President Donald Trump praised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth while speaking at the Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michigan today.

The president said Hegseth is doing “a really great job, the Houthis will tell you that,” getting a few laughs from the crowd. Hegseth was there with the president at the base.

Later, at a rally in Warren, Michigan, marking his the 100th day of his second term, Trump reiterated that he has “so much confidence in” Hegseth.

“The fake news is after him, really after him, but he’s a tough cookie. They don’t know how tough he is, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth,” Trump said, acknowledging him in the audience as the crowd started chanting “Pete!”

Hegseth’s relationship with Trump: The defense secretary has found himself under scrutiny over revelations that he shared detailed plans about a military operation against the Houthis in Yemen in a second Signal group chat, this time with his wife and brother.

CNN reported last week that Trump was unlikely to dismiss Hegseth. In their first call after The New York Times and CNN reported on the second Signal chat, Trump said he had Hegseth’s back and voiced frustration at “leakers” he said were trying to damage his administration, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

At the rally, Trump also praised other officials in his administration, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Steven Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff. Miller briefly came on stage and touted Trump’s key initiatives.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Natasha Bertrand, Jake Tapper and Kevin Liptak contributed reporting to this post, which has been updated with more remarks from Trump’s rally.

CNN
 — 

Electricity is pulsing through Spain and Portugal again after a massive outage knocked out power in both countries on Monday. So too are questions.

It remains unclear what caused the sudden and staggering blackout, which plunged tens of millions of people into darkness and paralyzed life on the Iberian peninsula.

Authorities are investigating whether a freak event, a cyberattack or some other cause is to blame, while airports and train stations are catching up with a huge backlog.

Here’s what you need to know.

Spain’s electrical grid was running as normal until 12:33 p.m. (6:33 a.m. ET) when, suddenly, it suffered a disturbance.

Eduardo Prieto, the director of services for the grid operator Red Eléctrica, said the grid recovered after that first shock. But a second disconnection, one and a half seconds later, caused “a degradation of operating variables” of the system, leading to a “massive generation disconnection” and “disconnection of the connection lines with France.”

In the space of a few seconds, 15 gigawatts of energy suddenly dropped from Spain’s supply, Spanish government sources told CNN – equivalent to 60% of the electricity being consumed at the time – and the entire Spanish grid collapsed as a result.

“A second and a half may not seem like much. Indeed, it is nothing for any human action. In the electrical world it is a very long time,” Prieto said on Tuesday.

This is the crucial question that tens of millions of people in Spain and Portugal have been asking. And the answer is: We don’t know.

Past blackouts in Europe have often had obvious causes, like a fire or extreme weather. But this event occurred on a warm and sunny day in Spain, and more than 24 hours after the outage, it remains unclear why the entire country lost power.

The problem appears to have originated in Spain: Portugal’s Prime Minister Luís Montenegro was quick to point the finger at his neighboring nation on Monday.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said at a Tuesday press conference that his government has created an “investigation commission.”

Sanchez said an excess in renewable energy production was not the cause, Reuters reported, ruling out one possibility.

He confirmed that Spain’s cybersecurity authorities are also looking into whether a cyberattack was the cause. Spain’s top criminal court also said on Tuesday it was exploring whether “an act of computer sabotage on critical infrastructure” was to blame.

Electricity was completely knocked out in most of Spain and Portugal for several hours, finally returning to most places on Monday evening.

Traffic lights, street lamps, payment terminals and screens were all cut off unless they were battery powered; many shops shut and others were forced to accept only cash payments.

Travel was badly hit: Flights were canceled in airports across Spain and Portugal. Dozens of Iberian cities, like Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, Seville and Valencia, are major hubs for transport, finance and tourism. Two of the five busiest airports in the European Union in 2023 were Madrid’s and Barcelona’s, according to EU data.

Police officers were forced to direct traffic with hand signals; roads quickly clogged and subway systems were closed down.

But the worst-case scenarios were averted: Spain’s nuclear sites were declared operational and safe, and hospitals in both countries ran on back-up generators.

It will still take days for the full cost of the crisis to become clear. On Tuesday, Spain’s emergency services said three elderly people died from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning after using electric generators during Monday’s blackout.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida (AP) — A Florida businessman charged with kidnapping and killing his estranged wife in Spain was found dead from apparent suicide Monday morning in a South Florida federal prison, his defense attorney said.

David Knezevich, 37, was awaiting trial at the Federal Detention Center in Miami. He was charged last year with kidnapping and killing 40-year-old Ana Hedao Knezevich, who went missing in a case that has drawn international media attention.

Knezevich’s attorney, Jayne Weintraub, said she learned that he was found dead in his cell but didn’t offer any details about how he died.

“The defense team is devastated to learn of this news,” Weintraub said. “We sincerely hope that an appropriate and prompt investigation will be conducted.”

The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that Knezevich was found unresponsive in his cell shortly after 8 a.m. Responding employees initiated life-saving measures before emergency medical services arrived and took over, officials said. EMS personnel eventually pronounced Knezevich dead. The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service were notified.

Ana Knezevich disappeared from her Madrid apartment in February 2024, five weeks after she had moved there. Her body still hasn’t been found.

A man in a motorcycle helmet was seen sneaking into her apartment building and disabling a security camera, and was later seen wheeling out a suitcase.

Prosecutors say they have strong evidence Knezevich was the man in the helmet. They say he flew to Turkey from Miami six days before Ana’s disappearance, then immediately traveled to his native Serbia, where he rented a car. Security video captured Knezevich at a Madrid hardware store the same day his wife disappeared, and his rental car had been driven 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers) when it was returned five weeks later, officials said.

The couple was in the middle of a contentious divorce while fighting over millions of dollars in properties, according to prosecutors. They had been married for 13 years.

Weintraub has said the split was amicable and the financial arrangements were being worked out.