the government running into the new year. If approved, the Senate would act next, ahead of Friday’s shutdown deadline.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Arson was the cause of a massive weekend fire that charred and indefinitely closed a vital section of a Los Angeles freeway, causing major traffic headaches for hundreds of thousands of commuters, California authorities said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said investigators were trying to determine if one person or more were involved. He gave no other details.

“I have to stress that we have determined what started the fire,” Newsom told reporters Monday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a case with potentially far-reaching press freedom implications, a federal judge in Washington is weighing whether to hold in contempt a veteran journalist who has refused to identify her sources for stories about a Chinese American scientist who was investigated by the FBI but never charged.

(AP) --- U.S. health officials are warning doctors to be on the lookout for possible cases of lead poisoning in children after at least 22 toddlers in 14 states were sickened by lead linked to tainted pouches of cinnamon apple puree and applesauce.

Children ages 1 to 3 were affected, and at least one child showed a blood lead level eight times higher than the level that raises concern, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

ETNA, Ohio (AP) — A charter bus carrying students from a high school was rear-ended by a semi-truck on an Ohio highway Tuesday, leaving three people dead and 15 others injured, according to an emergency official.

The charter bus was transporting students from a school in eastern Ohio, Licking County Emergency Management Agency Director Sean Grady said. There were a total of 57 people onboard, he said.

The accident occurred shortly before 9 a.m. on Interstate 70 West in Licking County, near the Smoke Road underpass. The cause was not immediately known.