Author: mfnnews
It’s not just you. X and vast tracts of the internet are down.
Large sections of the internet stopped working on Tuesday morning. Among the sites affected by the latest in a weeks-long series of outages were Amazon Web Services, X, League of Legends, the betting site bet365, Spotify, ChatGPT, and — ironically — the website that monitors online outages, Downdetector.
The problem appears to be the result of issues at Cloudflare, a San Francisco-headquartered tech company that effectively serves as a backbone to a myriad of sites, providing content delivery network and wide area network services, domain registration, and cybersecurity.
‘We saw a spike in unusual traffic.’
At the time of writing, the Cloudflare system status page indicated that the company was working toward restoring global network services, having hours earlier acknowledged “experiencing an internal service degradation” that could leave some services “intermittently impacted.”
The latest outages come just days after Cloudflare admitted an “issue which potentially impacts multiple customers” — an issue that was supposedly “resolved.”
A spokesperson for Cloudflare said in a statement obtained by the Guardian, “We saw a spike in unusual traffic to one of Cloudflare’s services beginning at 11:20am [London time]. That caused some traffic passing through Cloudflare’s network to experience errors. While most traffic for most services continued to flow as normal, there were elevated errors across multiple Cloudflare services.”
“We do not yet know the cause of the spike in unusual traffic,” continued the spokesperson. “We are all hands on deck to make sure all traffic is served without errors. After that, we will turn our attention to investigating the cause of the unusual spike in traffic.”
The company’s engineers were reportedly scheduled to conduct some maintenance work on data centers in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Tahiti, and Santiago, Chile. It’s unclear whether their efforts had anything to do with the technical issues.
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Amazon wants Warner Bros. so it can rule your screen
Last month, Warner Brothers Discovery put itself up for sale, triggering what could become a bidding war for one of America’s most iconic studios. Days later, reports emerged that Amazon plans to make a run at the company, immediately raising the stakes.
Consumers and regulators should treat every Big Tech bidder with skepticism, but Amazon’s interest demands special scrutiny. The world’s largest online retailer has a long record of distorting markets, crushing rivals, and cozying up to foreign adversaries — most notably China. Letting Amazon absorb yet another major media asset would tighten its grip on an entertainment industry already buckling under corporate consolidation.
Why would antitrust officials hand Amazon even more power in a sector already suffocating under concentration?
Amazon may be a household name, but it is not an America-first company. It bullies smaller retailers, copies their ideas, and funnels profits and supply-chain leverage through China. That behavior undermines the ingenuity and fair competition that built the U.S. economy.
Amazon already wields enormous influence over media. Last year, Prime Video topped U.S. streaming charts for the third straight year. Amazon controls a sprawling production studio, reinforced by its 2022 purchase of MGM. It holds high-dollar sports rights, including “Thursday Night Football” and an 11-year deal with the NBA.
Amazon doesn’t need Warner Brothers Discovery to survive. It wants the company to force more Americans into its digital universe, dominate an even larger share of the market, and use that dominance to trap users and raise prices. Buying competitors beats out-competing them — a classic monopolist playbook that burdens consumers and smothers innovation.
A Warner Brothers takeover would give Amazon exactly what it wants: a massive content library, the third-largest streaming platform, and a lineup of lucrative cable properties. With the deal sealed, Amazon would control more than a third of the streaming video on demand market — roughly 50% more than its nearest rival.
Why would antitrust officials hand Amazon even more power in a sector already suffocating under concentration? They likely won’t.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Gail Slater, have made clear that they intend to protect small businesses and consumers from predatory corporate behavior.
The Trump administration has backed those promises with action. Within nine months of taking office, the FTC forced Amazon to pay $2.5 million for trapping customers in Prime subscriptions. Ferguson’s vow to ensure that “Amazon never does this again” shows that this White House will not give repeat offenders a free pass.
RELATED: Stop feeding Big Tech and start feeding Americans again
Lexi Critchett/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The regulatory terrain also looks dramatically different from 2022, when Amazon bought MGM — an acquisition the Biden administration should have challenged and likely would challenge today. After that merger, the FTC rewrote its merger and acquisition guidelines to strengthen oversight. President Trump kept those rules and appears ready to use them.
Some critics claim Amazon earned goodwill with the administration by contributing to White House renovation projects. That accusation doesn’t survive contact with the facts. Candidate Trump warned about Amazon’s “huge antitrust problem” as early as 2016. The company has grown eightfold since then. Trump hasn’t softened.
And Amazon hardly functioned as a friend of the right. The company backed Joe Biden heavily in 2020, donating nearly $2.3 million to his campaign. Biden’s FTC did not treat Amazon kindly either, suing the company for “anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.” That case remains unresolved.
The sale of Warner Brothers Discovery will shape the future of American media — either by giving the company a fighting chance to innovate and compete, or by cementing Big Tech control over what Americans watch, read, and hear. If Amazon tries to tighten that grip, I expect the Trump administration to step in.
Let’s hope the sale doesn’t force the administration’s hand.
Feds, local cops rescue over 100 kids in Florida, just in time for Thanksgiving
A multi-agency operation led to the recovery of over 100 children from Florida and several other states.
Operation Home for the Holidays was led by the U.S. Marshals Service and involved partnerships with the FBI’s Jacksonville Field Office, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and other federal, state, and local entities.
‘Many of these kids have been victimized in unspeakable ways. We will prosecute their abusers to the fullest extent of the law.’
Jason Carley, the FBI field office’s special agent in charge, explained that the mission aimed to “find missing and potentially trafficked children.”
“In these types of operations, partnerships are essential,” he added.
The law enforcement operation, which ran over two weeks, resulted in the recovery of 122 children, FBI Jacksonville reported on Monday. The children were connected to care and services.
“Protecting our children is at the core of the FBI’s mission. This operation represents the very best of what can be accomplished when state, local and federal partners come together with a shared commitment,” FBI Jacksonville stated.
Image source: FBI Jacksonville
Law enforcement agents rescued 57 children from Tampa, 14 from Orlando, 22 from Jacksonville, 29 from Fort Myers, and 13 from other states and internationally, according to the Florida Attorney General’s Office.
“The children ranged in age from 23 months to 17 years old, and many had experienced various levels of abuse, neglect, exploitation, or exposure to other criminal activity,” a statement from the AG’s office read.
Six individuals were reportedly arrested on felony charges, including child neglect, custodial interference, narcotics possession, sexual assault, terroristic threats, and endangerment.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called the operation one of the nation’s largest child-recovery efforts.
“Many of these kids have been victimized in unspeakable ways. We will prosecute their abusers to the fullest extent of the law,” Uthmeier stated.
Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images
“What allows our Middle Florida-based child recovery initiatives to stand out is the emphasis placed on what happens after,” said William Berger, the U.S. marshal for the Middle District of Florida. “We know these children will have needs once we find them. It only makes sense to build these operations alongside like-minded partners from across the child welfare space.”
“The United States Marshals Service is proud to stand with our partners across the state of Florida in pursuit of the safety and welfare of our children,” Berger continued. “This operation was built based upon the wants and needs of our communities. We are honored to play a leading role in answering those calls. Welcome Home and Happy Holidays!”
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