North America

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.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — During the first minutes of Oct. 25 when Hurricane Otis roared into Acapulco Bay with 165 mph winds, sailor Ruben Torres recorded a 10-second audio message from a yacht called the Sereno.

“All things considered I’m alright, but it’s really horrible, it’s really horrible, it’s really horrible,” he said over the howling wind and the boat’s beeping alarms. “Family, I don’t want to exaggerate, but pray for us because it’s really awful out here.”

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Hundreds of demonstrators, from anti-capitalists to pro-Palestinian advocates, gathered in San Francisco on Sunday on the eve of an APEC summit to protest against the world bloc.

The protestors marched through the US city demanding participants in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum put people and planet above business.

“APEC is a form of neoliberal colonial government,” Nik Evasco said.

“We’re here to make sure they put people and planet front and centre of the issues they are negotiating.”

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Fledgling U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson faces his first big legislative battle this week as his tries to marshal his fractious Republican majority into supporting an unconventional plan to avert a partial government shutdown beginning on Saturday.

Some House Republican hardliners were already pushing back at Johnson's proposal for a two-step stopgap bill that would not otherwise cut spending, a "clean" bill of the kind that led to the historic ouster of Johnson's predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.