What's up, sunshine? Welcome to the
show. I'm Koi Wire. This is CNN 10, and
it is your word Wednesday. We chose one
of the words you submitted to help make
us smarter today and write the show. So,
listen up. Now, our lead story of the
day is that global internet outage that
turned most of our digital worlds upside
down earlier this week. Many of us had
trouble surfing social media, shopping
online, maybe even checking our bank
accounts on Monday. That's because the
world's biggest internet cloud server,
Amazon Web Services, was down. AWS
powers some of the world's most popular
websites and apps, and its outage
disrupted the daily activities of
businesses and individuals alike. You
should have seen it here at CNN
headquarters. Producers of show teams
were scrambling to find videos and
photos that they could use rather than
just have their news anchors on camera
the entire time because the system it
just wasn't working. Thousands of
companies and millions of users around
the world were impacted. Our Claire
Duffy has more. Hi Claire.
>> Hey Coy. Yeah, this outage was a real
wakeup call about just how reliant so
much of the internet has become on a
small number of core infrastructure
providers. We've just sort of accepted
as normal at this point that if
companies want to start a website or an
app, they're probably not hosting it on
their own computers or servers. Instead,
millions of companies rent that server
space from Amazon Web Services. And most
of the time, that makes life easier and
cheaper and more secure for those
companies unless you have an outage like
we saw on Monday. And then you have this
sort of single point of failure that
comes from the cloud computing provider
and the widespread disruption that we
saw on Monday. I mean, I for one was
unable to order my Starbucks on the app
or play the Wordle. But the disruption
was much more significant. We saw flight
delays. We saw students unable to access
the software they need for school or
workers unable to do their jobs
normally. People unable to pay for
things online or in person. People
unable to make doctor's appointments.
And this happened globally. That's why
the financial impact of this outage is
expected to be in the hundreds of
billions of dollars in lost consumer
spending. and lost productivity. Now,
Amazon isn't the only player in this
market, but it is the largest cloud
computing provider. It serves around 4
million customers, holds around 37% of
this cloud computing market. And if you
take into account the other two big
players, Microsoft and Google between
those three companies, they hold 60% of
the cloud computing market, that is just
a massive swath of the internet that is
dependent on these three companies. Now,
Amazon does say that its services should
be back up and running normally, and we
do hope to get more information from the
company on exactly what the root cause
of this outage was. Back to you,
>> pop quiz hot shot. The White House
wasn't always called the White House.
Which US president made the name
official? Abraham Lincoln, Teddy
Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, or Thomas
Jefferson?
If you said Teddy, very good. The 26th
president made the now iconic name
official in 1901. Previous names
included executive mansion and the
president's house. US President Donald
Trump is overseeing a massive
construction project at the White House.
Demolition of the East Wing began
yesterday. It will be replaced by a
90,000 square foot ballroom with a $200
million budget. The East Wing has
traditionally hosted the first lady's
offices like Betty Ford and both Barbara
and Laura Bush. The project follows
other renovations earlier this year,
including a giant flag pole and a paved
patio that replaced the iconic rose
garden. President Trump says the
ballroom will be quote completely
separate from the White House itself,
and the theme and architectural heritage
of the mansion will be kept. The project
is being funded by private donors rather
than taxpayer dollars. The White House's
communications director has pushed back
against critics saying, quote,
"Construction has always been a part of
the evolution of the White House." Next
up, huge news for a country that has one
of the world's largest economies. For
the first time in Japan's history, a
woman has become prime minister. San
Takahi, a conservative, won both houses
of parliament during Tuesday's votes.
She is now assembling her cabinet and
getting ready for her first news
conference as premier. Takayichi is
inheriting a number of economic
challenges including record high
inflation, a shrinking workforce, and
new tariffs or taxes on goods put in
place by the United States. Takayichi
son takes office just days before US
President Donald Trump is expected to
visit. Question for all of you out there
with an affinity for the supernatural or
the mysterious or just downright weird.
Ever hear of Moth Man? Nearly 60 years
ago, residents of Point Pleasant, West
Virginia, reported seeing an enigmatic
and quite frankly frightening visitor, a
7- foot tall creature with massive wings
and shining red eyes. People were
bugging out so much over these
widespread reports that some schools
were even closing. Some residents
claimed they came face to face with Mo
Man. Others say it was all a hoax.
Decades later, the creepy crypted legacy
lives on, and folks from all over flock
to the town and to the Moth Man Museum
to learn more about the legend.
The Moth Man story
started here in Point Pleasant in
November of 1966.
You had uh two young couples riding
around on the outskirts of town in what
what was called the TNT area. That was
an old ammunition's depot back in World
War II.
When the war ended, they just left all
the buildings of the structures.
They saw what they thought was just a
person standing in the road and then
they saw the wingspan come out.
It was flying behind the car. They were
hitting speeds of about 85 90 mph.
The more people started reporting these
different sightings, the elementary
schools wouldn't let the kids out for a
while cuz they thought whatever if it
was a bird big enough to come and pick
up a kid.
There were really no solid answers.
You had over a hundred reported
sightings within the next 2 years.
My brother, he was going to go try to
find that thing cuz he decided he was
going to go prove it was fake.
It jumped up on top of the hood and just
crouched there. If that windshield
wasn't there, all I had to do was reach
out and I could touch him or he could
have reached in, touched us.
It just went off like that and then
gone.
I was 5 years old, you know, when all
this was going on. Was kind of
fascinated that that, you know, my
hometown had a monster or a big bird
creature. The museum I I started in
2006.
>> There were different theories. Some
people thought this was an
extraterrestrial type thing, a large
barn owl or a sandill crane. If anybody
knows what a crane looks like, this
thing had a human form. That's a far
shape from a crane. So, it made us mad.
The majority of the people live here in
Point Pleasant. They've embraced it.
The museum, the Moth Man statue,
the legend has revitalized the town.
It's helped the economy, the
restaurants, retail shops.
It's a thing. People do this.
>> Why is this a thing?
>> I don't know. People do this.
>> It continues to attract visitors from
literally, you know, all over the world.
>> People would like an answer to what
happened.
There's thousands who come to Point
Pleasant every year to go to the TNT to
to look for Moth Man.
>> People see amazing and weird things.
some people do in their life and others
want to some kind of bad and never do.
So I guess that's why they want to hear
this story.
All right, today's story getting a 10
out of 10. A New Hampshire town turning
gourds into gondelas every fall. The
Piscatagua River through downtown
Gofftown welcomes the pumpkin riata.
It's amazing that this many people show
up to watch people paddle a pumpkin.
>> As long as the pumpkin weighs at least
1,000 lbs, it'll keep their captains
afloat and everything will be just fine.
But oh my goodness, the competition can
be arduous and it can get seedy.
>> How did you pull through as the winner?
>> Um, I couldn't feel my arms, but there's
no way I was letting him win. I'm way
too competitive.
>> If those boats sprung a leak, I guess
they could just get a pumpkin patch to
fix them. Congrats to our Your Word
Wednesday winners, Mrs. Bernie and our
Red Aces friends at Buckland High School
in Kansas for submitting arduous, an
adjective, meaning involving or
requiring strenuous effort. I'll be at
the University of Kansas for TNT to do
sideline reporting for the big Kansas
State rivalry football game this
weekend. Our shout out of the day goes
to Mr. Sanchez at Alra High School in
Alamra, California. Thank you for your
letters and the cool swag bag. We
appreciate you. I hope you have an
awesome day. I'm hungry, so I'm going to
get something to eat. I'm Koi Wire, and
we are CNN 10.