Severe weather across the United States has left hundreds of thousands of utility customers without power. “More than 116,000 outages have been reported in Michigan, while roughly 41,000 have been reported in Ohio,” USA TODAY reports. “Towards the northeast, Pennsylvania has more than 24,000 outages, and New York has about 19,000,” it added. In total, more than 500,000 customers from Texas to New York were without power Monday morning. Storms knock out power to 500,000 across US Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and South https://t.co/BYR4llVuB6 https://t.co/BYR4llVuB6 — Reuters (@Reuters) March 16, 2026 USA TODAY shared further: A major winter storm has already dumped several feet of snow on the upper Midwest and Great Lakes region. More is still forecast for parts of Wisconsin and Michigan on March 16, according to the National Weather Service. In the Mid-Atlantic, officials in Washington, Virginia, and North Carolina are bracing for thunderstorms that could produce damaging winds and tornadoes. The weather service issued a “moderate risk” of severe weather alert for the region. Potent storms are also expected to bring rain or heavy winds across parts of the Southeast, including in Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee, per the weather service. Tens of thousands of power outages have been reported in states including Georgia, Kentucky, and Mississippi, according to USA TODAY’s outage tracker. Michigan, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania have been hit the hardest by the outages. The severe weather also caused thousands of flight delays. Hundreds of flights at Logan International Airport have been canceled or delayed after Massport issued a weather advisory due to high speed winds and rain, officials said. https://t.co/uBgcO53lbC — The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) March 16, 2026 ABC News has more: More than 3,400 flights within or out of the United States have already been canceled on Monday and more than 14,000 flights have been delayed, according to FlightAware.com, which tracks flights throughout the nation. Between Saturday and Monday morning, more than 5,000 flights were canceled nationwide due to weather, with 3,000 flights scrapped on Sunday alone. A major winter storm sweeping across the country has produced blizzards, ice storms and widespread destruction across parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes states. Overnight, parts of Wisconsin recorded more than 2 feet of snow, including the city of Wausau, which received 23.4 inches of snow on Sunday and was adding to its snow totals on Monday morning. Blizzard conditions are still occurring in parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota, where the city of Minneapolis recorded 8.8 inches of snow overnight and into Monday. Meanwhile, more than 391 reports of damaging winds have been recorded from Texas to Ohio. At least eight states — including Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and New York — have reported destructive wind gusts of 70 mph.

European Union leaders rejected President Trump’s call for allies to assist in opening the Strait of Hormuz. Foreign ministers from the 27 EU countries met in Brussels to discuss Trump’s message to help secure the waterway that plays a strategic role in global oil markets. “This is not Europe’s war,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. She said there was “no appetite” from the member states to expand the EU naval mission in the Middle East to the Strait of Hormuz. “Nobody wants to go actively in this war,” she added. Footage below: The European Union has rejected President Trump’s call for allied naval support to secure the Strait of Hormuz. The European Union says, “This is not Europe’s war,” and is basically telling the United States, “You’re on your own.” “Nobody wants to go actively into this war.” pic.twitter.com/B2vFgmk54I — Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) March 16, 2026 More from The Times of Israel: US President Donald Trump has called on other nations to help police the strait after Iran responded to US-Israeli attacks by using drones, missiles and mines to ‌effectively close the channel for tankers that normally transport a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas. The EU’s Aspides mission — named after the Greek word for “shields” — was established in 2024 to protect ships from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group in the Red Sea. “There was in our discussions a clear wish to strengthen this operation, but for the time being, there was no appetite in changing the mandate of the operation,” Kallas tells reporters after a meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Brussels. Trump warned NATO would have a “very bad” future if U.S. allies did not assist in opening the strait. “Very Bad” – President Trump Issues Warning On NATO “It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump told the Financial Times. “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO,” he added. POLITICO shared further: He wrote on social media that he was in contact with seven countries about securing the strait, without naming which countries he was referring to. And on Monday, Trump told reporters that he was confident France would assist the U.S. "I think he's gonna help. I mean, I'll let you know, I spoke to him yesterday," the American president said, referring to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. Trump also said he was “not happy” with the response from the U.K. and “very surprised” after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would not be drawn into a "wider war" over Iran. Trump was adamant that "we don't need anybody" and "we're the strongest nation in the world," but his request for assistance was a test of solidarity, to see how European countries would react, as Iran's closure of the strait drives up oil prices. "I've been saying for years that if we ever did need them, they won't be there," the U.S. president said. European capitals clearly don't want to get involved, though — and wish Trump would stop asking.

Cuba’s electrical grid collapsed, and most of the island, including Havana, is in the dark. The country’s Ministry of Energy and Mines said on Monday that there had been a “complete disconnection” of the electrical system and that an investigation was underway into the cause. The outage affected much of the island, including the capital, […] The post Most of Cuba Is In the Dark, the Electrical Grid Collapsed appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from The Michael Knowles Show. * * * A Honduran national, deported four times from the United States, reportedly pushed an elderly Air Force veteran onto the tracks of the New York City subway. You can read about it in the local news, however, you’re not going to see a lot about it in the national news. This guy was arrested last Tuesday for pushing two people: a 30-year-old man and an 83-year-old man onto the tracks. This was unprovoked. This guy is a serial criminal, a four-time deportee. According to the deputy assistant secretary of DHS, he should never have been able to walk our streets and harm innocent Americans. He’s probably going to get off the hook. Soon, he’ll be receiving various taxpayer subsidies and eating a dollar-a-slice pizza. He’s also probably living it up at the Roosevelt Hotel, where illegal aliens have been able to get better accommodations than most actual taxpaying New Yorkers for years now. The reason this story matters is not that it’s shocking or surprising. It’s not “man bites dog.” This has been happening for a long time. This is directly attributable to mayors and governors like Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul. Mamdani and Hochul and all the Democrat mayors and governors of sanctuary cities and states are aiding and abetting these crimes. They are actively encouraging these crimes because sanctuary cities and states refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, and they refuse to turn these criminals over to ICE. According to the current policy in New York City, this guy — if he is sent to prison — will be allowed to get out and run free in the city afterward. When ICE shows up and says we want to pick this guy up and deport him for the fifth time, New York will say, No. We will not hand him over to you. We will protect the guy who threw the 83-year-old Air Force veteran onto the subway tracks, the guy with a rap sheet a mile long who has broken our laws countless times. At this point, the only way to stop him from doing it again is probably capital punishment. Yes, right now he wouldn’t get back into the country because President Trump closed the border. But the next time you get a Democrat president, he or she will once again make the border wide open. And this guy will walk back in. These Democrat mayors and governors — Zohran Mamdani, Kathy Hochul, and the rest of them — are actively working with this guy. They have blood on their hands. Every woman these people light on fire in a subway car in New York, every throat these people slash, every crime these people commit is on their hands. And that’s not hyperbole. They are very practically, very literally protecting these people from federal immigration enforcement. They are keeping them in the country, holding them tight when federal immigration enforcement tries to enforce the law. Furthermore, we have to recognize something about illegal immigration: every single crime that illegal immigrants commit here is needless, gratuitous, and preventable. Every single one. The libs like to say, Actually illegal aliens commit much less crime than the native-born population. First of all, that isn’t true. Then they try to say illegal aliens commit less violent crime than the native-born population. You can make some arguments for that, but they’re pretty weak arguments — and it misses the point. We have to deal with the crime that native-born Americans commit. That’s baked in. We don’t have an option. We can’t strip them of citizenship. But every single illegal immigrant who commits a crime here — whether it’s rape and murder or jaywalking and tax evasion — every single one of those crimes is preventable. And therefore the people who fight tooth and nail to keep illegal immigrants in this country — even the convicted criminals, felons, and murderers — those people have blood on their hands. That is why immigration is not an abstract policy debate. It is a question of responsibility. And the American people should hold every single Democrat accountable for it.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent slammed reports that President Trump’s meeting with China would be delayed if Beijing did not agree to secure the Strait of Hormuz.  “There’s a false narrative out there,” said Bessent. “If the meetings are delayed it wouldn’t be delayed because the President has demanded that China police the Strait of Hormuz. If the meeting for some reason is rescheduled, it would be rescheduled because of logistics. The President wants to remain in D.C. to coordinate the war effort and traveling abroad at a time like this may not be optimal.”  Bessent traveled to Paris to begin trade talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Sunday to set the stage for President Trump’s state visit to Beijing at the end of March. The Treasury Secretary added he had a successful meeting with Lifeng, discussing China’s purchase commitments to the United States and the new tariff regime.  Trump first announced his visit in late November after a phone call with China’s President Xi Jinping. Xi invited Trump to Beijing following their meeting in South Korea. Bessent’s assurance that any delay to Trump’s visit would be logistical follows Beijing’s rejection of Trump’s suggestion that China deploy warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical passage through which more than one-fifth of the world’s oil supply travels. When asked about the proposal, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, “China’s position is clear. We once again call on all sides to immediately cease military actions, avoid further escalation, and prevent regional turbulence from having a major impact on global economic growth.” Along with not taking Trump up on his proposal, China has condemned the United States’s role in the attacks on Iran. However, George Chen partner at the Asia Group does not expect the issue to be a central topic during April’s talks. “U.S.-China relations are already complicated enough for President Trump and Xi to handle,” he said. Adding Iran to the mix “won’t be something that both sides are keen to do.” What will be central to the talks are tariffs. In response to the Supreme Court knocking down Trump’s sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the administration has turned to other trade authorities, including Section 122 tariffs and potential Section 301 tariffs led by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Section 122 allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 10 percent for 150 days without congressional approval. Section 301 tariffs, meanwhile, require a formal investigation conducted by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. Before IEEPA was overturned, Trump could impose a levy as quick as posting to Truth Social. But stripped of the power of IEEPA, Bessent says 301 will not be imposed until July and he will need congressional action after 150 days for section 122.  “We assume there will be very little change in Tariff revenue,” said Bessent. “The ultimate purpose of tariffs is to reshore production. At the end of the day we want to reshore manufacturing in the US, especially strategic manufacturing.” Bessent said that goal also shaped the administration’s approach to trade talks with China. He added that the administration does not want to fully decouple from China, but does want to bring key strategic manufacturing back to the United States.