CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An unusually strong solar storm hitting Earth could produce northern lights in the U.S. this weekend and potentially disrupt power and communications.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday afternoon, hours sooner than anticipated. The effects were due to last through the weekend and possibly into next week.

NOAA alerted operators of power plants and spacecraft in orbit to take precautions, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“For most people here on planet Earth, they won’t have to do anything,” said Rob Steenburgh, a scientist with NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

The storm could produce northern lights as far south in the U.S. as Alabama and Northern California, according to NOAA. But it was hard to predict and experts stressed it would not be the dramatic curtains of color normally associated with the northern lights, but more like splashes of greenish hues.

“That’s really the gift from space weather — the aurora,” said Steenburgh. He and his colleagues said the best aurora views may come from phone cameras, which are better at capturing light than the naked eye.

Snap a picture of the sky and “there might be actually a nice little treat there for you,” said Mike Bettwy, operations chief for the prediction center.

The most intense solar storm in recorded history, in 1859, prompted auroras in central America and possibly even Hawaii. “We are not anticipating that” but it could come close, said NOAA space weather forecaster Shawn Dahl.

This storm poses a risk for high-voltage transmission lines for power grids, not the electrical lines ordinarily found in people’s homes, Dahl told reporters. Satellites also could be affected, which in turn could disrupt navigation and communication services here on Earth.

An extreme geomagnetic storm in 2003, for example, took out power in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.

Even when the storm is over, signals between GPS satellites and ground receivers could be scrambled or lost, according to NOAA. But there are so many navigation satellites that any outages should not last long, Steenburgh noted.

The sun has produced strong solar flares since Wednesday, resulting in at least seven outbursts of plasma. Each eruption — known as a coronal mass ejection — can contain billions of tons of plasma and magnetic field from the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona.

The flares seem to be associated with a sunspot that’s 16 times the diameter of Earth, according to NOAA. It’s all part of the solar activity that’s ramping up as the sun approaches the peak of its 11-year cycle.

NASA said the storm posed no serious threat to the seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The biggest concern is the increased radiation levels, and the crew could move to a better shielded part of the station if necessary, according to Steenburgh.

Increased radiation also could threaten some of NASA’s science satellites. Extremely sensitive instruments will be turned off, if necessary, to avoid damage, said Antti Pulkkinen, director of the space agency’s heliophysics science division.

Several sun-focused spacecraft are monitoring all the action.

“This is exactly the kinds of things we want to observe,” Pulkkinen said.

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The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is asking for public assistance to aid in locating a missing woman.

Authorities say 36-year-old Nicole Cabral was last seen around 5:30 p.m. on May 9 near the 1000 block of Baldwin Park Boulevard in the city of Baldwin Park. 

Cabral is described as Hispanic, 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing approximately 220 pounds, with short brown hair and hazel eyes. She has a tattoo that says “Nalani” on her back and tattoos of stars on her right and left shoulders.

LASD says Cabral was last seen wearing a white t-shirt and sweatpants. The missing woman requires medication and her family is extremely concerned for her well-being.

Anyone with information about this incident is encouraged to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Missing Persons Unit at (323) 890-5500.  

If you prefer to provide information anonymously, you may call “Crime Stoppers” by dialing (800) 222-TIPS (8477), use your smartphone by downloading the “P3 Tips” Mobile APP on Google Play or the Apple App Store, or by using the website http://lacrimestoppers.org 
 

Asna Tabassum, USC’s Class of 2024 valedictorian who was barred from speaking at the university’s commencement ceremony, called attention to her silencing by releasing a largely redacted version of the speech that she would have delivered on Friday.

The document was published by Annenberg Media and the Daily Trojan, the university’s student-run newspaper.

“This speech is published as was written and shared by Tabassum. Annenberg Media and the Daily Trojan did not write, edit or change the speech or its presentation,” the university’s media center noted on Instagram.

“President Folt, Provost Guzman, faculty, staff, families and fellow Class of 2024,” the speech begins, “It is my honor to stand before you today as your Valedictorian. I am filled with gratitude to have the privilege of” – followed by 10 paragraphs of redactions.

The speech ends with “Congratulations, Class of 2024. Thank you.”

USC’s commencement ceremony was scheduled to take place Friday morning. However, the event was canceled after a series of steps, or missteps, related to the selection of Tabassum, a Muslim, as valedictorian.

In mid-April, the private university first announced Tabassum would no longer speak at commencement due to unspecified safety concerns after pro-Israel groups accused her of being antisemitic. They pointed to her Instagram account, which shared a link to another account calling for the abolishment of the state of Israel.

Tabassum is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and a minor in resistance to genocide.

After her cancelation, USC announced that all outside commencement speakers, including tennis legend Billie Jean King and filmmaker Jon M. Chu, would no longer speak.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators converged on USC’s campus, setting up an encampment and erecting banners in violation of school policy to protest Tabassum’s silencing and Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

Campus security, with the help of the Los Angeles Police Department, cleared the encampment on April 24, arresting nearly 100 people. Smaller demonstrations have also been dispersed.

USC later replaced its main graduation ceremony with a series of private events, including one at the LA Memorial Coliseum.

USC’s Academic Senate, the body that represents the school’s faculty, voted to censure university President Carol Folt and Provost Andrew Guzman Wednesday over what they said was the mishandling of the issues leading up to the cancellation of commencement, according to multiple reports.