The largest earthquake to shake Kansas since a series of small quakes began to shake the state last year struck Wednesday.
The 4.8 magnitude quake struck about 25 miles southwest of Wichita around 3:40 p.m. local time. The quake followed a 2.6 magnitude quake on Tuesday.
Sharon Watson of Kansas Emergency Management said only minor damage was reported throughout the region. One home reportedly had its foundation cracked by an uprooted tree.
Oklahoma officials reported no damage.
Kansas has recorded more than 90 earthquakes since 2013 according to the Kansas Geological Survey.
An admitted Satanist drove his vehicle into the Ten Commandments monument outside the Oklahoma state house, breaking it into pieces.
Michael Reed, Jr., says that Satan told him to destroy the monument and then urinate on it.
Reed destroyed the monument on Thursday and then walked into the Oklahoma City Federal Building on Friday stating that he was going to kill President Obama. He was taken into custody by the Secret Service for the threats.
Reed reportedly was placed into a mental hospital and is being indefinitely detained.
The ACLU, which had been actively trying to remove the monument, issued a condemnation of the action while still attacking Christians and those who support the monument.
“The ACLU of Oklahoma and our clients are outraged at this apparent act of vandalism,” it stated. “Our Oklahoma and federal Constitutions seek to create a society in which people of all faiths and those of no faith at all can coexist as equals without fear of repressions from the government or their neighbors. Whether it is politicians using religion as a political tool or vandals desecrating religious symbols, neither are living up to the full promise of our founding documents.”
Several elected leaders, including Governor Mary Fallin, have said they will pay money from their own pockets to rebuild the monument.
A second Muslim in Oklahoma has been arrested after threatening to behead a co-worker.
Jacob Mugambi Muriithi was taken into custody on Friday after he threatened a woman at Bellevue Nursing Home in Oklahoma City with beheading. The 30-year-old reportedly had a blade that he used to make the threat.
“The victim said Jacob asked her what time she got off work and she replied by asking him in a joking manner if he was going to kill her,” a police report outlines. “Jacob told the victim, ‘Yes,’ he was going to cut her head off. The victim asked Jacob what he was going to cut her head off with and he said, ‘A blade,’ then told her after he did it he was going to post it on Facebook.”
Muriithi is behing held on one million dollars bail.
The arrest comes on the heels of a Muslim man entering his former employer and beheading a woman while chanting “Allahu Akbar” and other Islamic phrases.
A man who converted to Islam and idolized Islamic terrorists like Osama Bin Laden stormed his former employer and cut the head off a woman working there.
Police in Moore, Oklahoma say that 30-year-old Alton Nolen had “recently converted to Islam” and had been going around the workplace trying to get others to convert to Islam.
Nolen drove to his former employer and attacked Colleen Huffort, 54, with a knife he had with him. He chanted “allahu akbar” and other Islamic slogans during the attack where he beheaded the woman in the same manner ISIS terrorists have done to their hostages.
A reserve sheriff’s deputy that works at the factory shot Nolen.
The FBI has been called in to investigate the incident and has initially claimed it was an example of “workplace violence.” Conservative members of Congress, who point out that Nolen’s Facebook page showed him in full Islamic attire, professing extremist beliefs and posting admiration for Islamic terrorists, have denounced the FBI’s claim.
An Oklahoma judge has ruled that a Ten Commandments monument is Constitutional.
The American Civil Liberties Union had filed suit against the monument claiming that it was an illegal endorsement of religion by the government. The ACLU said that the position of the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission that the monument was historical in nature was overridden by the religious message.
Judge Thomas Prince sided with the OCPC. He said that the monument served a historical purpose witting among 51 other expressive monuments on the Capitol grounds.
“Today’s ruling is a clear message that the Ten Commandments can be displayed on public grounds like the Oklahoma Capitol because of the historical role the text has played in the founding of our nation,” said Attorney General Scott Pruitt. “The U.S. Supreme Court found constitutional a nearly identical monument in Texas. We were confident in the state’s case from the start and appreciate the court’s thoughtful consideration and ruling in the state’s favor.”
The monument, proposed by Rep. Mike Ritze in 2009 and paid for completely by Ritze, had no taxpayer dollars involved in the creation or placement.
Even though over 200,000 residents of the Oklahoma City area have signed petitions asking the government to not allow a “Satanic Mass” aimed to mock the Catholic church and Christianity from taking place in the public Civic Center Music Hall, the city is not relenting in allowing the Satanists to mock Christians.
The Archbishop of Oklahoma City has released a scathing indictment of city leaders for allowing the event to continue, saying that they do not understand the spiritual forces at work when events like the black mass take place.
“Even though our city leaders apparently do not take this threat seriously, I do. As a Catholic priest and bishop I have witnessed in my ministry the battle between forces of good and evil in both ordinary and extraordinary ways,” Archibishop Paul S. Coakley wrote.
“It is not merely a struggle rooted in human weakness and ignorance, though these are certainly the source of much suffering and mayhem in our lives and in our world. Demonic activity and the chaotic forces of evil are very real. The madness of war accompanied by increasingly brutal acts of terror, the violence in our schools and communities are all evidence that something is terribly wrong.”
The group is planning a series of events including a “satanic exorcism” where they have agreed to modify the procedure to use vinegar instead of urine to stay in compliance with health codes. The action is to “pull the Holy Spirit” from the body of the subject.
A pastor whose church meets in a space that is about to be defiled by Satanists performing a “black mass” and mock exorcism is speaking out about his church’s place of worship being degraded with government approval.
Tom Mannin of Oklahoma City Community Church worships in the same Oklahoma City Civic Center where the Satanists will mock Christianity later this month.
“As a church, we want to respond as people of love, who are consistent with the teachings of Jesus and the ways he responded to those who rejected him and even hated him,” Mannin wrote. “So we will speak gracefully and peacefully of the people at the black mass gathering. We will pray for God’s love to abound in our city and among its people of varying belief.”
The mass reportedly has sold out in a theater space of 92 people. The event has received significant backlash from the community for their stated intent of mocking Christianity and the fact they had stolen sacred items from a Catholic church for use in the mass (that was later returned.)
The group conducting the mass is not even local; it is a New York City group.
A group of Satanists want to hold a “black mass” aimed at mocking the rites of the Catholic Church at the Oklahoma City Civic Center.
Tickets are being sold at the Civic Center for what’s being described as a “sacrilegious” event to be a “blasphemous mockery of the Mass.”
Tickets for the “Black Mass of Oklahoma” are $15. The event is described by the Civic Center ticket office like this: “The Black Mass has been a feared ritual, and now it’s being brought into the light! This will not only be enlightening but educational as well. This Black Mass will be conducted for the public to attend with certain adaptations to allow for a legal celebration.”
Archbishop Paul Coakley of the Catholic archdiocese of Oklahoma City, is calling on the city’s leaders to step in and stop the event from being supported by taxpayer dollars which provide funds for the facility, security, employees and other services.
“We’re astonished and grieved that the Civic Center would promote as entertainment and sell tickets for an event that is very transparently a blasphemous mockery of the Mass,” he said. “The ‘Black Mass’ that is scheduled for the Civic Center in September is a satanic inversion and distortion of the most sacred beliefs not only of Catholics, but of all Christians.”
City spokesman say that as a public facility, they cannot deny the group the right to rent the space under the First Amendment.
History has been made by the U.S. Geological Survey in issuing the first earthquake warning for an area east of the Rocky Mountains.
The USGS issued a joint statement with the Oklahoma Geological Survey saying that the risk of an earthquake greater than 5.0 on the Richter scale has significantly increased after a rash of smaller quakes.
“We haven’t seen this before in Oklahoma, so we had some concerns about putting a specific number on the chances of it,” Robert Williams of the USGS said. “But we know from other cases around the world that if you have an increasing number of small earthquakes, the chances of a larger one will go up.”
The number of earthquakes per mile in Oklahoma this year is the same as California.
Most of the buildings in Oklahoma are built to withstand a light earthquake but officials say a medium size quake could cause mass devastation. The last major quake was November 2011, when a 5.6 magnitude quake destroyed 14 homes.
A series of major tornadoes broke out across the south and Midwest Sunday night leaving at least 18 dead.
Officials in Arkansas say a tornado that at one point had a base half a mile wide ripped through Little Rock suburbs Vilonia and Mayflower. The mayor of Vilonia told FoxNews that the tornado essentially obliterated his town’s downtown business district.
Authorities say the tornado first touched down around 7 p.m. and caused destruction along an 80-mile path. A brand new intermediate school built with $14 million in taxpayer dollars and scheduled to open in the fall was destroyed.
“We’re probably going to have to start all over again,” Vilonia Schools Superintendent Frank Mitchell said.
Arkansas officials said that a tornado struck on Interstate 40 destroying cars and leaving tractor trailers in twisted heaps.
Another twister destroyed most of Quapaw, Oklahoma and left one person dead before turning into Kansas and destroying over 70 homes in Baxter Springs.
