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Doomsday 'prophet' suffers a stroke

After his prophecy failed to materialize, he said he had simply miscalculated and pronounced a new date

Evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping, who rallied thousands of followers with a failed prophecy that the world would come to an end last month, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke.

Camping, 89, fell ill following a broadcast of his daily "Open Forum" radio show last Thursday evening in Oakland, California, and was admitted to an undisclosed hospital in the San Francisco Bay area, Tom Evans, a spokesman for his Family Radio network, said yesterday.

"He's doing well, and that's all we want to say right now," Evans said.

Camping drew international headlines by predicting the biblical Judgment Day would occur on May 21, launching a doomsday countdown in which some followers spent their life's savings in anticipation of being swept into heaven that day.

But after Camping's prophecy failed to materialize, he said he had simply miscalculated by five months and pronounced a new date for the apocalypse, October 21.

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