Today is Oct. 26, 2023, and here’s what you need to know:

The three Republican members of Colorado’s House delegation voted to hand U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson the speaker’s gavel on Wednesday, ending a stalemate that left the chamber paralyzed for three weeks amid deep divisions within its GOP majority.

The 51-year-old Louisianan won election to the position on a 220-209, party-line vote. He was the Republicans’ fourth speaker nominee since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by a group of GOP lawmakers at the beginning of the month.

“I believe Mike will finally unite our party by securing our borders, passing 12 individual appropriations bills, and holding the Biden Administration accountable,” tweeted U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Silt Republican, late on Tuesday after her party nominated the four-term lawmaker for the House’s top job.

A jury will decide whether two Denver police officers are liable for unlawful arrest, excessive force and malicious prosecution after a federal judge last month found it possible the defendants arrested a man for an assault that never happened.

Aaron Hernandez was sitting in a vehicle with his son in a church parking lot when officers detained them, having learned someone in the car had an arrest warrant. Although Hernandez remained in the vehicle for a time, he stepped out, causing officers to grab him and take him to the ground.

The officers then struck Hernandez, shattering a bone near his eye.

The defendants claimed they were entitled to qualified immunity, which generally shields government employees from civil liability unless they violate a person’s clearly established legal rights. Because Hernandez assaulted Officers Jayme R. Larson and Vance Johnson in the scuffle, lawyers for the city contended, the defendants did not violate Hernandez’s rights by subduing and arresting him.

Donald Trump was abruptly called to the witness stand and then fined $10,000 on Wednesday after the judge in his civil fraud trial said the former president had violated a gag order. It was the second time in less than a week that Trump was penalized for his out-of-court comments.

Before imposing the latest fine, Judge Arthur Engoron summoned Trump from the defense table to testify about his comment to reporters hours earlier about “a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside” the judge.

Engoron had already ordered all participants in the trial not to comment publicly about his staff. That restriction from Oct. 3 followed a Trump social media post that maligned the judge’s principal law clerk, who sits next to him.

Trump and his lawyers insisted that his comment Wednesday was not about the clerk. They said he was referring to Michael Cohen, a former Trump attorney who had been testifying.

Editor’s note: Columnist Eric Sondermann offers this take on the House speaker saga unfolding in Congress:

Republicans, in fast becoming the party of the lowest common denominator, went shopping in their ranks for someone, anyone, they could all tolerate to sit at the front of the room and swing the gavel. Even the mannequins were starting to look attractive.

Enter Louisiana’s Mike Johnson. If you had not heard of him 24 hours ago, that doesn’t make you uninformed. Political junkies and keen observers were furiously consulting their almanacs, now known as Wikipedia.

For the past decade or longer, Republicans have been consumed with a rebrand to become the party of the common man. Goodbye, Wall Street; hello, Main Street.

Most people know Kevin Costner as an Academy Award-winning actor who has starred in movies like “Bull Durham,” “Dances with Wolves,” “The Bodyguard,” and “Field of Dreams.”

And for television’s popular “Yellowstone.”

But how many of us knew the guy can also sing?

Early in his career, Costner toyed with the idea of putting acting on the back burner and pursuing his love of music, instead. He formed a band, Roving Boy, with two musician friends and gigged until the big acting roles rolled in and its demands caused him to make music a private pastime.