At least eight people were killed over the weekend after several tornadoes touched down and flooding ensued across Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Georgia.

According to ABC News, the tornadoes and flooding killed at least eight people – including 3 children – left dozens injured and essentially flattened one Texas town.

According to AccuWeather, the deadly storm system spawned “dozens of tornadoes” across the southern states. 

The National Weather Service reports that an EF-3 tornado touched down in Franklin, Texas, 125 miles away from Dallas. According to Franklin authorities, the tornado nearly flattened the town, destroying “55 homes, a church, four businesses, a duplex and part of the local housing authority building,” ABC News reports. 

An EF-2 tornado is reported to have touched down in Hamilton, TX where 19 people were taken to the hospital for treatment. 

Another tornado in Mississippi took the life of 95-year-old Roy Ratliff, after the twister struck his trailer. An additional 19 people – including two in critical condition – were taken to the hospital for treatment due to tornado-related injuries. 

According to ABC News, one man, 72-year-old Robert Scott, says he fell asleep in his recliner chair late Saturday and woke up to find that he was in his yard. Scott’s house had been torn apart by a tornado….

Just in time for Easter, the newly restored Scala Sancta or Holy Stairs – which were said to be walked by Jesus just before Pontius Pilate sentenced him to death – were revealed in Rome on Thursday.

According to ABC News, the staircase is believed to have been moved from Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem to Rome by Emperor Constantine’s mother St. Helena, after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.

Housed in a building containing part of the old papal Lateran Palace, the Scala Sancta has been a Holy site that pilgrims have travelled to see, walk up and pray upon, since the Middle Ages. 

According to ABC News, for the last 300 years, the marble stairs have been covered with wood in order to protect them, but for the next two months, the newly restored marble stairs will be free from their wood covering so that pilgrims can ascend the barren stairs while in prayer on their knees.

According to the Musei Vaticani, Jesus’ blood is said to have fallen on the staircase causing them to evoke intense emotions from those who come to visit the holy site.

A statement from the museum noted that until Pentecost on June 9, the stairs will be free of their coverings for the first time since 1723, so that pilgrims can once again see the “Three medieval crosses, set into the marble to commemorate” Jesus’ walk up the…

Ninety-four clinic workers have sought help leaving the abortion industry after seeing the movie Unplanned, according to CBN News. 

“One percent of the abortion workers in the United States, after getting one look at them being portrayed on film,” Director Chuck Konzelman said during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, “have decided to change their lives…and what they do for a living.”

These clinic workers approached former Planned Parenthood executive Abby Johnson’s nonprofit, And Then There Were None, which helps workers exit the industry safely. The nonprofit employs former clinic workers to “end abortion from the inside out.” So far, ATTWN has helped almost 500 workers exit the industry and seek healing.

Konzelman visited Capitol Hill over Twitter’s alleged censorship of Unplanned’s account. It was temporarily suspended on the movie’s opening weekend in late March. Twitter claims it was an accident.

The Pure Flix movie, Unplanned, shares Abby Johnson’s radical transformation, from rising in the ranks of Planned Parenthood to joining the pro-life movement after watching a doctor perform an abortion via ultrasound.

Ashley Bratcher, the lead actress who portrays Abby Johnson, had a personal connection to the film. Shortly after accepting the role, her mother…

In a new survey looking at Americans’ religious identity, “No Religion” earned the most survey votes.

The analysis of the General Social Survey from Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist pastor, found that 23.1 percent of Americans claim no religious affiliation.

23 percent of survey participants identified as Catholic and 22.5 percent said they were evangelicals. According to CNN Some 2,000 people were interviewed as part of the survey.

The 2018 GSS was just released and there’s some big news. Those of “no religion” (23.1%) are statistically the same size as evangelicals (22.8%). There was also a small resurgence of mainline Protestants, while Catholics are down 3% in the last four years. pic.twitter.com/uiyDSe7M6f

— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) March 20, 2019

“It is the first time we have seen this. The same questions have been asked for 44 years,” Burge told CNN.

The Washington Post reports that in 1972, only 5 percent of survey takers did not assign themselves a religion and since 1991, the number of people saying they do not have a religion has grown by 266 percent.

“Religious nones,” or people who do not claim a religious affiliation, are defined as people who are atheists, agnostics and or “spiritual.”

Burge says he estimates that in four to five years, religious nones will make up the…

On Monday afternoon, a massive fire engulfed Paris’ famous Notre Dame cathedral.

Photos and videos posted to social media of the fire show large flames and black smoke ascending from the roof of the 12^thcentury church.

First photos/videos emerge on social media #NotreDame

MORE: https://t.co/OmXn0Zm5j4pic.twitter.com/QZdG5XOUaD

— RT (@RT_com) April 15, 2019

CNBC reports that Notre Dame – Paris’ most visited attraction site – attracts around 12 million visitors each year, with the Easter season being one of its busiest times, but so far, no injuries have been reported.

According to Fox News, at the time of this writing firefighters are working on controlling to the fire and the area surrounding the cathedral has been cleared.

The cause of the fire is not yet known, but Fox News reports that a source told them the fire was related to the $6.8 million construction and restoration project the cathedral was undergoing. According to Fox News, several parts of the cathedral were under scaffolding. Fortunately, several bronze statues were removed from the church sometime last week due to the restoration.

The mayor of Paris confirmed the fire in a Tweet around 2:20 PM CET on Monday. She wrote in French, “A terrible fire is underway at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. They @PompiersParis are trying to control the flames. We are mobilized on site in close connection with…

More than 100 Chinese police officers and SWAT team members closed a newly constructed church and beat dozens of Christians who were guarding it, and then buried Bibles and hymnbooks before leaving.  

The incident in Henan – China’s third largest province – took place in January and was reported by BitterWinter.org April 10. Chinese officials also seized the church’s cash and other possessions. 

“As soon as they entered the church, they smashed the donation box and pocketed the money, which totaled thousands of [yuan – likely hundreds in U.S. dollars.] They also questioned us about where all of our church’s money was kept,” a church member told Bitter Winter, which monitors religious persecution in China. 

The congregation, True Jesus Church in Anping, had opened a new building in July 2018 that cost around $300,000 U.S. But the Chinese accused the congregation of being in contact with foreign governments. The Chinese plan on converting the building to a nursing home, Bitter Winter reported.

Officials arrived Jan. 4 in dozens of vehicles to take over the building. When 60 or so church members barricaded the entrance with benches, more officers were called to the scene and stormed into the church. They beat the believers, leaving about 15 Christians on the floor moaning in pain. One woman who is in her 70s also was beaten, Bitter Winter…

Several thousand alumni, faculty members and supporters of an Indiana private Christian university are urging the school to rescind its speaking invitation to Vice President Mike Pence, saying the Trump administration’s policies aren’t consistent with Christian ethics.

Taylor University of Upland, Ind., announced Thursday that Pence would speak at its May 18 commencement. The school’s president, Paul Lowell Haines, said in a statement Pence has “been a good friend to the University over many years” and is a “Christian brother whose life and values have exemplified what we strive to instill in our graduates.” 

Taylor University is a non-denominational private Christian school founded in 1846.

More than 3,300 alumni and supporters of the university have signed a Change.org petition protesting the invitation.

“Inviting Vice President Pence to Taylor University and giving him a coveted platform for his political views makes our alumni, faculty, staff and current students complicit in the Trump-Pence Administration’s policies, which we believe are not consistent with the Christian ethic of love we hold dear,” the petition reads.

An unidentified tenured professor at Taylor told Salon the invitation “blindsided” people.

“I immediately became angry and cynical,” the professor said, “thinking that our dear seniors were being sold out,…