A widely used Internet infrastructure company said that it has resolved an issue that led to outages impacting users of everything from ChatGPT and the online game, “League of Legends," to the New Jersey Transit system early Tuesday.
At 12:44 p.m. EST, Cloudflare said its engineers no longer saw some of the issues plaguing its customers, but that they were continuing to monitor for any further problems.
Others platforms that experienced outages Tuesday included the social media site X, Shopify, Dropbox, Coinbase, and the Moody's credit ratings service. Moody's website displayed an Error Code 500 and instructed individuals to visit Cloudflare's website for more information.
New Jersey Transit said parts of its digital services including njtransit.com, may be temporarily unavailable or slow to load. And New York City Emergency Management said there are reports city services being impacted by the outage. The city is continuing to monitor for disruptions.
In France, national railway company SNCF’s website has been affected. The company warned customers that “some information and schedules may not be available or up to date. Our teams are working to restore these services as quickly as possible.”
Cloudflare, based in San Francisco, works behind the scenes to make the internet faster and safer, but when problems flare up “it results in massive digital gridlock” for internet users, cybersecurity expert Mike Chapple said.
While most people think there’s a direct line between their digital device and a website, what actually happens is that companies like Cloudflare sits in the middle of those connections, he said.
Cloudflare is a “content delivery network” that takes content from 20% of the world’s websites and mirrors them on thousands of servers worldwide, said Chapple, an information technology professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.
“When you access a website protected by Cloudflare, your computer doesn’t connect directly to that site,” Chapple said. “Instead, it connects to the nearest Cloudflare server, which might be very close to your home. That protects the website from a flood of traffic, and it provides you with a faster response. It’s a win-win for everyone, until it fails, and 20% of the internet goes down at the same time.”
Last month Microsoft had to deploy a fix to address an outage of their Azure cloud portal that left users unable to access Office 365, Minecraft and other services. The tech company wrote on its Azure status page that a configuration change to its Azure infrastructure caused the outage.
And Amazon experienced a massive outage of its cloud computing service in October. The company resolved the issue, but the outage took down a broad range of online services, including social media, gaming, food delivery, streaming and financial platforms.
Associated Press writers Kelvin Chan in London and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.
FILE - Lava lamps are seen through a lobby window at the headquarters of Cloudflare in San Francisco, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — It was only a matter of time before Washington Nationals outfielder James Wood hit a grand slam.
But an inside-the-park shot, like the one Wood smashed in Tuesday’s 9-6 victory over the New York Mets?
“I didn’t think it would be like this,” Wood said. “That was a fun way to get it.”
Down 5-0, the Nationals loaded the bases with two outs in the second inning against Mets starter Nolan McLean. Wood hit a first-pitch sweeper to the opposite field, where it glanced off the leaping Nick Morabito’s arm and bounded into center.
“When I saw that, I kind of just knew it was a full-on sprint home,” the 23-year-old Wood said of his 53rd career home run. “That’s probably why my eyes got big.”
Center fielder Tyrone Taylor braced himself before running into the wall before looking at Morabito, who pointed to the carom before giving chase himself.
“He lost track of the baseball,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He went after and then he didn’t know where the ball was. That’s a tough break there.”
Wood scampered around the bases in 15.15 seconds and slid headfirst across the plate well ahead of the throw for his first career grand slam and 13th homer of the season.
It was the ninth inside-the-park grand slam in the majors since 1994. The previous one was hit by Toronto’s Raimel Tapia on July 22, 2022.
“When they get over the fence, obviously I think James enjoys that more so he doesn’t have to run as hard or as far,” first-year Nationals manager Blake Butera said. “But that was pretty cool. I think everyone was pretty fired up, talking some smack that he can’t hit it over the fence.”
The Nationals have two inside-the-park grand slams since the franchise moved to Washington in 2005. Michael A. Taylor hit the other Sept. 8, 2017, at home against Philadelphia.
Three of the four inside-the-park grand slams this century were hit at Nationals Park. Philadelphia’s Aaron Altherr connected for one at Washington on Sept. 25, 2015.
Now, Wood has joined that small club.
“It’s probably the biggest smile I’ve seen on his face since I’ve gotten to know him,” Butera said.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Washington Nationals' Drew Millas, right, celebrates as the Nationals' James Wood slides into home on a inside the park grand slam home run during the second inning of a baseball game against the New York Mets, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
New York Mets third baseman Brett Baty (7) watches Washington Nationals' James Wood head home on a inside-the-park grand slam during the second inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
Washington Nationals' Drew Millas, right, celebrates as the Nationals' James Wood slides into home on a inside the park grand slam home run during the second inning of a baseball game against the New York Mets, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
Washington Nationals' James Wood hits an inside the park grand slam home run during the second inning of a baseball game against the New York Mets, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
Washington Nationals' James Wood slides into home as New York Mets catcher Luis Torrens waits for the throw on an inside the park gland slam home run during the second inning of a baseball game Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
