How to Connect to a Public API and Retrieve Data in Python?

I want to connect to a public API (for example, the OpenWeatherMap API) and retrieve weather data in Python. However, I'm not sure how to make HTTP requests and handle the response. Here's what I've tried so far.

import requests

api_url = 'http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=London&appid=YOUR_API_KEY'
response = requests.get(api_url)
weather_data = response.json()
print(weather_data)

I replaced 'YOUR_API_KEY' with my actual API key. What is the correct way to send a request and parse the response?