SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – A rare sighting of the Northern Lights seen as far south as SW Florida. A powerful sunspot rated G5 or Coronal Mass Ejection has occurred over the past few days and will be sending 6 other CME’s our way through the weekend. The size of the sunspot is 15 times larger than earth. This is the strongest geomagnetic storm we have seen since 2003!

The National Space Weather Prediction Center is calling this a G5 or extreme event and that the auroras will likely be seen through the weekend. Communication satellites may be disrupted, GPS systems, and electrical currents on Earth’s surface, which can cause damage to some power infrastructure. These storms can also cause massive auroras. The name of the sunspot is AR3664.

This event should last through the weekend so you may have a chance to see it again! Send your photos to news@mysuncoast.com

Copyright 2024 WWSB. All rights reserved.

MIAMI — A federal judge ordered the Florida man charged with his estranged wife’s disappearance in Spain held without bond on Friday, rejecting his lawyer’s argument that the prosecution case is entirely circumstantial and shouldn’t be tried in the United States.

Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres said the decision to hold David Knezevich until trial was “a close call,” but he said the Fort Lauderdale business owner’s wealth and close ties to his native Serbia make him a potential flight risk even if he was required to post a $1 million bond, wear an ankle bracelet and surrender his passport. Knezevich and his wife are both naturalized U.S. citizens — she is from Colombia.

Knezevich, 36, was arrested by the FBI last weekend at Miami International Airport and charged with kidnapping. His 40-year-old wife, Ana Knezevich, disappeared Feb. 2 after a man in a motorcycle helmet spraypainted the lens of a security camera outside of her Madrid apartment. She had moved there from Florida late last year after their split.

Torres’ decision came after a contentious two-hour hearing during which federal prosecutor Lacee Monk and defense attorney Jayne Weintraub sparred over just how strong the government’s case is against Knezevich and whether the U.S. has jurisdiction to try an alleged crime that happened in Europe.

Monk told Torres that prosecutors believe Ana is dead and that the FBI and Spain’s national police have substantial evidence that Knezevich is behind his wife’s disappearance, which happened five weeks after she left him and moved to Madrid.

She said the couple had been going through a nasty divorce after 13 years of marriage, fighting over how to split a substantial fortune they had amassed from their computer firm and real estate investments. He didn’t want her to have an equal share, Monk said.

Monk said Knezevich flew to Turkey from Miami six days before Ana’s disappearance, then immediately traveled the 600 miles to his native Serbia — she said he was covering his tracks. There, he rented a Peugeot automobile.

On Feb. 2, security video shows him 1,600 miles from Serbia in a Madrid hardware store using cash to buy duct tape and the same brand of spray paint the man in the motorcycle helmet used on the security camera, Monk said. His cellphone connected to Facebook from Madrid. The man in the motorcycle helmet is the same height and has the same eyebrows as Knezevich, she said.

License plates that were stolen in Madrid in that period were spotted by police plate readers both near a motorcycle shop where an identical helmet was purchased and on Ana’s street the night she disappeared. Hours after the helmeted man left the apartment, a Peugeot identical to the one Knezevich rented and sporting the stolen plates was recorded going through a toll booth near Madrid. The driver could not be seen because the windows were tinted.

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The morning after his wife disappeared, Knezevich texted a Colombian woman he met on a dating app to translate into “perfect Colombian” Spanish two English messages, Monk said. After she sent those back, two of Ana’s friends received those exact messages from her cellphone. They said she was going off with a man she had just met, something they say she would have never done. Monk said that proves Knezevich had his wife’s cellphone.

Finally, when Knezevich returned the Peugeot to the rental agency five weeks later, it had been driven 4,800 miles, its windows had been tinted, two identifying stickers had been removed and there was evidence the license plate had been removed and then put back.

She said Knezevich has a strong incentive to flee as he is looking at a potential life sentence if convicted of kidnapping and death if it can be be shown his wife has been killed.

But Weintraub said the government’s case is “built on assumptions.” She denied that the couple’s split was acrimonious and questioned FBI agent Alexandria Montilla extensively about the investigation, trying to poke holes in the government’s theory, admitting she sometimes crossed into “snarkiness.”

For example, Montilla said the only items missing from Ana’s apartment were her laptop and cellphone. Weintraub said perhaps she took a change of clothing, which wouldn’t be obvious, and ran off with a man. When Montilla said unidentified blood was found in Ana’s apartment and is being tested, Weintraub asked why that would take three months.

When Montilla said Spanish police had interviewed all the men Ana had dated since arriving in Spain, Weintraub asked how they would know there wasn’t someone else.

She said Ana had a history of mental illness and had talked of suicide. Weintraub posited that Ana perhaps ran off “on a mental health holiday” and would soon return “with whomever she’s with” — a suggestion that caused Ana’s relatives in the gallery to noticeably stir.

Weintraub also argued there is no evidence that Ana’s disappearance was forced, an essential component of a kidnapping charge.

“And there never will be,” she said.

She then questioned whether the U.S. government even has jurisdiction. Monk argued that under revisions made to the federal kidnapping law in 2006, the U.S. can charge someone if the offender engaged in “interstate or foreign commerce” to commit the crime. Weintraub called that a stretch.

Torres agreed that Weintraub will be able to mount a substantial defense, but the prosecution does have sufficient evidence to charge her client and he is flight risk. He invited Weintraub to appeal his decision. She did not respond.

By TERRY SPENCER, Associated Press

Powerful storms with damaging high winds threatened several states in the Southeast early Friday, as residents elsewhere in the U.S. cleared debris from deadly severe weather that produced twisters in Michigan, Tennessee and other states.

Storms rolled into Tallahassee, where numerous trees were toppled around the state’s capital city, authorities said Friday. Wind gusts of 71 mph were recorded by a weather station near the State Capitol Complex, the National Weather Service reported. Florida State University announced its campuses in Tallahassee were closed Friday due to the severe weather. Nonessential personnel, students and visitors should avoid campuses in Tallahassee until further notice, the school said in a social media post.

The city of Tallahassee said on the X social medial platform that “possible tornadic activity” caused the widespread damage in the Florida capital, especially to electric lines and numerous downed trees. The city said more than 66,000 customers are without electric service and 11 substations were damaged by the storm.

“Restoration will possibly take through the weekend,” the announcement said.

Strong thunderstorms also were expected in Alabama near the Florida panhandle, where gusty winds could knock down tree limbs, the weather service said.

The severe weather is not likely to make it to the Tampa Bay area, where temperatures are starting to feel summer-like. Highs on Friday were expected to reach around 90 on Friday afternoon and rain chances were only at 20%, according to Spectrum Bay News 9.

Weekend weather should be similarly hot with with the chance of rain slim to none. However, rain chances increase to 30% on Monday and 50% on Tuesday, according to the forecast.

Though Tampa Bay will likely be spared from severe weather, parts of the rest of the state and nation were coping with storm damage.

In Mississippi’s capital city of Jackson, authorities on Friday were asking residents to conserve water after a power outage at one of its major water treatment plants. JXN Water, the local water utility, said in a statement that customers can expect reduced water pressure as workers assess damages due to storms that rolled through the region overnight. The weather service said Hickory Hills and surrounding areas near the coast were likely to get severe weather Friday morning and that hail with the potential to damage vehicles was expected.

More than 320,000 homes and businesses across the South, from Mississippi to North Carolina, were without electricity Friday morning, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us. More than half in Florida, where lights and air conditioning were out for more than 180,000 customers.

Several tornado warnings and watches were issued by the National Weather Service on Friday morning, but were lifted by midday as the threat shifted to damaging high winds. Since Monday, 39 states have been under threat of severe weather and at least four people have died. On Wednesday and Thursday, about 220 million people were under some sort of severe weather risk, said Matthew Elliott, a Storm Prediction Center forecaster.

The weather comes on the heels of a stormy April in which the U.S. had 300 confirmed tornadoes, the second-most on record for the month and the most since 2011.

A storm was blamed for killing a 22-year-old man in a car in Claiborne County, north of Knoxville, officials said. A second person was killed south of Nashville in Columbia, the seat of Maury County, where officials said a tornado with 140 mph winds damaged or destroyed more than 100 homes.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said the woman who died in Maury County was in a mobile home that was thrown several feet into a wooded area. Lee visited emergency managers and Tennessee Department of Transportation officials in the storm-stricken area Thursday.

Torrential rains led to a flash flood emergency and water rescues northeast of Nashville, and the weather service issued a tornado emergency, its highest alert level, for nearby areas.

A 10-year-old boy was seriously injured in Christiana, southeast of Nashville, when he got caught in a storm drain and swept under streets while playing with other children as adults cleared debris, his father, Rutherford County Schools Superintendent Jimmy Sullivan, posted on social media.

The boy, Asher, emerged in a drainage ditch and survived after being given CPR, “but the damage is substantial,” Sullivan posted on Facebook, asking for prayers.

“Asher needs a miracle,” Sullivan wrote.

Dozens of people gathered at the school district’s offices for a prayer vigil Thursday. They bowed their heads and closed their eyes in prayer, and they sang “Amazing Grace” together.

Schools were closed Thursday and Friday in Rutherford and Maury. In Georgia, some districts north of Atlanta canceled in-person classes or delayed start times because of storm damage overnight that included fallen trees on houses and vehicles around Clarkesville. No injuries were reported there.

Both the Plains and Midwest have been hammered by tornadoes this spring.

Tampa Bay Times staff writer Chris Tisch contributed to this report.