An America’s Got Talent contestant, who attends a Christian college, advanced to the next round, Tuesday, after changing songs mid-performance and getting a verbal scolding from judge Simon Cowell.  

Joseph O’Brien, who studies worship and pastoral studies at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky., walked to the piano and began singing REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling” when Cowell raised his hand and told him to stop. O’Brien’s voice wasn’t as strong in the song as in his previous performance.

“You’ve got to stop this song. I’m sorry,” Cowell said.

O’Brien said his “heart was beating” and he “just wasn’t getting in the vibe.”

“I think you’re overthinking everything right now,” Cowell responded. “You have a great voice. I’m just frustrated because I didn’t like that song choice.”

O’Brien then offered: “Would it be OK if I did an original, or would that be a bad idea?”

Surprisingly, the judges allowed a re-do – a rarity on the talent show.

O’Brien crushed his original song, which was faith-based. 

In the show’s final moments, Simon and the other judges allowed O’Brien to advance to the next round – the “live shows” — in Hollywood. Fewer than half of the contestants Tuesday survived.

“You’ve got a lot of work to do, young man,” Cowell told him. “But you…

The next ice age, followed by the end of human civilization, and before that the fulfillment of Jesus Christ’s Great Commission, could be coming sooner than some suspect, Hugh Ross, a Christian astrophysicist and Old Earth creationist, has said in a recent series on his Reasons to Believe website.

In part three of his series, “The End of Civilization As We Know It?” Ross wrote on Monday that humans can only delay, but not prevent the next ice age.

While he did not offer a specific date, Ross analyzed ice age cycles, and said that humans need to realize just how favorable the conditions they live in now are compared to conditions on the planet in the past, and those coming in the future.

Ice age cycles are caused by variations in Earth’s tilt on its axis and the shape of Earth’s orbit around the sun, Ross said, and due to these, the next ice age should’ve started 5,000 years ago. But human activity, such as the additional atmospheric carbon caused by the domestication of cows and deforestation, caused global warming effects that mitigated the cooling effects. 

The additional increase in atmospheric carbon caused by the burning of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution has…

A Florida woman had her membership in a fitness club revoked after complaining about a man using the women’s locker room, a religious liberty organization says.

Liberty Counsel alleges that Planet Fitness in Leesburg, Fla., terminated the membership of a “Mrs. H.” after a man, Jordan “Ivy” Rice, invaded her privacy in the locker room.

“This is not the only incident with Mr. Rice known to Planet Fitness,” a letter to Planet Fitness read. “Another woman reported that he exposed his naked body to her in the woman’s locker room at this location. In another instance, he was involved in an argument with another woman over use of the tanning room.”

Liberty Counsel said “misogynist, anti-woman harassment should have no place in Planet Fitness locations, and violates Florida law.”

The woman is the survivor of an attempted rape, the letter said, and is “keenly aware of and sensitive to men” being in places “where they do not have a legitimate purpose, and where she and other women are in a position of vulnerability.”

“Planet Fitness must immediately reinstate Mrs. H’s membership, and make changes to its membership and locker room policies to prevent blatant sex-based harassment by males in the women’s lockers and restrooms,” the letter said.

In a press release, Liberty Counsel said the man claims to be transgender but “is…

Deputy Ross Jessop and U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer Nick Scholz anxiously set out for the evening’s mission, both fearing they’d soon be making a gruesome discovery. They were racing against time to locate a missing 5-month-old baby buried in the woods alive more than 9 hours before. Then the two heard a faint noise and began racing up the dark Montana mountainside.

It all started when Francis Crowley crashed his car while driving along a game trail in the Lolo National Forest. Crowley, who later admitted to being under the influence of both methamphetamine and bath salts, told officers different confusing versions of the crash, finally admitting that he’d left the baby behind when the child became “too heavy to carry.” He promised to direct the officers back to the crash site, but in his disoriented condition, he was unable to offer any help.

“Walking into this situation, you were mentally prepared for the worst.” Officer Scholz shared. “I remember Ross almost stepping on this little pile of sticks.”

Divine intervention had led them to that tiny, exact spot on the mountainside for a reason. When he noticed what was hidden beneath that little pile of sticks, Deputy Jessop’s fatherly instincts took over. “I abandoned any police training or any chance of saving evidence there – I didn’t care,” shared Deputy Jessop, himself a father of…