The week at a glance...United States

Billings, Mont.

Apology for racist email: Richard Cebull, the chief U.S. District Court judge in Montana, faced calls for his resignation this week after he acknowledged forwarding an offensive email about President Obama. Cebull admitted he used his courthouse computer to forward a joke that began, according to CNN.com, with a boy asking his mother “Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?” The mother replies, “Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!” Cebull forwarded the joke to friends, with a personal message, “Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.” The judge, who apologized in writing to the president, admitted that he displayed “very poor judgment,” but claimed his motivations were not racist but “anti-Obama.” Common Cause and other advocacy groups, along with some lawmakers and editorial boards, have called for Cebull to resign.

Minneapolis

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Anti-bullying reform: The state’s largest school district agreed this week to a sweeping new plan designed to prevent anti-gay bullying. After years of complaints and a spate of student suicides, the sprawling Anoka-Hennepin district, north of Minneapolis, approved a legal agreement with the federal government, which had been investigating the district for civil-rights violations. Under the new plan, the district will abandon its emphasis on neutrality, which called for teachers not to intervene in issues involving sexual orientation. Schools will now actively seek to prevent, detect, and punish gay or gender-based bullying. Conservative Christian parents in the district called the agreement a “travesty.” Making schools safe for “gay” kids “means indoctrinating impressionable, young minds with homosexual propaganda,” said Laurie Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Parents Action League.

New York City

‘Mommy Madam’ busted: An upstate New York mother of four was charged this week with running a brothel for wealthy johns out of an apartment on Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side. Anna Gristina, 44, spent her days tending her children and pets on 200 acres in Monroe, N.Y., while operating a prostitution service by phone and computer, police charge. Gristina, police say, was an experienced madam, with 15 years in the business, who matched Penthouse and Playboy models with clients who “were all millionaires except two billionaires,” said a source—“hedge funders, CEOs, and real estate moguls.” She lived on a secluded dirt road in Orange County, about 50 miles from the city, with her third husband, Kelvin Gorr, 38, their 9-year-old son, and Gristina’s three other children. “You would never know she had another business,” said a source. “She was honestly just a mom.”

New York City

Alleged hackers charged: Five men said to be associated with the notorious computer hacker collective Anonymous were arrested this week, after a trusted colleague turned over leads and evidence to the FBI, according to federal officials. Prosecutors said the five men—two from Britain, two from Ireland, and one from Chicago—were charged in connection with a series of cyberattacks in which hackers stole confidential information from U.S. companies and shut down government websites. “This is the most important roll-up of hackers ever,” said Richard Stiennon, a cybersecurity analyst. The arrests have injected “distrust into Anonymous,” he said. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who has promised more arrests, said the hacker gang “waged a deliberate campaign of online destruction, intimidation, and criminality.”

Kentucky, Indiana, Alabama, Ohio, Georgia

Deadly twisters: At least 41 people were killed in storms and tornadoes that tore through the Midwest last week, splintering homes and tossing vehicles in a wave of destruction that is expected to top $2 billion in damages. The hardest-hit states were Kentucky, where the death toll reached 23, and Indiana, where 13 died. Among the dead was Angel Babcock, a 15-month-old who was found alive in an Indiana field, near the lifeless bodies of her parents and siblings. The girl succumbed to her injuries two days later. In Henryville, Ind., Stephanie Decker, 37, saved her two children from a tornado that destroyed her home, but she lost her legs when the house collapsed around them. “Beams, pillars, furniture—everything was just slamming into my back, but I had my children and the blanket, and I was on top of them,” Decker said.

Potrero, Calif.

Woman killed by cannonball: A 38-year-old mother was struck and killed by cannon fire in her mobile home this week, while her 4-year-old slept safely just feet away. Richard Fox, 39, a handyman and explosives enthusiast, was arrested for negligence, said California fire authorities. He and a friend were outdoors loading a homemade cannon with fireworks powder when an accidental blast sent shrapnel ripping through the trailer where his girlfriend and their daughter lived. Fox, who had been drinking, was treated at a local hospital for burns, police said. The couple, who had been together for 11 years, lived in the trailer in rural eastern San Diego County for the past several years. Fox’s brother Jerry told a reporter that he received an anguished call after the blast. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it should have been me,” Richard said, according to his brother.