In the news

■ James Howard, 38, of Glendale, Calif., was charged with battery, elder abuse and committing a hate crime after an investigation of reports that a shirtless jogger was “spitting on random people outdoors, primarily for not wearing a face mask,” according to a police statement.

■ Hubbard Bell, 32, a former Mesa Airlines employee from Houston, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for using airline employees’ personal information to manufacture and sell fraudulent airline-employee ID cards to gain free flight privileges on Spirit Airlines, according to U.S. attorneys.

■ Lindsey Graham,a U.S. senator from South Carolina, was heckled at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport by a crowd that called him a “traitor” after he urged other Republican senators last week to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory following riots at the U.S. Capitol.

■ Stefan Lofven, the prime minister of Sweden, defended his visit to a mall to buy a Christmas gift for his wife even though his government had urged people to stay away from shopping centers to help curb spread of the coronavirus, saying he limited his trips and practiced social distancing.

■ Maria Eugenia Maldonado Vite, an archaeologist with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, said the 6-foottall statue of a female figure found by farmers digging in a citrus grove is more likely to represent an elite woman than a goddess.

■ Nicholas Yatromanolakis, 44, is Greece’s first openly gay Cabinet minister after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis named him the new deputy minister of culture, promoting him from his position as the ministry’s general secretary.

■ Dennis Frakes, 68, a former school bus driver in Carl Junction, Mo., was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree statutory sodomy for having sexual contact with a female student.

■ Rochelle Riley, 41, and Brock Manuel, 27, of Jeff Davis Parish, La., were arrested and charged with criminal abandonment after the couple’s 3-year-old child was found walking alone in the middle of a road, according to authorities.

■ Jeffrey Jagielski, the deputy police chief in Southfield, Mich., said the 20-year-old sibling of an 8-year-old girl was taken into custody but no charges have been filed after the child was shot in the head and is in critical condition following surgery.