The governing board of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, voted Wednesday to strip former President Paige Patterson of his retirement benefits and status as “president emeritus” following an internal investigation into his handling of sex abuse claims. Patterson’s downfall began earlier this month over his comments about women, abuse, and divorce.

Evolutionists in Arizona are fighting for their survival after the state’s top education official suggested students should be taught the reality many scientists already acknowledge: Evolution is a theory, not settled science.

The ABC television network has canceled the hit reboot of the sitcom Roseanne after its star tweeted a racist comment about a former Obama administration staffer. Actress Roseanne Barr issued an apology for suggesting former White House adviser Valerie Jarrett came from a union between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes. Jarrett was born in Iran and is African-American.

Forecasters are warning about the possibility of flash floods across the South as Alberto slowly makes its way across the country. The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season made landfall over the holiday weekend as a subtropical storm, lashing the Florida panhandle with heavy rain and gusty winds. A television anchorman and a photojournalist covering the storm died Monday when a tree uprooted and crashed onto their SUV. North Carolina Gov.

Starbucks will close its more than 8,000 U.S. locations Tuesday afternoon for diversity training. The unusual move is designed to help restore the coffee chain’s image after employees at a Philadelphia location called police on two African-American men who sat down without ordering anything. The men said they were waiting for a business contact. All 175,000 Starbucks employees will take the “unconscious bias training,” a curriculum that focuses on prejudice people might not realize they have.

The Indiana middle school teacher hailed as a hero for stopping a shooting Friday spoke briefly to reporters Monday, encouraging people to focus attention on the student still in critical condition at an Indianapolis hospital. Jason Seaman suffered three gunshot wounds but didn’t have serious injuries. He left the hospital Saturday. Students in his science classroom said he tackled and disarmed the student gunman, preventing further bloodshed.

Heavy rain in Maryland over the weekend triggered flash floods that roared through a community devastated less than two years ago by another flood. Sunday’s flooding swept through historic downtown Ellicott City, set along the west bank of Maryland's Patapsco River and about 13 miles west of Baltimore. “They say this is a once every 1,000-year flood and we've had two of them in two years,” Gov. Larry Hogan said.