Tornadoes kill 2 in northwestern Indiana and raze buildings in Kankakee, Illinois

KANKAKEE, Ill. (AP) — Major storms whipped up tornadoes that killed at least two people in northwest Indiana and leveled buildings in Kankakee, Illinois, authorities said Wednesday, as another round of rain, hail and strong winds made its way through the region.

Several intense supercell thunderstorms moved across northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana the previous day, including one responsible for at least four tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service office in Chicago.

The Newton County Coroner's office said Edward L. Kozlowski, 89, and his wife Arlene Kozlowski, 84, were killed when a tornado struck their home in Lake Village, in northwestern Indiana. The couple appeared to have been killed by blunt force trauma, the coroner's office said, and an autopsy was scheduled for Friday.

“They were wonderful, just really wonderful human beings,” son-in-law Steve Rehfeldt told CBS News in Chicago. “You know, tough old guy and sweet old lady.”

They left behind four children, seven grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The storms shattered windows, tore off roofs and smashed vehicles in Kankakee, Illinois. Wood planks and other debris littered yards, streets and parking lots. A landscape and garden center was seriously damaged, some parts completely destroyed.

Storms also dropped 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) of rain and left piles of hail in the Grand Rapids area in western Michigan, said Alex Manion, a weather service meteorologist in Detroit. Streets flooded, swamping cars with water above their doors in some places.

The weather service said crews were determining the strength and number of tornadoes, and parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio remained under a tornado watch Wednesday.

Suspected tornadoes last week killed four people in southwestern Michigan and two in eastern Oklahoma.

In Lake Village, where the Kozlowskis died, crews rescued some people who were trapped in damaged homes. At least 70 utility poles were knocked down and many roads were rendered unpassable, Newton County officials said.

“Please do not come here. Do not try to help right now,” Sheriff Shannon Cothran said in a video shot in front of a destroyed home.

Laurie Postma, a spokesperson for the Lake Township Volunteer Fire Department, said the storm injured less than 10 people in Lake Village. Cothran said no other significant injuries had been reported but search and rescue operations were continuing.

Lake Village is about 60 miles (95 kilometers) southeast of Chicago and 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Kankakee.

David Ferris of Lake Village said he, his wife, and their dogs “rode it out in our downstairs bathtub.” They were unscathed, except for losing power. Ferris, who is a paramedic, helped rescue and treat injured people.

“We had another house where a guy crawled out,” Ferris said. “He was having some trouble breathing because he was covered in house insulation.”

Ferris said a Family Dollar store and a gas station were destroyed, and multiple large trees were uprooted.

Newlywed Cassidy Sinwelski, 23, said she and her husband were aware of the tornado watch in their Lake Village neighborhood and were expecting a run-of-the-mill storm until her husband spotted dark clouds barreling toward them.

“We went into the bathroom, got a piece of plywood and within minutes, I closed my eyes, the lights flickered, and we just — there was nothing,” Sinwelski said.

Then she heard loud rumbles and the sound of shattering glass.

“I just kept crying out for God, because I didn’t know what else to do,” she said.

Jennifer Telford, 49, said she hid in her basement in Lake Village while she followed news reports of the storm. She did not hear the tornado, which struck to the south, but heard the hail pelting her roof.

“The siren in town didn’t go off,” she said. “The sirens outside town did.”

The power was back on in the morning at the truck stop where she works, but elsewhere, “everything is closed due to the downed trees and power lines.”

About 4,300 customers in Lake Village and surrounding communities were without power late Wednesday morning, down from more than 11,000 at the peak of the storm, the Northern Indiana Public Service Co. reported.

In Kankakee, the storms produced exceptionally large hail, ranging from 3 to 5 inches (7.6 to 12.7 centimeters) in diameter. One 6-inch (15.2-centimeter) hailstone may have set a new state record, the weather service said.

A tornado touched down near the fairgrounds before traveling northeast into the small suburb of Aroma Park, where it caused extensive damage, the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office said.

Nine people in the county had minor injuries, officials said at a news conference. Kevin Birk, a meteorologist in the NWS Chicago office, confirmed at least one tornado touched down in the area.

Tholens’ Garden Center on the south side of Kankakee was hit hard by the tornado, owner Nancy Tholen said.

“We have multiple buildings, and lots of them are destroyed,” Tholen said. “This is our 50th year in business, and this was not how we planned to kick off our spring.”

Workers had just left for the day when the tornado hit Tuesday afternoon, she said. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

“You know, we make our living in the next 12 weeks,” Tholen said. “We’ll figure something out to open, but it’s just ... it’s crazy. But again, everybody’s safe, so we’re thankful for that.”

In Aroma Park, just southeast of Kankakee, restaurateur and village trustee Kathleen Slavin watched the destruction of the tornado and “baseball-sized hail” from the village hall, where she attended a village board meeting.

“It took down trees that are probably over a hundred years old, huge trees came down. It took out main power lines,” Slavin said.

Her friend, 69-year-old Ruth Denoyer, swept up glass after the tornado blew out her windows.

“It took our whole garage down, our pool, we have broken windows in the house, glass everywhere.” Denoyer said. “But we still have a roof, unlike some people out here.”

McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press journalists Hallie Golden in Seattle; Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois; and AP video journalist Laura Bargfeld in Lake Village, Indiana, contributed.

This story has been updated to correct that Cassidy Sinwelski lives in Lake Village, Indiana, and Bargfeld reported from Lake Village, not Kankakee, Illinois.

Debris and piles of hail cover a street after flash flooding in Belknap Lookout neighborhood on the Northeast side of Grand Rapids, Mich. on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (Joel Bissell/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP)

A window is damaged in the aftermath of a powerful storm that ripped through the area a day earlier in Kankakee, Ill., Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Toppled trees lean against a home in the aftermath of a powerful storm that ripped through the area a day earlier in Lake Village, Ind., Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

A storm-damaged Tholens' Landscape & Garden center is seen in the aftermath of a powerful storm that ripped through the area a day earlier in Kankakee, Ill., Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

A storm-damaged Tholens' Landscape & Garden center is in ruins in the aftermath of a powerful storm that ripped through the area a day earlier in Kankakee, Ill., Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

A storm-damaged Tholens' Landscape & Garden center is seen in the aftermath of a powerful storm that ripped through the area a day earlier in Kankakee, Ill., Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

A storm-damaged Tholens' Landscape & Garden center is seen in the aftermath of a powerful storm that ripped through the area a day earlier in Kankakee, Ill., Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Utility poles are damaged in the aftermath of a powerful storm that ripped through the area a day earlier in Kankakee, Ill., Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

CORRECTS STATE TO INDIANA - Debris covers vehicles and damged a structure after a severe storm passed the area in in Lake Village, Ind., late Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (WLS-TV via AP)

CORRECTS STATE TO INDIANA - Debris covers vehicles after a severe storm passed the area in in Kankakee County, Illinois., late Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (WLS-TV via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military officials on Tuesday called for spending tens of billions of dollars in the next budget year on drones, air defense systems and fighter jets that have been a key part of fighting the Iran war.

As part of President Donald Trump’s push to boost defense spending to $1.5 trillion in the 2027 budget, the Pentagon wants to triple spending on drones and related technology to more than $74 billion and invest over $30 billion into more critical munitions, including missile interceptors, whose stockpiles have become critically low during the Iran war.

Military officials said the spending blueprint was developed before the conflict in the Middle East. They also did not discuss how much they will request in additional funds for the war, which would be on top of what the White House is seeking to boost defense spending in the next budget year.

“The overlap, you’ll see, is the request for munitions, which is something we always need," Jules Hurst III, acting undersecretary of defense and the Pentagon's comptroller, told reporters at a briefing. "We always need to increase our magazine depth. But outside of that, there aren’t any operational costs in here from Iran.”

The missile interceptors whose numbers are under the most strain are the Patriot and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, air defense systems. The THAAD system is designed for defeating medium-range ballistic missiles, while the Patriot system is for taking down short-range ballistic missiles and crewed aircraft. However, they both also were used to shoot down cheap Iranian drones.

The $30 billion budget item also would aim to purchase long-range Precision Strike Missiles and Mid-Range Capability missile systems used by the U.S. Army.

The budget proposal would allocate nearly $54 billion for military drones and related technology, as well as $21 billion for weapons systems designed to take down enemy drones.

Drones and other unmanned vehicles have emerged as a key weapon in the wars in Ukraine and Iran, and top Pentagon officials say the U.S. must significantly increase its funding of both drones and counter-drone systems.

“Drone warfare is rapidly reshaping the modern battlefield,” Hurst said. “This budget is the largest investment in drone warfare and counter drone technology in U.S. history.”

As part of the 2027 budget, the Pentagon also intends to grow the military by 44,500 troops, or more than 2%, spend more than $2 billion on operations on the U.S.-Mexico border and make the largest shipbuilding request since 1962.

While officials said the budget was developed before operations began in Iran, it featured major jumps in many of the missiles that have been used in the conflict. One of the most dramatic increases was in the choice for the Navy to increase of its purchase of the Tomahawk cruise missile from 55 missiles last year to 785 in this year’s budget.

The long-range cruise missile was heavily used in Iran and led to concerns from experts that the military was using it much faster than it could replenish its stocks.

Vice Adm. Ben Reynolds, the Navy’s budget boss, wouldn’t say if he expected all 785 Tomahawk missiles to be delivered within the year. He acknowledged that weapons production capacity “is absolutely the challenge” and, in the case of the Tomahawk, he said the Navy expects Raytheon — the company that makes it — “to invest very heavily now to be able to ramp up production.”

The services also are addressing the difficulty in producing the advanced munitions favored by the military by slowly shifting toward more basic weapons.

Major Gen. Frank Verdugo, the Air Force’s budget chief, said the Air Force wants to invest $600 million to develop “affordable” munitions as part of an effort to move away from “small numbers of exquisite weapons toward a future where we can overwhelm an adversary with sheer volume.”

The Navy said it would be buying 18 more warships using more than $65 billion — a 46% increase from the previous year.

However, the Trump-endorsed battleship that was announced to great fanfare last year is not in this year’s budget, according to the briefing. Instead, the Navy is planning to pay for the first battleship in next year’s budget.

The military's spending proposal also lacked money for repairing U.S. bases in the Middle East, which Hurst said would be part of a future request.

“Part of it is we would assess what our posture should be in the Middle East,” Hurst told reporters. “We have to make sure we understand what we want to construct in the future. We might change how we build bases in the Middle East based on this conflict.”

If approved by Congress, the budget would provide the largest level of defense funding in inflation-adjusted dollars in U.S. history, said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Harrison said the spending appears more aligned with former President Joe Biden’s national defense strategy than Trump’s.

“This is a budget that is trying to build a force capable of sustaining U.S. presence and security commitments around the world — a force that’s capable of fighting major wars against countries like Russia and China,” Harrison said.

The Trump administration’s strategy document put the priority on homeland defense and was largely silent on Russia and did not say much about China, Harrison said.

Director of Force Structure, Resources and Assessment of the Joint Chief of Staff Space Force Lt. Gen. Steven Whitney, right, and Acting Under Secretary of Defense and Comptroller, Jules Hurst III, talk with members of the media during a briefing on the Department of Defense's FY27 Budget Request at the Pentagon, Tuesday, April 21, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller Maj. Gen. Frank Verdugo talks to reporters during a briefing on the Air Force's FY27 budget request in the Pentagon, Tuesday, April 21, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Budget/Director, Fiscal Management Division, Rear Adm. Ben Reynolds talks to reporters during a briefing on the Navy's FY27 budget at the Pentagon, Tuesday, April 21, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Acting Under Secretary of Defense and Comptroller, Jules Hurst III, left, and Director of Force Structure, Resources and Assessment of the Joint Chief of Staff Space Force Lt. Gen. Steven Whitney, talk with members of the media during a briefing on the Department of Defense's FY27 Budget Request at the Pentagon, Tuesday, April 21, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)