WSJ What’s News - Apps, Websites Hit by Major Outage at Amazon Web Services

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

A.M. Edition for Oct. 20. Facebook, Snapchat and Robinhood are just a few of the hundreds of companies affected by the outage overnight. Trump vows to halt U.S. aid to Colombia, as the president turns up the heat on Latin America. And, U.S. stocks might be close to all time highs, but Rebecca Feng says warning signs are flashing just below the surface. Caitlin McCabe Hosts hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Apps and websites around the world are hit by a widespread outage at Amazon Web Services. Plus, Trump vows to halt U.S. aid to Colombia as the president turns up the heat on Latin America. And U.S. stocks might be close to all-time highs, but warning signs are flashing below the surface. We're seeing investors pulling back from holdings that are more sensitive to a slowing economy in the past months. And then we're also seeing that investors are turning to industries that sort of reliably churn out profits no matter how the economy is doing. It's Monday, October 20th. I'm Caitlin McKay for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

Internet users around the world are struggling to access their favorite apps and sites this morning as a result of a major outage at Amazon Web Service. Sites including Facebook, Amazon, Snapchat, and Roblox appear to be down early Monday, with financial services, Coinbase, Robin Hood, and Venmo also reporting disruptions. The AWS infrastructure underpins millions of websites and platforms, providing cloud computing services to the world's biggest companies. Any problems with the network can have a major impact on the wider Internet and many mobile apps. AWS said it's investigating and actively working to mitigate the issue, which seems to stem from a group of data centers in and around northern Virginia.

The Wall Street Journal is among several media organizations affected by the outage, which began around 3 a.m. Eastern. In an update around 5.30 a.m., Amazon said its systems are now recovering and that many websites and apps are coming back online. We will bring you any updates on this developing story as and when we get them. Check out WSJ.com for more information. President Trump is ramping up pressure on Latin America as part of the administration's crackdown on drug smuggling from the region. His latest broadside against Colombia came in a social media post Sunday morning that branded its president Gustavo Petro an illegal drug dealer,

vowing to halt USA to Bogota and take unilateral action unless Petro immediately closed the quote, killing fields. Juan Ferrero leads the journal's coverage of Latin America. He says the threats have turned one of Washington's most critical security partners in the region into a target. This comes at a time when the United States has been laser focused on the issue of drugs coming mainly from South America. Since early September, most of the focus has been on Venezuela. The United States has carried out a large military building. mostly of naval vessels and aircraft, there's a submarine, et cetera, off the coast of Venezuela.

As part of that buildup, the United States has struck what Trump calls drugboats coming from Venezuela. And then all of a sudden this weekend, the focus turned to Colombia, which is the largest cocaine-producing country in the world. Colombia has been defiant in responding to Trump. Betro has come out with numerous tweets. where he has said that the U.S. president is rude and ignorant about Colombia. So there's been a bit of a strong response from Colombia toward the United States. According to a senior administration official, Trump is hoping that the U.S. offensive will make people like Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro so miserable that he can't remain in power, even if that takes time.

And Israel's military is once again reinforcing the fragile Gaza's military. ceasefire following a wave of deadly airstrikes on Sunday after it accused Hamas of killing troops inside Israeli-controlled areas. The military said two soldiers were killed and another severely injured in southern Gaza, where militants targeted troops with an anti-tank missile and gunfire. Israel decided to halt humanitarian aid following calls from Israeli politicians across the political spectrum for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to respond forcefully to the attack. Officials said humanitarian aid to the enclave is set to resume today. Coming up, there are warning signs lurking below the surface of a record market.

We ask markets reporter Rebecca Fang what that means for investors, the economy, and you. After the break. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear-off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us, and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. The U.S. stock market has been on a

remarkable tear lately, with the S&P 500 hitting 33 record closes this year. But recently, something has shifted. Investors are starting to act a little more defensively. So these moves are sort of small warning signs that are bubbling up in the market. That's journal markets reporter Rebecca Fang. She says investors are now pulling back risk in lots of areas. We're seeing investors pulling back from holdings that are more sensitive to a slowing economy in the past months, such as regional banks, retailers, home builders, and airline stocks.

So these industries tend to flourish during periods of economic growth. And then we're also seeing that investors are turning to industries that sort of reliably churn out profits no matter how the economy is doing. So these include utilities, healthcare stocks, and consumer staples. We're also seeing that investors are sort of sheltering in bonds. And this is reflected by the 10-year treasury yield dropping below 4% for the first time in a year last Thursday. And then lastly, gold and silver are hitting a. another series of new records in this past week. The shift comes as volatility has returned to the market, starting first earlier this month after Washington and Beijing revived their trade

war rhetoric. Surprise bankruptcies from auto parts supplier, first brands, and auto lender tricolor have also raised concerns that the stock rally has masked pockets of weakness and potential fraud. Rebecca says there are reasons why some investors are still feeling bullish. For one, corporate earnings have been very strong. But Rebecca added, strategists are also pointing to worrying signs. There are others that are more concerned about the effect of this kind of still sluggish labor market on consumer spending. One analyst was noting that the low-end consumer is hurting. This is kind of reflected by increases in discretionary spending that we saw post-COVID have pretty much tempered.

So that's also starting to show up and results in stock prices. One major concern for global growth is China. with new data this morning showing economic momentum decelerated to its slowest pace in a year, putting Beijing on alert in the midst of hardball trade negotiations with the U.S. China's GDP expanded 4.8% in the July through September period, down from 5.2% the quarter before. The country is still largely on track to hit its official 5% growth target for the year, but last quarter's decelerating growth may prompt Beijing to step up support for its domestic economy. The latest data comes as the country's top policymakers kick off a four-day

meeting today to discuss their next five-year plan. China's leaders are expected to double down on high-tech industries while weighing initiatives to boost household spending and curb excessive price competition. And French authorities are scrambling to piece together clues from yesterday's brazen robbery at the Louvre, where a group of thieves made off with a set of priceless royal jewels. From Paris, journal reporter Sam Sheckner says there are many questions about how the thieves managed to pull off the heist at the world's most visited museum and in a gallery filled with visitors.

Just about half an hour after the museum opened, it was about 9.30 in the morning when four individuals driving two powerful motorcycles in a truck with a portable furniture elevator parked outside the Lut Museum, and two of them got inside the Gallery de Poulon, the Apollo Gallery, which houses Francis Crown jewels. And when in there, they used angle grinders to cut through the display cases and made off with eight priceless pieces of French royal jewelry. They happened to drop one on the way out, though, the crown of Empress Eugenie, who is Napoleon III's wife. Sam says authorities have a number of clues, including a truck that thieves failed to set on fire as they fled, but that there are just as many questions about the security failure.

Prosecutors say that an alarm did go off when they started to cut through the windows that didn't seem to alert anybody to come quickly enough to catch the thieves. It may have precipitated their quick departure, but there have been concerns about Louvre Security. There was a police audit of the museum security that actually gave its conclusions in recent weeks, and there's an ongoing plan to renovate. But even staff at the museum had a wildcat strike over the summer, and one of the issues they raised was insufficient security and in sedition staffing. The justice minister on the radio this morning said that it's a failure that people were able to park a furniture elevator on a public sidewalk in front of the museum and in and out in seven minutes, but that's still more than enough time for police to come if they had been alerted.

So there's going to be a lot of finger pointing going forward about how these priceless jewels could have been stolen. And that's it for What's News for this Monday morning. Today's show is produced by Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Caitlin McKay for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with the new show. Until then, thanks for listening.