• John Michael Farren, 61, a former White House lawyer in both Bush administrations, was convicted of attempted murder and other charges in the beating of his wife with a flashlight at their New Canaan, Conn., home in January 2010.
• Jackson Ault, a Santa Fe, N.M., chef, found a 20-pound, brown-and-yellow python slithering across the engine block of a stalled pickup of a woman whom he stopped to help.
• Deryke Matthew Pfeifer of Ozark, Ala., is in jail on a charge of threatening President Barack Obama, accused of making phone calls to the Federal Protective Service and using Facebook, including one video of himself holding a Glock pistol, to threaten Obama.
• Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican seeking a U.S. Senate seat, was to record the Republicans' national radio address before taking a break from campaigning to participate in active-duty training for the Iowa National Guard, in which she is a lieutenant colonel.
• Curtis Reeves Jr., 71, a former Florida police captain who is accused in the January fatal movie theater shooting of Chad Oulson, 43, over the victim's apparent refusal to stop texting, was released on $150,000 bond.
• Ryutaro Nonomura, 47, a Japanese politician who in a video viewed widely online was seen sobbing over dubious spending on a number of trips he took to a hot spring, resigned while his legislative assembly decided to pursue criminal charges against him.
• Joshua Dole, the Schuyler County, Mo., sheriff, was jailed on charges of witness tampering, accused of threatening to fire deputies if they cooperated in an investigation into allegations he illegally took inmates to bars and had them do work at his home.
• U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, 58, an Ohio Republican who had been viewed as a possible vice presidential candidate in past elections, said he "would not foreclose looking at running" for president in 2016, while speaking at a breakfast in Washington.
• Colin Zborowski, 28, and Daniel Lubach, 27, were arrested on suspicion of smoking heroin inside a Chuck E. Cheese's bathroom in Costa Mesa, Calif.
• Sgt. Gary Carter of the Arlington, Texas, police, who chose not to shoot a pit bull named Jeffrey that acted aggressively toward passers-by, has adopted the dog, which he renamed Chance after saving the dog from the city pound.
A Section on 07/12/2014