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Mysterious Booms have Oklahoma Rattled

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A spate of mysterious booms that has been shaking central Oklahoma returned for a second day Friday, again rattling houses and frightening livestock.

Oklahoma Geological Survey research seismologist Austin Holland said a series of booms, much like a sonic boom, rattled the Norman area starting at 11:19 a.m. Friday. Numerous others had been reported Thursday in the same area at about the same time.

Friday’s booms weren’t “quite as frequent” as Thursday’s, Holland said. “It’s quite interesting.”

The windows of Anthony Young’s home in the town that’s the outskirts of Oklahoma City rattled. “We thought some nut was out here, you know, with explosives,” Young told KOCO-TV. “It sounded like thunder, you could feel the ground shake, but it was nothing like an earthquake”

Both Holland and National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Day didn’t have an explanation for the booms. (Read more about the mysterious booms HERE)

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Oklahoma: Abortion Without 24 Hour Prior Consent Now a Felony

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abortionOklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed into law an anti-abortion bill that requires doctors to notify women of the availability of perinatal hospice services as alternatives to an abortion. The Associated Press reports Fallin signed the bill Monday along with about two dozen others.

Republican state Rep. Randy Grau wrote the bill that imposes the new requirements. It is intended to provide an alternative to abortion for women who learn that a fetus has a condition incompatible with sustaining life after birth.

The Oklahoman reports that House Bill 2685 actually bans abortions unless patients provide consent 24 hours prior to the procedure being performed. Now that it is law, “knowingly or recklessly” performing an abortion without that consent is considered a felony.

Tony Lauinger, the chairman of Oklahomans for Life, heralded Fallin’s signing of the bill in a statement to the website National Right to Life News.

“Our throw-away culture today too often exhibits a coarsened attitude toward the intrinsic value of each individual human life – especially the life of a child with a diagnosis of severe or lethal disability – and too readily regards killing as an acceptable ‘solution’ in such a case,” he said. “The least we should do when a family faces the heartbreak of such a diagnosis is provide them information about the positive alternative of perinatal hospice, comfort care, and family counseling.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Oklahoma Twister Largest in Recorded History (+videos)

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Photo Credit: Alonzo Adams

The National Weather Service reported Tuesday that the killer tornado that struck near Oklahoma City last Friday was a ferocious EF5 twister, which had winds that neared 295 mph.

An EF5 tornado, the highest number on the “Enhanced Fujita Scale of Tornado Intensity,” is any tornado that has wind speeds of 200 mph or higher.

This beats every world wind record except the more-than-300-mph reading measured during the Moore, Okla., tornado in 1999, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Jesse Ferrell.

The weather service also said the twister’s 2.6-mile width is the widest ever recorded. According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, the tornado blew up from one mile to 2.6 miles wide in a 30-second span.

Read more from this story HERE.

Star of Discovery’s ‘Storm Chasers’ Show Among Dead in Oklahoma Tornado

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Photo Credit: Discovery Channel

A star of the Discovery Channel show “Storm Chasers,” his son and a colleague have been identified as three of the 13 people killed after an outbreak of tornadoes struck the Oklahoma City area on Friday.

Tim Samaras, 55, died with his son Paul, 24, and friend Carl Young, 45, in Canadian County chasing down a tornado that wreaked havoc along Interstate 40, Fox 25 reports.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Tim Samaras his son Paul and their colleague Carl Young,” the Discovery Channel said in a statement to FOX411. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families.”

The channel added that it would be dedicating Sunday night’s show on the tornadoes in their memory.

Read more from this story HERE.

Heartwarming Video: Tornado Survivor Finds Dog During TV Interview

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Photo Credit: CBS NewsAn elderly woman whose home was destroyed by the Oklahoma tornado found her pet dog among the rubble during a live TV interview.

The footage of Barbara Garcia came as fellow survivors began reliving the terror they felt while winds of up to 200mph obliterated their neighborhoods.

Mrs Garcia was standing among the twisted wreckage of her home as she was interviewed about her experiences by a reporter from CBS.

“I was sitting on the stool holding my dog,” she said.

“This was the game plan all through the years, to go in that little bathroom (together). I rolled around a little bit and when it stopped I was right there (and) that stove cooker is what I saw.

Read more from this story HERE.

Daily Show Co-Creator: Oklahoma Tornado ‘Ordered to Only Target Conservatives’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller With a massive tornado devastating the Oklahoma City area Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead took to Twitter to claim that the tornado was targeted at conservatives.

“This tornado is in Oklahoma so clearly it has been ordered to only target conservatives,” Winstead tweeted in an apparent attempt at humor, trying to apply the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservatives to the tornado bearing down on Oklahoma…

When she received push-back on Twitter she responded “If Its not OK to YOU for me to combine news stories to point out hypocrisy AND Im not making fun of victims u shld Unfollow.”

Read more from this story HERE.

UPDATE: Oklahoma Tornado: 240 Injured, 24 Dead, ‘Horrific’ Damage (+video)

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Photo Credit: APBy LAUREN EFFRON and DEAN SCHABNER. At least 20 of the 51 people killed by a devastating monster tornado that ripped through Moore, Okla., were children, the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner said this evening, as searchers picked through the rubble of schools, homes and businesses leveled by the storm.

Officials said they expect the total number of deaths to rise overnight as first responders continue to look for survivors. Two elementary schools were in the path of the tornado, but the medical examiner did not specify what school the deceased students attended.

Desperate parents stood around what was left of the devastated Plaza Towers Elementary School, many of them sobbing, as rescuers worked to help pull out school children and faculty.

“I know there’s a number of dead children from that school,” Oklahoma City Police spokesman Sgt. Gary Knight said.

Authorities said Briarwood Elementary School in Moore received a “direct hit” from the storm and was also destroyed, with its roof and walls blown off. Read more from this story HERE.

Authorities lower death toll to 24; number of injured hits 240, including 60 kids

Rescuers searched frantically for survivors Tuesday as the death toll from the massive tornado that leveled suburban Oklahoma City was dropped to 24.
The sharp decline from the original fatality list of 51 names was likely caused by double counting of victims, authorities said.

“We have got good news. The number right now is 24,” said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer at the Oklahoma City Medical Examiner’s Office. She blamed the earlier high estimate on the large amount of “chaos” in the wake of the twister.

All but three of the bodies recovered have been identified and are being returned to their families, she said.

The number of injured was placed at 240, with 60 of them being children.

The National Weather Service gave a preliminary ranking of EF4 to the twister, meaning it is the second-most powerful type of tornado, with winds up to 200 mph. Read more from this story HERE.

At Least 1 Dead, Over 20 Injured after Tornadoes Slam Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa

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Photo Credit: bsabarnowlAt least one person has been killed and 21 injured in Oklahoma as a severe storm system generated several tornadoes Sunday in Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa, leveling neighborhoods and sending frightened residents scurrying for shelter.

The tornadoes, high winds and hail across the Midwest were part of a massive, northeastward-moving storm system that stretched from Texas to Minnesota.

At least four separate twisters touched down in central Oklahoma late Sunday afternoon, including one near the town of Shawnee, 35 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, that laid waste to much of a mobile home park. Oklahoma state Rep. Justin Wood confirmed to Fox News Sunday that at least one person had been killed in the town.

Read more from this story HERE.

Dozens Infected With Hepatitis, AIDS from Oklahoma Dental Practice

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Blood tests conducted on patients treated at an Oklahoma oral surgery practice that has been closed over health concerns show that 57 have hepatitis C, three have hepatitis B and as many as three have HIV, the virus than can lead to AIDS, officials said on Thursday.

Health officials said it will take more investigation – including interviews with each patient and blood tests of the remaining patients – before they can determine whether the viruses were contracted at the dental offices, an extremely rare occurrence.

“Now the real disease detective work goes into effect,” state health department spokeswoman Leslea Bennet-Webb said.

Officials cannot be more specific about the number of patients who tested positive for HIV because of the state’s confidentiality policy that restricts public disclosure of HIV cases involving fewer than three people, Bennet-Webb said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Oklahoma to Allow Horses to be Slaughtered for Human Consumption

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Photo Credit: Christinamari

Oklahoma took a step toward allowing livestock owners to slaughter horses for food on Friday when the governor signed a bill that permits the practice, but processing plants must first be authorized by the federal government…

Governor Mary Fallin’s action legalized the slaughter of horses so that their meat may be prepared and packaged for export. But slaughterhouses must get U.S. Department of Agriculture authorization, Fallin said.

The slaughter of horses for food had been illegal in Oklahoma since 1963 and was carried out only in Texas and Illinois until Congress stopped it in 2006. The congressional ban was lifted in 2011.

Read more from this story HERE.