Mark Memmott

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.

"Three U.S. Forces-Afghanistan service members died following an attack by an individual wearing an Afghan uniform in southwest Afghanistan today," according to a statement from the International Security Assistance Force - Afghanistan.

Well, tracking changes to prominent politicians' Wikipedia pages had been one way of trying to get advance notice of Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick.

Out of the horror of Sunday's shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., has come a window into "the sunshine of their minds," India's ambassador to the U.S. says about faithful Sikhs.

As several news outlets had predicted last month would happen, Google is going to pay $22.5 million — the largest civil penalty the Federal Trade Commission has ever levied — to settle charges that it wasn't straight with users of Apple's Safari browser about how it would track their Web surfing.

Ten men who said they are Iranians were rescued Wednesday from a burning vessel in the Gulf of Oman by the crew of the USS James E. Williams, a guided-missile destroyer, the U.S. Navy says.

According to the Navy, "the vessel was flying an Iranian flag. The mariners ... are being well cared for, receiving medical treatment and awaiting transport to aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, which is coordinating the repatriation efforts."

George Zimmerman, the man charged with second-degree murder in the death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, is going to ask for a "stand your ground" court hearing in an attempt to have the case against him dismissed without ever going to trial.

There's word from the wife of first-man-on-the-moon Neil Armstrong that he's "doing great" after cardiac bypass surgery on Tuesday, NBC News reports.

And that's good, tweets second-man-on-the-moon Buzz Aldrin, because he and Armstrong have "agreed to make it [to] the 50th Apollo Anniv in 2019."

Armstrong turned 82 on Sunday.

There were 361,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, the Employment and Training Administration says. That's down 6,000 from the week before (that previous week's total was revised up by 2,000).

Claims have stayed in a range between 350,000 and 400,000 all year. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, has also varied little: it's low this year has been 8.1 percent and the high has been 8.3 percent.

The numbers keep rising in the Philippines, where monsoons have overwhelmed Manila and other areas.

According to the country's disaster response agency

-- The number of people affected by the devastating rains, flooding and landslides has grown to 2.1 million, up from 1.2 million on Wednesday.

As Syrian President Bashar Assad today chose a replacement for the prime minister who defected earlier this week, there were conflicting reports about just what's happening in the key northern city of Aleppo.

As we said two weeks ago, China's state-controlled media had already concluded that Gu Kailai was guilty of murder even before any sort of a trial.

Today in central China the wife of once-prominent politician Bo Xilai got her day in court.

Literally.

Wade Michael Page, the man authorities say killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Sunday, appears to have "died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head," FBI Special Agent in Charge Teresa Carlson told reporters in Milwaukee this morning.

After a Oak Creek, Wis., police officer shot Page in the stomach, she said, video from the scene appears to show Page taking his own life.

Sunday's attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, which left six people and the gunman dead, has for many of us opened a window on a religion, a culture and a people we know little about.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- Flooding In Philippines Forces 400,000 To Evacuate; 16 Deaths Reported.

-- Situation In Sinai Is 'Extremely Dangerous' As Egypt Moves Against Militants.

Other news:

The scope of the flooding in Manila and other parts of the Philippines due to torrential rains in recent days is daunting.

According to the country's disaster response agency:

-- 1.2 million people are in affected areas.

-- Nearly 400,000 have fled to evacuation centers or homes of friends or relatives.

-- At least 16 deaths have been attributed to flooding or landslides.

The news that Egypt's military has attacked groups of what it says are "Islamist militants" in the Sinai with missiles from aircraft and shells fired from tanks underscores how "extremely dangerous" the situation has quickly become along that nation's border with Israel, NPR's Leila Fadel said earlier today on Morning Edition.

After the July 20 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., there were calls to focus as much or more on the victims and their stories as on the gunman.