• Rahul Gandhi, 47 -- whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather all served as prime minister of India -- took over from his mother, Sonia Gandhi, as head of the Congress party, which has been the main opposition party since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in 2014.
• Jesse Berube, 32, faces one count of burglary after police in Citrus Heights, Calif., said he tried to break into a business by sliding down the chimney but became stuck and had to call 911 to be extracted.
• Ruben Kihuen, a first-term Democratic U.S. representative for Nevada, denied sexual harassment allegations made by a former campaign aide and a lobbyist but said the claims would be a distraction, so he won't seek re-election.
• John Alexander, who had been forced to resign from Australia's Parliament because of a ban on dual citizens, won re-election to his Sydney-area seat after he renounced the British citizenship he inherited from his father.
• Traci Lynn Martin of Kansas City, Mo., called off her attempt to kayak around all five Great Lakes after traveling 3,582 miles and completing lakes Superior, Huron and Michigan, saying that ice and consistently freezing weather made the journey unsafe.
• Gregory Kennedy, a history teacher and coach accused of sending inappropriate text messages to a student, was fired from North Panola High School in Mississippi after he was charged with enticing a child, officials said.
• Terry Gann, an investigator with the Yazoo County, Miss., sheriff's office, said detectives now believe that what at first appeared to be the scene of a fatal all-terrain vehicle accident was faked, and that a man found dead near an overturned ATV was likely killed somewhere else.
• Jim Boyer, 63, and his son, Keith Boyer, 32, face theft, corpse abuse and evidence-tampering charges in the suspected overdose death of a Middletown, Ohio, mother, after officials said the men took money from the woman and left her to die in front of her nine children, inspiring police to seek donations for the five girls and four boys, ages 1-14.
• Molly Deese, general manager of Wild Adventures Theme Park in Valdosta, Ga., said the park is constantly working to improve guest experiences, including by giving free admission to the first 100 people to try roasted crickets that will be sold in a new insect-themed exhibit.
A Section on 12/17/2017