In the news

■ Sen. Cindy HydeSmith, R-Miss., caught on video praising someone by saying: “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” defended the remark after drawing criticism because of the state’s history of racially motivated lynchings, saying that “any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous.”

■ Alexander Malkevich, editor of a Russian-operated website with ties to the “troll factory” accused of interfering in the 2016 U.S. election, was reportedly detained at a Washington airport and told that his site must register in the U.S. as a foreign agent, a move that drew complaints from the Russian government.

■ Joe Perry, the 68-yearold Aerosmith guitarist, is alert and responsive after being hospitalized with breathing problems that began after a guest performance with Billy Joel in New York, publicists said. ■ Lissette Gutierrez and her wife, Shirley Figueroa, of Wallkill, N.Y., donated this year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, a 72-foottall, 12-ton Norway spruce that will serve as one of New York City’s top holiday attractions.

■ Sonia Sotomayor, a Supreme Court justice whose parents are from Puerto Rico, broke a bottle of sparkling wine across the bow of the USNS Puerto Rico at an event in Mobile, Ala., to christen the Navy’s Expeditionary Fast Transport ship.

■ Abdul-Salam Ali Gaber, who served as information minister for the rebel government in Yemen’s civil war, made his first appearance since defecting to Saudi Arabia, holding a news conference during which a Yemeni journalist hurled a shoe at him.

■ Nicholas Meriwether, a professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio, is suing school officials after receiving a written warning for not addressing a transgender student using the gender terms preferred by that student, a policy that Meriwether said contradicts his religious beliefs.

■ Emma Turner, 9, of Marble Falls, Texas, will get to make a pitch at the next American International Toy Fair after her idea for a lighted box that attracts bugs won an invention contest from the Omaha, Neb.-based retailer Fat Brain Toys.

■ Mark Hastings, coach of the Oakman High School football team in Alabama, said three players suffered back injuries and two others needed stitches after a cinder-block wall in the locker room collapsed onto them as they prepared for a game.