A minor earthquake struck the New Madrid fault Tuesday, the second quake on the fault line in the last two weeks.
The magnitude 2.7 quake struck around 8:46 p.m. Tuesday about 5 miles from the town of New Madrid, Missouri. The Center for Earthquake Research and Information (CERI) at the University of Memphis said the quake was 5.9 miles deep.
Residents in northwest Tennessee, southeast Missouri and western Kentucky all reported slight shaking from the quake.
It’s the second minor quake along the New Madrid Fault in two weeks. A magnitude 3.5 quake struck near Memphis, Tennessee on August 25th.
The New Madrid fault line is twenty times larger than the San Andreas fault line in California.
One Missouri official is calling on residents to check to make sure they have earthquake coverage as part of their homeowners insurance. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the probability of a 7.5 or greater quake in the next 50 years at 7-10%, with the possibility of a quake stronger than 6.0 at 25-40%.
A gunman hidden within a group of black protesters shot at St. Louis County police officers on Sunday night following a protest about the death of Michael Brown one year ago.
One of the protesters was shot by police after he fired “a remarkable amount of gunfire” using a stolen handgun according to St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar.
“We cannot continue, we cannot talk about the good things that we have been talking about, if we are prevented from moving forward with this kind of violence,” he said.
Belmar insisted the people conducting the violence were not protesters.
“They were criminals; they weren’t protesters,” Chief Belmar said of the groups exchanging gunfire. “Protesters are the people out there talking about a way to effect change. We can’t afford to have this kind of violence, not only on a night like this, but any point in time if we’re going to move forward in the right direction.”
The gunfire began as Ferguson’s acting police chief, Andre Anderson, was speaking to reporters. The gunman fired at police who pursued him following the initial volley of shots.
“The weekend’s events were peaceful and promoted a message of reconciliation and healing,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement. “But incidents of violence, such as we saw last night, are contrary to both that message, along with everything that all of us, including this group, have worked to achieve over the past year.”
Severe storms caused unexpected levels of flash flooding that essentially cut off the south central Missouri town of Cassville.
“There’s a lot of flooding. We have numerous roads in the county are closed,” said a spokesman for the Barry County Sheriff’s Department. “We have had evacuations and rescues in Cassville.’’
The department’s website was even more blunt, stating “Cassville is CLOSED! Do NOT come to Cassville!’’
Witnesses say the flash flood really started to strike around 9 a.m. Henry Thomas was in a local barbershop when the flood hit.
“I was sitting there, and this waste-paper basket comes floating out from the back room,” Thomas said. “‘We got a little current in here,’ is what I told J.T. That’s when he started cranking up his barber chair. He got it as high as it would go.”
“The water from Horner Branch came across the road and Flat Creek came up back behind us. We got it from both sides. It was like a river across this area. It was 2 foot deep at my front door,” barber J.T Blankenship told the Joplin Globe.
A Budget Inn had the entire first floor flooded.
Steve Runnels of the National Weather Service said that a flash flood emergency sent for the area around the Roaring River was vital, enabling the staff of the Roaring River State Park to evacuate campers.
“We knew it was going to be extreme,” Runnels said. “They got them moved out before they were trapped. Lives may have been saved because of those efforts.”
The city of Branson was also hit with flooding and many roads had to be closed because of impassably high water.
A series of tornadoes swept through Colorado Thursday night destroying three homes and damaging over two dozen others.
Officials say there were no injuries reported in the outbreak.
One of the storms brought so much rain that it caused a sinkhole 15 feet deep that swallowed a police cruiser. The officer inside at the time was able to escape without serious injury.
The homes were destroyed in Berthoud, about 40 miles north of Denver.
“It was probably on the ground two minutes,” Scott Oliver, who lives in northern Boulder County, told The Daily Camera newspaper. “It was just kicking up everything. It was terrible.”
“You just wouldn’t believe how many hailstones we had,” resident Dan Grabosky told NBC. “And the continuous roar of the lightning and thunder. It was just awful.”
“It was just a whirling mass,” he said. “It was coming for my home, and God stopped it.”
One forecaster with the Weather Channel reported he had received reports of hail the size of grapefruit.
The rain continued through the midwest bringing flooding to Kansas City.
The Satanic Temple has filed a lawsuit in Missouri with the intention of obtaining a “religious exemption” to the state’s requirement of women waiting 72 hours before obtaining an abortion.
The New York-based group had stated last summer they planned to launch a series of lawsuits in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision. They target what they consider “pro-life” parts of laws that they claim violates their beliefs.
The group sent letters to women who belong to their group that were aimed to be presented to abortion clinics when the workers mention the 72 hour rule.
“As an adherent to the principles of the Satanic Temple, my sincerely held religious beliefs are: My body is inviolable and subject to my will alone. … My inviolable body includes any fetal or embryonic tissue I carry so long as that tissue is unable to survive outside my body as an independent human being,” it reads in part.
The group’s suit on behalf of a woman called “Mary” says she went to a Planned Parenthood facility for an abortion and was denied in violation of her Constitutional rights.
“I personally would have liked to have the procedure done as soon as possible,” “Mary,” who is stated to be 12 weeks pregnant, told reporters. “But with all the difficulties, how hard it is do this, it’s been put off for several weeks. If you’re right on the edge of the state you’ve got to go 500 miles just to get to St. Louis, and you have to make arrangements.”
The group claims the action violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“We have theocrats pushing an agenda through legislation, and it’s time we show that other people have different values and are just as deserving as protections,” Satanic Temple leader Doug Mesner, who also goes by the name Lucien Greaves, told the Daily Beast. “We’re not making Christians get abortions if they feel it’s wrong. They put a burden on us.”
After Vanderbilt University and others punished Christian organizations and stripped them of their rights to be official student groups if they did not allow non-members of their faith to obtain leadership positions, Missouri legislators are considering action that would protect student groups.
House Bill 104 passed the Missouri House in March and is being considered in the Senate. The “Student Freedom of Association Act” was introduced by Representative Elijah Haahr who represents a part of Springfield, MO.
“No public institution of higher learning shall [deny] a religious student association any benefit available to any other student association, or discriminate against a religious student association with respect to such benefit, based on that association’s requirement that its leaders or members adhere to the association’s sincerely held religious beliefs, comply with the association’s sincere religious observance requirements,” reads the bill in part.
“No public institution of higher learning shall substantially burden a student’s exercise of religion unless the institution can demonstrate that application of the burden to the student is in furtherance of a compelling interest of the public institution of higher learning and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling interest.”
The bill is in response to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in 2010 that allowed a public university to stop funding religious groups if they violate any university “anti-discrimination” policy by requiring the religious group’s leadership to be members of their faith.
Opponents of religious freedom are mobilizing against the potential law.
“HB 104 would give religious student groups unprecedented exemptions regarding anti-discrimination policies,” stated Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
“Like the harmful so-called ‘religious freedom’ bills we’ve seen in the news recently, this bill cloaks discrimination under the guise of religious freedom. This bill has already passed the House, so this is the last chance for you to stop the bill in the Missouri legislature.”
She has only missed three Kansas City Chiefs games since 1986 and all she wanted was to see her Chiefs one last time.
Betty Johnson, age 86, was visited by former team kicker Nick Lowery and even received a kiss on the cheek from Lowery.
“We sang a prayer, and he was going to leave, and we noticed that she was no longer breathing,” Johnson’s granddaughter Autumn Barricks told KSHB. “We believe that she was waiting to say goodbye to her Chiefs.”
Johnson died due to health deterioration after having a broken hip.
“She loves them so much,” daughter Susan Johnson told Fox. “Her Chiefs were more important to her than her home.”
The U.S. Geological Survey has confirmed a magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck Wednesday night along the New Madrid Fault near Steele, Missouri.
The quake was reportedly felt in more than six states.
No major damage was reported in the region. Several businesses reported items being shaken off shelves and homeowners reported pictures had fallen off walls.
Several police departments in the region confirmed their computer monitors began shaking during the quake.
The New Madrid fault is the most seismically active zone east of the Rocky Mountains. The New Madrid Fault reaches from St. Louis to Memphis.
Residents in the southeastern part of Missouri were shaken after an earthquake occurred along the New Madrid Fault Line shortly before 11 p.m. CT.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the earthquake was at 4.0 magnitude and had occurred approximately 11 miles before the surface of the Earth.
Not only did nearby residents feel the quake but reports from KFVS-TV in Cape Girardeau, Missouri stated that residents living as far as Carbondale, Illinois were able to feel the quake.
No damages or injuries have been reported.
The New Madrid Fault Line stretches along the Mississippi River from near St. Louis to Memphis, Tennessee. According to the USGS, the New Madrid Fault is “the most seismically active in North America east of the Rockies.” They also report that earthquakes in the eastern and central part of the United States “can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast.”
Two police officers were shot early Thursday morning outside the Ferguson, Missouri police department.
Police described the attack as “an ambush” and that either officer could have been easily killed in the attack. One officer was hit in the face below the right eye and the other officer was hit in the shoulder. Both are expected to recover with any long-term damage.
However, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar focused on the fact the officers could have been killed.
“We could have buried two police officers next week over this,” he said.
Belmar said the shots came from about 120 yards away and were clearly aimed at the police.
“This is really an ambush,” he said. “You are basically defenseless. It is hard to guard against.”
Witnesses say there was no warning before the attack.
“I saw the officer go down and the other police officers drew their guns while other officers dragged the injured officer away,” protester Marciay Pitchford said. “All of a sudden everybody started running or dropping to the ground.”
The crowd was protesting following the announcement that the police chief of Ferguson was resigning after a Justice Department report regarding problems within the Ferguson P.D.