WASHINGTON — More than 4,000 flights were canceled in the US on Saturday ahead of a monster winter storm that has already cut power to more than 160,000 electricity customers as far west as Texas and threatened to paralyze eastern states with heavy snowfall.

Forecasters said snow, sleet and freezing rain, accompanied by dangerously frigid temperatures, would sweep the eastern two-thirds of the nation on Sunday and into next week.

Calling the storms “historic,” President Donald J. Trump on Saturday approved federal emergency disaster declarations in South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and West Virginia.

“We will continue to monitor and stay in touch with all States in the path of this storm. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have declared weather emergencies, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said.

“We do have tens of thousands of people in affected states in the South that have lost power. We have utility crews that are working to restore that as quick as possible,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said late Saturday afternoon.

The number of power outages continued to rise. As of 10:17 p.m. EST, more than 160,000 US customers had no electricity, the bulk of them in Louisiana and Texas, according to PowerOutage.com.

The US Department of Energy on Saturday said it issued an emergency order authorizing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to deploy backup generation resources at data centers and other major facilities, aiming to limit blackouts in the state.

The US National Weather Service warned of an unusually expansive and long-duration winter storm that will bring widespread, heavy ice accumulation in the southeast US, where “crippling to locally catastrophic impacts” can be expected.

Weather service forecasters predicted record cold temperatures and dangerously cold wind chills descending further into the Great Plains region of the US by Monday.

As of 10:21 p.m. EST, more than 4,000 US flights scheduled for Saturday had been canceled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. More than 9,400 US flights originally set for Sunday also have been canceled.

Major US airlines warned passengers to stay alert for abrupt flight changes and cancellations.

In an update on Saturday morning, Delta Air Lines said it was continuing to make schedule adjustments, with additional cancellations in the morning for Atlanta and along the East Coast, including in Boston and New York City.

It added it was relocating experts from cold-weather hubs to support de-icing and baggage teams at several southern airports.

JetBlue said that as of Saturday morning it had canceled about 1,000 flights through Monday, with additional cancellations possible.

United Airlines said in an e-mail that its weather preparations included proactively canceling some flights in places with the worst weather.

US electric grid operators on Saturday stepped up precautions to avoid rotating blackouts.

Dominion Energy, whose Virginia operations include the largest collection of data centers in the world, said if its ice forecast holds, it could be among the largest-ever winter events to affect the utility’s operations.

Ms. Noem, speaking at a news conference about US government preparations for the storm, warned Americans to take precautions.

“It’s going to be very, very cold,” Ms. Noem said. “So we’d encourage everybody to stock up on fuel, stock up on food, and we will get through this together.” — Reuters

DELHI — India will seek to triple the nation’s exports by 2035 by boosting manufacturing through structural changes rather than with hefty spending, according to two government officials.

In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third such attempt, the South Asian nation is prioritizing manufacturing in 15 sectors, including high-end semiconductors, metals and the labor-intensive leather industry, aiming to lift India’s growth and boost annual goods exports to $1.3 trillion, they said.

Mr. Modi’s government has twice failed to double the share of manufacturing to 25% of gross domestic product – with a “Make in India” campaign in 2014 and a $23 billion package of incentives in 2020.

“In past years, several government initiatives to boost manufacturing growth have led to modest, incremental progress at best. What is needed is a bold, focused and cohesive strategy to drive transformative change,” according to a government official involved in drafting the policy.

MODEST FUNDING TO BE DECIDED BY GOVERNMENT PANEL
The government will spend about 100 billion rupees ($1 billion) to build infrastructure for about 30 manufacturing hubs across the targeted sectors while providing grants of $218 million for advanced areas such as chips and energy storage, said the officials, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to media.

The Finance Ministry and government think tank NITI Aayog, which is tasked with preparing the policy, did not respond to requests for comment.

Funding this time is modest as the plan focuses on easing regulatory and compliance burdens, the biggest impediment to Indian manufacturing, rather than doling out subsidies, the officials said.

Financial support to industries will be decided case by case with recommendations from a new government panel to administrative departments, replacing the pre-budget fiscal packages of earlier schemes, they said.

The new structure, called the National Manufacturing Mission, was announced in the budget last year but details were not disclosed. Details could be announced in the budget on February 1, but that will be decided closer to the date, the officials said.

FOCUS ON CUTTING RED TAPE
The panel’s focus will be to ensure faster regulatory clearance, approvals for land and cheaper financing for large projects, the officials said. It will be chaired by a minister and composed of bureaucrats, including the cabinet secretary, they said.

It will oversee the building of manufacturing hubs for the 15 sectors, and work with state governments to assure steady and cheap electricity supplies for such units, the sources said.

Manufacturing hubs have been identified based on existing infrastructure, geographic advantages and proximity to ports, the officials said.

Divergent policies by India’s federal and state governments have weighed on investment and hampered manufacturing. States have followed different regulations for labor and business compliance, increasing costs for companies operating in multiple states.

The proposed panel would coordinate with states to ease regulations such as those requiring multiple permits for power, land, and water.

It would also recommend cutting red tape by reducing overlaps between quality and standards checks, and suggest aligning tariffs to industry requirements and “national priorities”, the sources said.— Reuters

JAKARTA — Indonesian rescuers on Friday had found the bodies of 10 passengers on a fishery surveillance plane that went missing in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province at the weekend, the country’s search and rescue agency said.

The ATR 42-500 turboprop owned by aviation group Indonesia Air Transport (IAT) lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday at about 1:30 p.m. local time (0530 GMT) around the Maros region in South Sulawesi.

There were seven crew members and three passengers on board the plane, which was chartered by Indonesia’s Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry to conduct air surveillance on its fisheries. The passengers were ministry staff members.

Andi Sultan, an official at South Sulawesi’s rescue agency, said through tears during a video statement that authorities found the ninth and tenth bodies early on Friday, adding that the evacuation process was still ongoing.

The agency said separately on its Instagram account that 10 victims have been found.

Local rescuers previously discovered the wreckage of the plane in different locations around Mount Bulusaraung in the Maros region, about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) northeast of the sprawling island nation’s capital, Jakarta.

Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), which probes transport accidents, is currently investigating the contents of the recently-found black box, its chief told local media this week.

It was Indonesia’s first deadly crash involving the ATR 42, manufactured by Franco-Italian planemaker ATR, in more than a decade. In 2015, a Trigana Air Service ATR 42-300 crashed into a mountainside in Indonesia’s Papua region, killing all 54 people on board.

A Boeing 737-500 jet operated by airline Sriwijaya Co crashed into the Java sea in 2021, killing 62 people.— Reuters

HANOI — Vietnam’s top leader To Lam was appointed on Friday as head of the ruling Communist Party for the next five years, state media reported, as he pledged to turbocharge growth in the export-reliant nation.

In the one-party state, Mr. Lam was re-elected “unanimously” to the country’s most powerful job by 180 party officials from a newly-formed committee at the end of the five-yearly party congress, according to the Vietnam News Agency citing a press release from the party.

At a press conference being prepared to conclude the party congress, Mr. Lam’s name appeared under the title general secretary, and an official confirmed the party leader would be speaking.

SWEEPING REFORMS
During his brief prior stint as party chief since mid-2024, Mr. Lam presided over fast growth underpinned by sweeping reforms that won him strong support but also criticism, as tens of thousands of civil servants lost their jobs while he promoted faster decision-making and less red tape.

Aware of the discontent stirred by those reforms, Mr. Lam moved early to secure support from rival factions within the party, including the powerful military, according to officials familiar with the process.

As concerns mounted about his plans to bolster private conglomerates at the expense of state-owned firms, Mr. Lam issued a directive ahead of the party congress underscoring the “leading role” of state enterprises, which include army-controlled telecom and defense giant Viettel.

“He normally meticulously prepares for his moves,” said Le Hong Hiep, senior fellow at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, noting that Mr. Lam, as state security minister, maneuvered deftly to reach the apex of Vietnam’s political system in 2024 when his late predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong was facing prolonged health issues.

Mr. Lam’s re-election as party chief sends a reassuring message to foreign investors who regularly cite political stability as a key factor in Vietnam’s appeal.

Mr. Lam, 68, is also seeking to become president, with a decision expected to be announced later.

But Mr. Hiep cautioned that Mr. Lam’s bid to combine the two top roles — a system resembling the model under Xi Jinping in neighboring China — “could pose risks to Vietnam’s political system,” which has traditionally depended on collective leadership and internal checks.

TARGETS 10% GROWTH
Earlier this week, addressing congress delegates seating in red-upholstered seats in a red-carpeted conference hall under a towering statue of party’s founder Ho Chi Minh, Mr. Lam promised annual growth above 10% through the decade – an ambitious target which differs from World Bank’s forecasts of an average 6.5% yearly expansion this year and next.

Mr. Lam wants to achieve that by changing the country’s growth model, which has hinged for decades on cheap labor and exports, turning the Southeast Asian nation into a high-middle income economy by 2030 thanks to a boost in innovation and efficiency.

In his first months as party chief, he launched the most comprehensive overhaul of the country’s public administration and government in decades, and has promised to continue with his reform drive, despite concerns over financial risks, controversial infrastructure, and favoritism.— Reuters

LONDON — Big Northern European investors are increasingly wary of the risks of holding US assets in the face of geopolitical tensions, pensions chiefs told Reuters, a sign of a broadening shift away from the world’s biggest financial market.

A top investment adviser, three pension funds and a leading industry body said the risk premium attached to holding US assets had also gone up in part because of worries about the nation’s finances.

Pension industry leaders and investment chiefs from Finland, Sweden and Denmark told Reuters they viewed US foreign policy uncertainty and White House debt levels as a threat to the dollar, US Treasuries and stocks.

The Nordic region is home to some of Europe’s biggest pension funds by assets.

This week two Nordic pension funds, Sweden’s Alecta and Denmark’s AkademikerPension, said they had sold or were in the process of selling their US Treasuries.

While they said the decisions were unrelated to recent events, US President Donald Trump’s ambitions for Greenland have revived speculation about Europe responding with financial protectionism to his administration’s policies.

“We’re having a lot of discussions (with clients) around (whether) it is time to tilt away from US assets,” said Van Luu, global head of solutions strategy, fixed income and foreign exchange at Russell Investments, which advises retirement schemes.

“About 50% of them are considering whether they should do something about it,” especially Northern European clients, including in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, he said.

Seattle-based Russell advises clients with $1.6 trillion of assets and manages $636 billion directly.

RARE PUBLIC DEBATE
Shifts in long-term asset allocation take time to show up and the United States with its strong economy and deep markets remains a draw. US stocks are trading near record highs. US policy uncertainty, however, has pressured the dollar, which fell 10% against major currencies last year amid tariff hikes and other policies, and 30-year US Treasury yields are trading at around 4.9%, near levels reached during the global financial crisis.

The Nordic funds have been more vocal about their appetite for US assets than others.

Alecta said it had sold most of its US bond holdings because risk associated with US Treasuries and the dollar had increased, while AkademikerPension said it would divest its holdings by the end of the month, blaming weak US government finances.

AkademikerPension said the move was not intended as a political statement linked to the rift between Denmark and the United States over Greenland.

The public nature of the debate over US assets is unusual for investors, who typically steer away from commenting on any changes that may be linked to current affairs.

Their long-term investment decisions tend to look past momentary events.

“All of this turmoil is raising some questions about how exposed you should be to the US… that is what our members are professionally assessing,” said Tom Vile Jensen, deputy director of trade body Insurance and Pensions Denmark.

While US policy uncertainty is a risk factor for asset valuations, the funds said they wouldn’t withdraw capital for political reasons.

“There is certainly no weaponization of capital. It is not the job of our sector to do that,” said Vile Jensen.

VERY MUCH INVESTABLE
The US remains an investable market but its risk premium has “continued to rise”, said Annika Ekman, EVP, Investments at Finland’s Ilmarinen, which manages just over 65 billion euros ($76.1 billion).

Finnish pension provider Veritas, meanwhile, is adhering to its investing mandates but US policy uncertainty is a risk for the dollar, CIO Laura Wickstrom said.

“The higher the unpredictability (goes), then that is a more difficult environment,” she said.

US policy uncertainty has also contributed to the draw of assets such as gold.

Folksam, one of Sweden’s largest insurers, told Reuters it sold its US Treasuries in 2024 partly to reduce risks ahead of the US election.

“There is a lot of talk right now, but for the time being I believe one should keep a cool head,” said Jonas Thulin, CIO at Sweden’s AP3, which manages roughly $61 billion of pension assets. ($1 = 0.8546 euros) — Reuters