In the news

■ Robb Kulin, 34, who grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, became the first person in 50 years to quit NASA’s astronaut training program, resigning for undisclosed reasons halfway through his two-year training program at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

■ Quordiniah Lockley, the new mayor of McComb, Miss., ordered city employees, including the police and fire chiefs, and other elected officials not to talk to the news media after inquiries were made about traffic tickets issued to a city selectman, saying if reporters want to know something, “you see me.”

■ Daniel Johnson, 26, who a year ago donated a kidney to his father, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, 58, got a bear hug from his father after being sworn in as a rookie officer in the department led by his father, who called it “one of the most special days” of his life.

■ Julia Flores Colque of Sacaba, Bolivia, believed to be the world’s oldest person at nearly 118, has a national identity card that says she was born on Oct. 26, 1900, and still sings in her indigenous Quechua tongue and strums the five strings of a tiny Andean charango guitar. ■ Patrick McGrath, 73, bishop for the Catholic Diocese of San Jose, Calif., acknowledged that he “erred in judgment” and won’t live in a $2.3 million home that the diocese bought for his retirement after concerns were raised given the church’s mission of serving the poor. ■ Joni Ernst, 48, an Iowa Republican elected to the U.S. Senate in 2014, is divorcing her husband, Gail, with a spokesman saying the couple “remain committed to their children and their family and ask for respect for their privacy during this difficult time.”

■ Leia Pierce of Denver said her 9-year-old son, fourth-grader Jamel Myles, committed suicide because he was being bullied by other students after he came out as gay over the summer.

■ Travis Watson, a bee expert, wore a triple-layer suit and sting-proof gloves to dispose of European hornets that had built a nest that stretched from the ceiling down to the driver’s seat in an old Chevrolet El Camino in Alliance, Ohio.

■ Patrick Cullen, a Utah firefighter who came across a young, thirsty German shepherd as he fought wildfires in Mendocino County, Calif., couldn’t get the dog off his mind and tracked it down at an animal shelter, where its owners couldn’t be found and Cullen adopted it.