Mark Memmott

An experimental aircraft that designers hoped would hit 3,600 mph in a test flight over the Pacific on Tuesday "suffered a control failure" and failed in its attempt to go hypersonic, The Associated Press writes.

Its report follows earlier word from Wired magazine's Danger Room blog that it had been told by an "insider familiar with the test" that:

The first excerpts are out from journalist Joe Posnanski's upcoming biography of former Penn State head football Joe Paterno.

Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles, where the entire staff was temporarily replaced last February after two teachers were accused of lewd conduct with students, opened for the 2012-13 school year on Tuesday with most of the instructors who had been displaced back in the classrooms.

There was no change in the consumer price index last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

It's the second month in a row that the index was flat — a sign that inflation remained in check for the first half or so of summer. Whether that trend will continue, however, is uncertain.

By telling a racially mixed audience in Virginia on Tuesday that the Republican ticket's economic plans would "put y'all back in chains," Vice President Biden sparked the latest campaign controversy.

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney called it an "outrageous charge" and said called on President Obama to "take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago."

Nellie Gray, who in 1974 helped start the annual antiabortion demonstration in Washington called March for Life that attracts thousands to the nation's capital, has died. She was 88.

According to The Washington Post, "Gene Ruane, a colleague, said that he found Miss Gray dead Monday in her Capitol Hill home and that the chief medical examiner will determine the cause and date of her death."

"Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, Mr. Kotter!"

If you watched TV in the '70s, you probably recognize that line.

Suicide bombers struck in a normally peaceful area of southwestern Afghanistan today.

There was a 0.8 percent increase in retail sales in July from June, the Census Bureau says, thanks in part to gains in purchases of cars, furniture and appliances.

Overall, The Associated Press says, "all major categories showed increases, a sign that consumers may be gaining confidence." If that is indeed the case, it's good news for the economy. Consumers purchase about 70 percent of all goods and services.

We expect that most folks won't need to look up the definition. But just in case, "f-bomb" now has its own entry in the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

While a Colorado judge on Monday kept sealed most key documents in the case against Aurora movie theater shootings suspect James Holmes, the materials that have been made public do "hint at the evidence being marshaled," The Denv

The first set of cars put through a new type of safety test did poorly even though they were "luxury and near-luxury cars" that should have the latest safety technology built in, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports today.

President Obama not coincidentally chose Iowa today as the backdrop for his announcement that the federal government is buying $170 million worth of pork, chicken, lamb and catfish to help producers who've been hit hard by drought-related increases in feed costs and by soft prices because of overproduction.

The bombing that began the July 22, 2011, attacks in Oslo could have been prevented and the massacre that followed on an island outside the city could have been stopped much sooner than it was, according to a report released today by an independent commission.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- It's Deja Vu All Over Again: Campaign's Focus Returns To Iowa.

-- In Egypt, Talk Of Coups And Counter-Coups.

Sunday's sacking (or forced retirements, if you prefer) of Egypt's military chiefs by new President Mohammed Morsi has analysts scrambling to explain what it all means.

Google is eliminating about 20 percent of the jobs at Motorola Mobility, the struggling cellphone manufacturer it finished acquiring earlier this year for $12.5 billion, according to reports from The New York Times, Dow Jones' All Things Digital blog and other news outlets.

Good morning.

With Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick now in the books (if you somehow escaped the news from the weekend, it's Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin), the presidential campaign shifts into a higher gear this week.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney's choice for running mate on the 2012 Republican presidential ticket.

The official word, which began leaking overnight, came early this morning from the Romney campaign via a smartphone app and a news release.

Nearly 300 miles long and about 35 miles wide, a floating raft of pumice in the South Pacific Ocean is "the wierdest thing I've seen in 18 years at sea," says Royal Australian Navy Lt. Tim Oscar.

He was aboard the Royal New Zealand Navy's HMNZS Canterbury on Thursday when the "amphibious support ship" investigated the phenomenon.

Southern California will be broiling through the weekend, as a heat wave that has brought record-breaking temperatures continues, the Los Angeles Times says.

That's why the managers of California's power grid have issued a "flex alert" to customers.

They're asking that residents:

-- "Turn off all unnecessary lights."

"Drunk Bear Family Downs Over 100 Beers During Bear Rager."

Given our fondness for stories about pick-a-nicking bears, we couldn't resist that Gawker headline.

Saying it wants "to protect homeowners from surprises and costly mistakes by their mortgage servicers," the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today proposed new rules it believes would make the home loan process simpler and give struggling homeowners more of a chance to avoid foreclosures.

The scope of the ongoing crisis in Syria is made clear yet again by two new reports from the United Nations:

Several thousand people from across the U.S. and the world are expected in Oak Creek, Wis., today as Sikhs gather to mourn for the six people killed during Sunday's shooting rampage at a temple.