In the news

■ Thomas Gibbs and Charles Stout III, accused of damaging and defacing the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tenn., and placing bacon around an entrance, were received with open arms and smiles after apologizing to the center’s members.

■ Jarod Calkins, 41, a Michigan judge, has been charged with four counts of hiring women for the purpose of prostitution and one count of transporting a person for prostitution after police uncovered evidence that a man matching the judge’s description was paying women for sex at a hotel.

■ Alan Gross, now 67, who has been fascinated by airships since he was 13, is donating 100 boxes of rare toys, books, photos and videos documenting the history of lighter-than-air flight from his memorabilia collection to the University of Akron in Ohio.

■ Kaylee Muthart, 20, has vowed to stay clear of drugs, saying she was high on methamphetamine and believed the world would end if she did not sacrifice her eyeballs when she gouged them out near a South Carolina church.

■ Phillip Burns, a middle school band director in Alabama, faces a charge of soliciting sex with a student and has been placed on administrative leave after being accused of engaging in a sexually explicit conversation with a student via a social messaging app.

■ Nes Levotch, director of an emergency management agency in Tennessee, said a worker who was cleaning a silo at a hardwood flooring plant died when the silo collapsed and caused 30 feet of sawdust to fall on him.

■ A.J. Stivers won the right to push the ceremonial plunger that started a controlled implosion of the tallest building in Frankfort, Ky., when he bid $15,000 in an eBay auction started by Gov. Matt Bevin, with all proceeds benefiting a charity for the state’s foster children.

■ January Neatherlin, 32, former owner of an illegal day care operation, was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison after police found that she had been drugging the children in her care with melatonin and leaving them alone to run errands, which included tanning and going to the gym.

■ David Fee, president of the Smoky Mountain Opry Theater in Tennessee, said employee Josh Ellis, 38, died after being found unconscious due to a carbon dioxide leak at the venue stemming from a valve left open on a machine that uses the gas to create fog.