Latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Midlands

ALAMEDA, Calif. (WACH, AP) -- The California radio preacher who predicted that the end of the world would take place last month has suffered a stroke.

The Oakland Tribune reports that 89-year-old Harold Camping was hospitalized after suffering the stroke Thursday night at his Alameda home.

Charles Menut, a regional manager for Harold Camping's radio company, Family Stations Inc., told supporters about Camping's stroke in an online message posted Saturday. Menut gave no other details.

Camping's radio company spent more than $100 million publicizing the evangelist's Rapture prediction over the past seven years. When it didn't happen on May 21, Camping was widely mocked and he called it "a very difficult time."

He has insisted that his prediction was correct and said the end would become apparent on October 21 instead.

Camping, who made a special appearance before the press at the Oakland headquarters of the media empire on May 23, apologized for not having the dates "worked out as accurately as I could have."

"Technically the Bible says no one knows the day the day and time," said Chadwick Barrs of West Columbia.  "So if he (Camping) makes up a day, and it turns up wrong, and they're going to to give him another chance, it doesn't make sense."

But instead of the biblical "rapture," Camping now says May 21 was a "spiritual" Judgment Day, with the entire world now under God's judgment until it's destroyed in five months.

Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before global cataclysm struck the planet, said Monday that he felt so terrible when his doomsday message did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions — some of it from donations made by followers — on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 recreational vehicles plastered with the Judgment Day message.

Camping added that since God's judgment and salvation were completed on Saturday, there's no point in continuing to warn people about it. He said his Family Radio network will now just play Christian music and programs for people who are already saved until the end comes on Oct. 21.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)