More than 130 members of the House signed a letter to President Trump this week urging him to maintain the ban on government funding of aborted fetal tissue research during the hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (Colo.) led the letter, which was signed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.). All total, 131 congressmen and congresswomen signed it.

The April 14  letter is, in part, a response to a March 26 letter from 15 state attorneys general asking the Trump administration to end the ban to benefit COVID-19 vaccine research.

“Research using fetal tissue has led to the development of other vaccines to combat diseases like poliovirus, rubella, measles, and rabies,” the letter from the attorneys general says.

Fetal tissue is derived from elective abortions and miscarriages.

The ban only applies to government-funded research, not to privately funded research using fetal tissue.

The 131 members of Congress say government-funded research using fetal tissue is not only unethical but also unnecessary.

“In the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, complaints against your decision to halt funding of aborted fetal tissue research has reached a crescendo,” the letter from Lamborn’s office to Trump says. “Some critics have suggested that the current policies protecting the dignity of children who met an untimely…

A new mom calls herself a “miracle walking” and gives all the credit to God after she gave birth while in a medically induced coma because of COVID-19. 

According to the Washington Post, 27-year-old Angela Primachenko was 33 weeks pregnant when she thought she had Spring allergies. Two days later she started running a fever and visited the hospital where she worked. A week later she was on a ventilator and fighting for her life. 

Primachenko, a respiratory therapist from Vancouver, Washington, woke up from the medically-induced coma on April 6^th. She told NBC’s Today Show that she “woke up and all of a sudden I didn’t have my belly anymore.” She discovered that doctors induced labor on April 1st and delivered her daughter, whom she named Ava.

She has not been able to visit her daughter. She won’t be allowed to see her until she has had two negative coronavirus tests in a row. However, she has been able to see her through video calls when her husband David visits Ava in the neonatal intensive care unit. Ava will be in the NICU until she can eat and have bowel movements on her own.

Primachenko told the Today Show that her story shows that “there’s hope” and that “even in the hardest days and the hardest times that there’s hope and you can rely on God and people and community. The amount of community and people that were praying for me is just…

Vice President Mike Pence’s daughter, Charlotte Pence-Bond, has launched a child-friendly news show to help kids understand the coronavirus pandemic.

The 26-year-old recalls being shielded from coverage of 9/11, and said that it was important there was an age-appropriate news show for little ones at such a scary time.

“I was thinking recently about what I can do to help kids feel a little more secure, a little more informed,” Pence-Bond told Fox & Friends. “I wanted to create a show that kids could have their own little news briefing and feel like they have information that they need.”

Pence-Bond said that her new show – “Littles News Briefing” – aims to “break down the news with facts” and will be available on YouTube and as a podcast through iTunes and Spotify. “I’m doing it every other day,” she said.

In the first episode, Charlotte interviewed her dad, who was appointed by President Trump to lead the Coronavirus task force and attends daily press briefings alongside the various experts. “I asked him questions about what the guidelines are but I also asked him questions that kids actually sent to me,” Pence-Bond explained.

Charlotte added that many children were sending her questions about when they would be allowed back to school, along with “when can they see their friends again,” “how the coronavirus spreads”, and “why the…

A church’s piano in Chattanooga, Tennessee was left untouched after a tornado blew through the area Sunday.

According to WKRN News, Cornerstone Apostolic Church was one of about 150 buildings in the city damaged when the EF-3 tornado hit Sunday night. Two people were killed and many were injured.

An EF-3 tornado has winds between 136 mph to 165 mph and is considered severe.

While the church was cleaning up the damage, church pastor Raymond Sloan found the piano, which had belonged to the church’s previous pastor.

“The wall in the entry had fallen and it covered everything,” the pastor said. “One of the men said we need to see what’s under this and there stood this piano.

“He sat down and started playing it and everybody in there starting singing,” he added. “No echo because the roof’s gone, but the spirit of unity.”

Sloan says he will move the piano to his dining room until the church finds a new place to worship.

“We’re still giving to the community,” he said. “As a church, we have a place set up to where we’re giving out water, food, we’ve got cleaning supplies. We’re trying to give back to the community because we have a ton of houses that are without power, needs.

“We’re praying for them, but we’re also giving slices of pizza to them or buckets of cleaning supplies or things for them to use at home. So, we’re receiving, and then we are…

JOS, Nigeria, April 16, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Six children and a pregnant woman were among nine people that Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed in north-central Nigeria Tuesday night (April 14), sources said.

About a dozen herdsmen armed with rifles and machetes raided Hura-Maiyanga village, in the Miango area of Kwall District in Plateau state’s Bassa County, shouting the jihadist slogan “Allahu Akbar [God is greater],” sources said.

“They were armed with machetes and AK-47 rifles as they attacked us,” Hanatu John, a woman who survived the attack, told Morning Star News. “They attacked our village at about 8 p.m., and they were shouting, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ as they shot into our houses.”

The assailants were speaking Fulfulde, the Fulani language, as they shot into homes, she said.

“Most families had already retired into houses to sleep when these Fulani gunmen came into the village and were shooting into houses,” John told Morning Star News in Miango town, where she took refuge. “As the herdsmen shot at us, we all ran out from our houses into the surrounding bushes. Some of the herdsmen chased after us and shot at us, while others were burning down our houses.”

Dalyop Solomon Mwantiri, director of the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria (ECCVN), confirmed the attack.

“Hura hamlet of Maiyanga village in Kwall District, Miango…

A New Mexico megachurch says that the state is violating its First Amendment rights with its COVID-19 social-distancing restrictions and is challenging the order in court. 

Steve Smothermon, lead pastor of Legacy Church, which draws about 20,000 people to its four Albuquerque area campuses, told KRQE he questions the timing of an order by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declaring churches were no longer “essential,” meaning they must adhere to a five-person limit for gatherings.

“Really what I consider a very egregious act on her part that at 5 o’clock on Saturday she puts out this new order for churches, basically not making churches essential when they were before, and she does it on the eve of Easter,” Smothermon told the news station.

The pastor said his church was preparing to livestream its Easter Sunday service when the governor issued the new order. Smothermon said the church needs about 30 people, including worship singers, band and sound technicians to present its online services.

In addition to a temporary restraining order, the Legacy lawsuit is asking for a permanent injunction that would allow it the same rights as “essential” businesses, which means it would only need to limit its capacity to 20% of normal.

“We wouldn’t be able to put on the quality that we have and the engagement that we’re able to do and look people in the eye, you…

(RNS) — Rachael Reynolds is a busy wife and mom of three who, like many parents, suddenly has been tasked with home-schooling her children and managing the anxiety of a pandemic.

Reynolds, 34, also is a registered nurse and works three or four night shifts a week in the labor and delivery department at a Texas hospital. That adds the stress of keeping her patients and herself safe from the spread of the novel coronavirus.

In those times when she has a few moments to herself while her kids are napping, or when she’s trying to drift off to sleep as everyone else is beginning a new day, Reynolds finds herself tapping on one of the meditation apps on her phone — like Abide, which calls itself the No. 1 Christian meditation app to “stress less and sleep better.”

“Grounding myself with the Word of God, and the truth and the promises he offers me there, I find to be much more effective for grounding myself mentally and spiritually,” she said.

Meditation and mindfulness apps have boomed in the last decade, part of the trend of the year that Apple’s App Store noted in 2018: self-care apps, particularly those focused on mental health.

The App Store deemed Calm, which describes itself as the No. 1 app for sleep, meditation and relaxation, its 2017 app of the year.

Christian meditation apps — with names like Abide, Pray, One Minute Pause, Soultime, Soulspace and, for Catholics…

In a press conference on Monday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asserted that God had nothing to do with the dropping number of coronavirus cases in New York.

According to The Daily Wire, Cuomo, a self-professing Roman Catholic, asserted that “the number is down because we brought the number down.”

He added, “God did not do that. Faith did not do that. Destiny did not do that.”

“A lot of pain and suffering did that,” the Democrat governor continued. “That’s how it works. It’s math. And if you don’t continue to do that, you’re going to see that number go back up. And that will be a tragedy if that number goes back up.”

Cuomo has long been an opponent of Christian conservatives. Last year, he signed a progressive abortion bill into law that allows for abortions up until the moment of birth. The bill’s passage was celebrated throughout New York City by lighting up several buildings, including One World Trade Center, in pink.

Back in 2014, Cuomo implied that conservatives who support the right to life, are pro-assault weapons, and anti-LGBTQ have “no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

Also in New York, last month New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio threatened to permanently shut down houses of worship that refused to comply with the city’s lockdown measures.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,…