Today’s Big Story

Amazon Web Services Outage

The outage highlighted the fragility of global internet infrastructure

Did you see? An outage involving Amazon Web Services, the cloud service provider that supports much of the internet, took many websites and apps offline for over two hours on Monday. It was the latest disruption that showed just how fragile the global technology infrastructure really is.

When something like AWS (the biggest cloud computing provider) goes down, it cripples thousands of services from some of the biggest companies on earth—all at the same time. For all its complexity and size, the global economy is perhaps too interconnected—breaking just one weak link drives big disruptions, online and in the real world, too. AWS provides behind-the-scenes cloud computing infrastructure to many government departments, universities and businesses

The services affected on Monday included WhatsApp, the British government’s website and tax services, the payment app Venmo, the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase, along with online games at The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Dozens of other companies and retailers—from Amazon, Hulu, Snapchat and McDonald’s to individual Ring doorbells and the game Fortnite—also experienced interruptions.

About three hours after the outage began, Amazon Web Services said it was starting to recover from the problem. But the company later said it was continuing to respond to “significant” errors and connectivity issues across multiple services. Computer systems have always had glitches or failed, what's different now is the “centralization risk”, says Corey Quinn, chief cloud economist at Duckbill, an AWS consulting firm. Instead of one company's website going down, they all crash at once. As a society, we're still learning how to deal with that, he says.

Seattle-based Amazon said the problems were centered in its Virginia-based US-EAST-1 data center region, one of its most important cloud hubs around the world. The region is a backbone “for so many services that when things go screwy, domino effects around the internet-as-we-know-it are enormous,” John Scott-Railton, a cybersecurity researcher at Citizen Lab, told PBS News. AWS traced the source of the problem to something called the “DynamoDB endpoint in the US-East-1 Region,” in a pair of jargon-laden updates.

Trump Can Deploy National Guard to Portland

The court overturned an order preventing the deployment

President Donald Trump's push to deploy the National Guard across the U.S. as part of his anti-crime crackdown is being challenged in the courts by several Democrat-run cities that he's targeted. However, an appeals court on Monday overturned a temporary restraining order that prevented the administration from deploying troops to Portland, Oregon.

But there’s at least one more legal hurdle to clear before there will be boots on the ground. “After considering the record at this preliminary stage, we conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority,” the 2-1 ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Monday said. The ruling, supported by two judges appointed by Trump, marks a big legal win for the administration. However, the ruling overturns only one of two lower court decisions to block the deployment of the National Guard and because a second decision is still in force, troops can’t immediately be mobilized.

Axios reports that upcoming rulings could redefine the line between presidential power and state authority during public safety disputes. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield decried Monday's ruling, saying the panel of Ninth Circuit judges “has chosen to not hold the president accountable.” He told ABC News that it is likely the Trump administration will seek to dissolve the temporary restraining order that prevents any state's National Guard from deploying to Oregon, in light of Monday's ruling, and that his office urges the "full Ninth Circuit to vacate today's decision before the illegal deployments can occur."

Part of White House Demolished for Ballroom

The government is still closed, but Trump soldiers on

To say that Trump is leaving his mark on Washington politics is an understatement. But he’s also reshaping the way the place looks, literally. The Oval Office is now dripping in gold. The Rose Garden remodel looks vaguely similar to the patios at Mar-a-Lago. There are plans for renovations at the Kennedy Center. And now Trump wants an Arc de Triomphe-style arch built on the other side of the Potomac.

On Monday, despited the government still being shutdown, the facade of the East Wing of the White House came crumbling down as construction began on a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom. Previously, the president had claimed construction of the $250 million ballroom wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure, but a backhoe ripped through the structure, revealing how reinforced the building is.

Critics say the project's funding underscores how corporate America has curried favor for access to the Trump administration. But Trump said on Truth Social Monday that he’s “honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway — with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!” Democrats panned the project, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other lawmakers arguing that Trump’s priorities and preferences were not aligned with average Americans.

Toyota Will Build a Baby Land Cruiser

But, unfortunately, the new FJ isn’t for America

The Toyota FJ Cruiser was discontinued in 2014. And we’ve lost track of how many times the rumor mill churned out news about the return of the FJ Cruiser. It’s been teased, speculated on, and rendered countless times, but the final rumor was right—the FJ Cruiser is back. Toyota has officially announced the Land Cruiser FJ, a smaller and more lifestyle-focused off-roader that joins the growing Land Cruiser family. The new FJ brings the same spirit of reliability and adventure, only in a tighter, more agile package.

It just won’t be coming to America. According to Car and Driver, it rides on the same IMV platform as the current Hilux, Toyota’s global pickup truck offering. But for now, North American Toyota offerings will be restricted to models on the brand’s TNGA platform—the company says there are no plans for European or American sales.

Visually, the Land Cruiser FJ embraces the classic Land Cruiser cues and reinterprets them for the modern era. It has a square silhouette with available round headlights and short overhangs as clear nods to the beloved FJ Cruiser of the 2000s, while the rectangular body and chamfered edges create a robust, confident look. The FJ’s bumpers are modular and removable, allowing owners to replace only damaged sections—aimed at both practicality and customization.

If you’re not feeling it, it’s okay.