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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — With Oklahomans still reeling from deadly wildfires that whipped across the state and destroyed hundreds of homes in recent days, authorities warned that Tuesday would bring a renewed risk of fire to an area spanning from western Oklahoma through the Texas Panhandle and into southeastern New Mexico.

More than 400 homes were severely damaged or destroyed in the outbreak of wildfires that started Friday in Oklahoma. At least four people died due to the fires or high winds, including a person killed in a vehicle accident as a result of poor visibility due to dust or smoke, officials said.

While calm weather over the weekend helped crews get a handle on most wildfires burning across Texas and Oklahoma, forecasters at the National Weather Service said extremely critical fire weather conditions were expected Tuesday in parts of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.

With wind gusts predicted to reach as high as 50 mph (80 kph) in the afternoon, along with dry conditions and “receptive fuels,” fires could spread rapidly, the weather service said.

“These fires, once they get started, become really hard to stop,” said Keith Merckx of Oklahoma Forestry Services. “They move more quickly than our resources can keep up with.”

He said officials will be returning their attention to western and central Oklahoma, where high winds were expected to pick back up again over the next few days. Much of the state will be back under fire warnings beginning at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Andrine Shufran and her husband spent Monday raking through the ashes of their home in a neighborhood in Stillwater that she said “looks like a checkerboard” after the recent fires.

“There’s no predictability or fairness about destroyed houses,” Shufran said. “There’s only two options for the homes in our neighborhood: standing or burned to the ground.”

Her home was one of more than 70 destroyed by wildfires in Stillwater, a city of about 50,000 about 65 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Oklahoma City and home to Oklahoma State University.

Shufran, a director at Insect Adventure, a petting zoo that’s part of OSU and the university’s extension campuses, said current and former students, friends and city officials have stepped in to help her and her husband.

“I’ve been more overwhelmed by how fantastic Oklahomans are when they’re friends with you, or neighbors with you, because we’ve had so many people reach out,” Shufran said.

Stillwater Mayor Will Joyce warned on Facebook on Monday afternoon of worsening fire conditions in the area.

“Be prepared to take action quickly, if necessary,” he wrote.

Southwest of Stillwater, residents in two parts of rural Logan County were urged to evacuate their homes Monday afternoon after wildfires that already burned more than 47 square miles (120 square kilometers) in the county since Friday picked back up amid high winds and dry conditions.

An evacuation shelter had been set up at the county fairgrounds in Guthrie, said Logan County Deputy Emergency Management Director Shawn Pierce.

Pierce said an estimated 54 homes were destroyed in last week’s fire in the county, which is about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Oklahoma City.

About 10 fires continued to burn in Texas on Monday as officials geared up for more high winds Tuesday, said Texas A&M Forest Service spokesperson Erin O’Connor.

Although most of the fires have been contained due to slower winds Sunday, Texas officials were expecting wildfire danger to ramp up further into the week, O’Connor said.

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AP reporter Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

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Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

(AP) — At least 41 people are dead after a weekend of dynamic storms unleashed tornadoes, blinding dust and wildfires — leaving behind uprooted trees and flattening hundreds of homes and businesses across seven states in the U.S. South and Midwest.

Weather forecasters gave an unusual “high risk” designation to the storm system, which began Friday before tapering off Sunday. For now, people in the affected communities are surveying damage as some brace for more potentially damaging weather.

“It’s not that uncommon to get impacts across that many states, but this one was even on the stronger side of what we would typically see,” Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Monday.

Here’s what to know about the unusually erratic and destructive weather system that socked central and eastern portions of the U.S.
Where and how did people die?

Missouri has reported the most deaths with at least 12 lost to tornadoes. Mississippi lost six people to tornadoes.

Two boys, ages 11 and 13, were killed when a tree fell on their home in western North Carolina on Sunday, according to a statement from Connestee Fire Rescue. Relatives said two children were trapped in their bedroom and both succumbed to their injures before firefighters could reach them, officials said.

At least three people were killed in central Alabama when tornadoes swept across the state. John Green found the body of his neighbor, Dunk Pickering, who killed by a tornado in Plantersville on Saturday night. Residents spent hours pulling people from the rubble and carrying them to paramedics who were unable to reach the area because of fallen trees blocking the roads.

Kansas reported eight deaths and Texas three, due to vehicle crashes caused by dust storms.

Oklahoma reported four people dead from high winds or fires, and Arkansas has reported three.
Multiple tornadoes in several states

There was a significant outbreak of tornadoes, with 46 on Friday and 41 on Saturday, according to a preliminary count, Chenard said. There were no reports of tornadoes on Sunday, but there were reports of wind damage, especially from West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

Two strong tornadoes tore through the same Mississippi county roughly within an hour of the other on Saturday, according to a preliminary report from the National Weather Service.

The twisters had preliminary ratings of EF-2 and EF-3, out of a rating scale of 0 to 5. They caused devastating damage in Walthall County, in far southern Mississippi, and the town of Tylertown, where tall trees were ripped in half and entire neighborhoods wiped out.

Six people were killed and more than 200 were displaced, Gov. Tate Reeves said.

Wayne County, Missouri, resident Dakota Henderson said he and others rescuing trapped neighbors Friday found five bodies scattered in rubble outside what remained of his aunt’s house. Scattered tornadoes killed at least a dozen people in the state Friday, authorities said.

Coroner Jim Akers of Butler County, Missouri, described the home where one man was killed as “just a debris field.”

“The floor was upside down,” he said. “We were walking on walls.”
Wildfires and dust storms also proved deadly

Wind-driven wildfires caused extensive damage in Oklahoma and officials in both Oklahoma and Texas warned that parts of both states would again face an increased risk of fire danger this week.

More than 130 fires were reported across the state on Friday and over 400 homes were damaged. Oklahoma officials said Sunday evening that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had confirmed four fatalities related to fires or high winds across the state.

Dust storms spurred by high winds resulted in eight deaths Friday after at least 50 vehicles crashed on a highway, according to the state highway patrol. Authorities said three people also died in car crashes during a dust storm in Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle.
Another system coming this week

The National Weather Service said weekend tornado watches had mostly expired, but dangerous winds were still possible in the Carolinas, east Georgia and northern Florida through Sunday.

Another system is moving out of the Rockies and into the Plains in coming days, Chenard said. The threat of winter weather picks up on Tuesday into Wednesday in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan, with significant snow and wind bringing hazardous conditions.

To the south, across portions of the Plains, there will be drier air, bringing fire weather risk.

“We’re almost certainly going to see fire” on Monday and Tuesday, said Keith Merckx at Oklahoma Forestry Services. “These fires, once they get started, become really hard to stop. They move more quickly than our resources can keep up with.”
Recovery efforts

President Donald Trump said the White House was monitoring the storms and would assist state and local officials to help in the recovery. He said National Guard troops were deployed to Arkansas.

TEXAS – The nation’s average price of gasoline has fallen for the fourth straight week, declining 1.3 cents compared to a week ago and stands at $3.02 per gallon, according to GasBuddy® data compiled from more than 12 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country. The national average is down 10.6 cents from a month and is 42.4 cents per gallon lower than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has decreased 5.0 cents in the last week and stands at $3.558 per gallon.

“As concerns over tariffs and policy uncertainties grow, gas prices have continued to decline across much of the country, raising the possibility that the national average could slip below $3 per gallon and approach some of the lowest prices seen in years,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “However, this decline shouldn’t necessarily be celebrated, as it comes with strong warning signs. When the economy slows, gasoline demand drops — along with demand for other refined products like diesel and jet fuel. We’ve already seen some signals that the months ahead could be challenging. All of this suggests that gas prices are likely to remain low for now. However, if economic conditions improve, gas prices could eventually follow suit and start rising again.”

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A former pastor of a Texas megachurch accused of child sexual abuse surrendered to Oklahoma authorities Monday.

Robert Preston Morris, 63, turned himself in to officials in Osage County, where he was charged last week with five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, Phil Bacharach, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, told The Associated Press.

Court records show an Osage County judge set a $50,000 bond and ordered Morris to surrender his passport.

Morris is expected to make an initial appearance before a judge at 10 a.m. on May 9, Bacharach said.

Attorney Mack Martin declined to comment on the charges but said he anticipated entering a not guilty plea on Morris’ behalf.

Morris resigned last year as pastor of Gateway Church in the Dallas suburb of Southlake after a woman accused him of sexually abusing her in the 1980s.

The victim, referred to in the indictment as C.C., told authorities the abuse started when she was 12 years old and Morris was a traveling evangelist staying in Hominy, Oklahoma, with her family, according to the attorney general’s office. She said the abuse continued for four years.

Cindy Clemishire, Morris’ accuser, said in a statement that she is very grateful to the authorities who have worked to make the indictment possible and is hopeful “justice will ultimately prevail.”

“After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child,” said Clemishire, now 55. “Now, it is time for the legal system to hold him accountable.”

The AP typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted, but Clemishire said she would like her name included.

Morris was known to be politically active. The church hosted President Donald Trump on its Dallas campus in 2020 for a discussion on race relations and the economy.

Morris could face up to 20 years in prison for each of the five charges, according to the attorney general’s office.

CAPE CANAVERAL (AP) — It’s lights out for the first private lunar lander to pull off a fully successful moon mission.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander fell silent over the weekend, wrapping up two weeks of science experiments for NASA. The end came as the sun set at the moon, no longer providing energy for the lander’s solar panels.

“Mission is completed,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim said via X late Sunday night. “But the Ghost still lives on in our hearts and minds for the journey it’s taken us on!”

The lander operated five hours into the lunar night as planned before it died Sunday evening. Photos of the lunar sunset and glow will be released on Tuesday, Kim said.

Blue Ghost launched from Cape Canaveral in January as part of NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program. It landed at the moon’s far northeastern edge on March 2. It carried a drill, vacuum and other science and tech instruments for NASA. Firefly confirmed Monday that all 10 experiments worked.

Late last week, Blue Ghost observed a total solar eclipse from the moon — a total lunar eclipse as seen from Earth.

The Texas-based Firefly became the first private company to land on the moon without falling or crashing after a string of failed missions by other companies over the past few years. Only five countries — the United States, Russia, China, India and Japan — have achieved a successful landing.

A Japanese company’s lunar lander shared the SpaceX rocket ride, but took an even longer route to get to the moon. That lander from ispace is targeting an early June touchdown.

Another Texas company, Intuitive Machines, ended up sideways in a crater near the moon’s south pole earlier this month, dooming the mission. It was the second incomplete mission for Intuitive Machines. Its first lander put the U.S. back on the moon last year for the first time since the Apollo era after a less-than-perfect landing that hampered communications.

Firefly is already working on its next lunar lander and striving for one moon landing a year.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A former pastor of a Texas megachurch is expected to turn himself into Oklahoma authorities Monday on child sexual abuse charges.

Robert Preston Morris, 63, is expected to surrender to officials in Osage County, where he was charged last week with five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, his attorney, Mack Martin, told The Associated Press.

Martin declined to comment on the charges against Morris, but said he anticipated entering a not guilty plea on Morris’ behalf.

Court records show an Osage County judge set a $50,000 bond and ordered Morris to surrender his passport to the local sheriff.

Morris resigned last year as pastor of Gateway Church in the Dallas suburb of Southlake after a woman accused him of sexually abusing her in the 1980s.

The alleged abuse started in 1982 when the victim, referred to in the indictment as C.C., was 12 years old and Morris was a traveling evangelist staying in Hominy, Oklahoma, with her family, according to the attorney general’s office. The abuse allegedly continued for four years.

Cindy Clemishire, Morris’ accuser, said in a statement that she is very grateful to the authorities who have worked to make the indictment possible and is hopeful “justice will ultimately prevail.”

“After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child,” said Clemishire, now 55. “Now, it is time for the legal system to hold him accountable.”

The AP typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted, but Clemishire said she would like her name included.

Morris was known to be politically active. The church hosted President Donald Trump on its Dallas campus in 2020 for a discussion on race relations and the economy.

Morris could face up to 20 years in prison for each of the five charges, according to the attorney general’s office.

MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — Closing arguments are scheduled to begin on Monday in a pipeline company’s lawsuit against Greenpeace, a case the environmental advocacy group said could have consequences for free speech and protest rights and threaten the organization’s future.

The jury will deliberate after the closing arguments and jury instructions. Nine jurors and two alternates have heard the case.

North Dakota District Court Judge James Gion told the jury last month when the trial began, “You are the judges of all questions of fact in this case,” and to “base your verdict on the evidence.”

Dallas-based Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Dakota Access alleged defamation, trespass, nuisance and other offenses by Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, its American branch Greenpeace USA, and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. The pipeline company is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

The lawsuit stems from protests in 2016 and 2017 of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and its Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe for years has opposed the pipeline as a risk to its water supply. The pipeline has transported oil since mid-2017.

Trey Cox, an attorney for the pipeline company, previously said Greenpeace “planned, organized and funded a game plan to stop construction” of the pipeline, “whatever the cost.”

Cox also alleged Greenpeace paid outsiders to come into the area to protest, sent blockade supplies, organized or led protester trainings, passed “critical intel” to the protesters and told untrue statements to stop the line from being built.

He said a letter signed by leaders of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace USA and sent to Energy Transfer’s banks contained an allegedly defamatory statement that the company desecrated burial grounds and culturally important sites during construction.

Greenpeace’s “deceptive narrative scared off lenders” and the company lost half its banks, Cox said.

Attorneys for the Greenpeace entities denied the allegations, saying there is no evidence, they had little or no involvement with the protests and the letter was signed by hundreds of organizations from dozens of countries, with no financial institution to testify the organization received, read or was influenced by the letter.

Greenpeace representatives have said the lawsuit is an example of corporations abusing the legal system to go after critics and is a critical test of free speech and protest rights. An Energy Transfer spokesperson said the case is about Greenpeace not following the law, not free speech.

A dynamic storm that prompted foreboding predictions of dangerous weekend weather spawned tornadoes, dust storms and wildfires that killed at least 39 people and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses.

The weakening but still volatile weather system was moving Monday into the U.S. Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, bringing thunderstorms, hail, damaging winds and the potential for more tornadoes.

Here’s what to know about the unusually erratic and damaging weather.
Monday forecast

Forecasters warned of dangerous winds from Florida all the way north to New Jersey, while heavy rain was likely across New York and New England.

A tornado watch was in effect until early Monday for a large swath of North Carolina and Virginia, with gusts potentially reaching 70 mph and possible hail the size of ping pong balls, according to the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg, Virginia.

The massive storm that began Friday earned an unusual “high risk” designation from meteorologists. Still, experts said it’s not unusual to see such weather extremes in March.
Multiple tornadoes in several states

In Tylertown, Mississippi, tornadoes ripped tall trees in half and wiped out entire neighborhoods. Six people were killed and more than 200 were displaced, Gov. Tate Reeves said.

Hailey Hart and her fiancé Steve Romero hunkered down with their three huskies inside their 1994 Toyota Celica as a twister ripped apart their home Saturday. Romero said he prayed out loud and hugged Hart as the car rolled onto its side, windows shattering, before it landed on its wheels again.

“It was a bad dream come true,” Romero said. The couple escaped with only scratches.

Wayne County, Missouri, resident Dakota Henderson said he and others rescuing trapped neighbors found five bodies scattered in rubble outside what remained of his aunt’s house. Scattered twisters killed at least a dozen people in the state Friday, authorities said.

Coroner Jim Akers of Butler County, Missouri, described the home where one man was killed as “just a debris field.”

“The floor was upside down,” he said. “We were walking on walls.”
Wildfires and dust storms also proved deadly

Wind-driven wildfires caused extensive damage in Texas and Oklahoma and officials warned that parts of both states would again face an increased risk of fire danger in the coming week.

More than 130 fires were reported across Oklahoma and nearly 400 homes were damaged or destroyed, Gov. Kevin Stitt said.

“Nobody has enough resources to fight fires when the wind is blowing 70 mph,” said Terry Essary, the fire chief of Stillwater, Oklahoma. “It’s an insurmountable task.”

Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokesperson Keli Cain said Sunday that two people were killed as a result of the wildfires and weather.

Meanwhile, dust storms spurred by high winds claimed almost a dozen lives on Friday. Eight people died in a Kansas highway pileup involving at least 50 vehicles, according to the state highway patrol. Authorities said three people also were killed in car crashes during a dust storm in Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle.
Refuge and recovery efforts

President Donald Trump said the White House was monitoring the storms and would assist state and local officials to help in the recovery. He said National Guard troops were deployed to Arkansas, where officials confirmed three deaths.

“Please join Melania and me in praying for everyone impacted by these terrible storms!” Trump posted on his social media network on Sunday.

At least three people, including an 82-year-old woman, were killed in central Alabama when multiple tornadoes swept across the state.

In Troy, Alabama, parks officials said the recreation center where many residents had taken refuge had to be closed due to damage from overnight storms. No one was injured.

“We are thankful the Lord provided protection over our community, and over 200 guests at the Recreation Center storm shelter on Saturday night,” the parks department said in a statement.

DALLAS (AP) — As Oklahomans assessed the devastation from wildfires that whipped across the state, damaging or destroying hundreds of homes, officials in both Oklahoma and Texas warned Sunday of an increased risk of fire danger in the coming week.

“We’re going to be back into a critical area,” Oklahoma Forestry Services spokesperson Keith Merckx said Sunday.

Nearly 300 homes and structures were damaged or destroyed as more than 130 wildfires were reported across the state on Friday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said at a Saturday news conference. Officials said Sunday that at least two people had died because of the severe weather in Oklahoma.

Jeremy Cook was among the residents in Stillwater, a city of about 50,000 located about 65 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Oklahoma City, who returned home Saturday morning to find that his house was gone. Cook told The Oklahoman that when his family fled Friday, they loaded up three cars with photographs, pets, books and paintings.

After returning to find his home burned to the foundation, he said he was going back and forth “between laughing and crying.”

A preliminary count found that least 50 homes and structures were destroyed or damaged in Stillwater as multiple fires broke out, fire Chief Terry Essary said at a news conference Saturday. The fires spread rapidly and crews had difficulty containing each one because of the high winds and low humidity. He said they quickly became overwhelmed.

“Nobody has enough resources to fight fires when the wind is blowing 70 mph,” Essary said. “It’s an insurmountable task.”

Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokesperson Keli Cain said Sunday that two people have been killed as a result of the weather and wildfires. She said one person died in Garfield County in a vehicle accident due to poor visibility due to dust or smoke and that a man had also died in Lincoln County.

Deborah Ferguson told News 9 that her husband, Allen Ferguson, was killed in Lincoln County. She said that her husband and her 15-year-old son had been fighting a wildfire in a pasture on Friday and as they fled on a four-wheeler, it crashed into a tree amid heavy smoke. She said her son was badly burned and is hospitalized.

Erin O’Connor, a spokesperson with the Texas A&M Forest Service, said the region on Friday had the “perfect recipe for wildfires” with high winds, dry conditions and above normal temperatures. She said that less wind on Sunday had helped crews get a handle on the fires but that more fire activity was expected this coming week.

One of the largest fires in Texas currently had burned about 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) near Fredericksburg, west of Austin, but was 40% contained by Sunday, she said.

The winds that swept across Texas and Oklahoma were so strong that they turned over several tractor-trailers. Authorities have said three people were killed in car crashes during a dust storm caused by high winds in the Texas Panhandle on Friday.

After touring the damage in Stillwater and Mannford, a city of about 3,000 located about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Tulsa, on Saturday, Stitt went on to survey the damage at his ranch outside of Oklahoma City, where his home there had burned to the ground.

“We’ll be rebuilding with the rest of Oklahoma,” Stitt said in a video posted on X. “You never think it’s going to happen to your place and these wildfires just come out of nowhere and can really take over.