In the news

Joe Biden, the vice president, presided over a ceremonial swearing-in for new Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, the former San Antonio mayor often mentioned as a potential vice presidential nominee in 2016.

Ronal Serpas, 54, announced his retirement as New Orleans police chief four years after taking over the scandal-plagued department and will join the faculty at Loyola University's Department of Criminal Justice.

Pope Francis opened the way to a quick beatification for Oscar Romero, saying there are no more doctrinal problems blocking the process for the slain Salvadoran archbishop who is one of the heroes of the liberation theology movement in Latin America.

Rick Warren, the American evangelical pastor, said in an interview from Kigali, Rwanda's capital, that he hopes to expand his ministry to East Africa.

Don Sausser said he and his wife, Sue, will likely still leave their sliding glass door open on warm summer evenings at their 10th-story apartment in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, even after an owl flew in, apparently opened a bird cage and killed one of two canaries inside.

Scott Brown, the Republican ex-senator from Massachusetts who is now seeking a Senate seat in New Hampshire, got help on the campaign trail from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a two-time winner of New Hampshire's presidential primary.

Donovan James Webster, 55, an acclaimed journalist and author from Charlottesville, Va., was in jail in lieu of bond on charges of driving under the influence stemming from a crash that killed Wayne Thomas White, a 75-year-old Virginia man.

Steven Zelich, 52, a former police officer, pleaded innocent in Kenosha County, Wis., in the death of one of two women whose bodies were found hidden in suitcases left along a rural Wisconsin highway.

Cody Cashion, 19, of New Albany, Ind., was sentenced to 65 years in prison after pleading guilty to three murder counts for firing a flare into a home, igniting a blaze Jan. 4 that killed three young siblings, in an attempted retaliation for a purported theft by a man who wasn't there at the time.

A Section on 08/19/2014

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