And more details emerge in Louvre museum robbery.
Hello and welcome to today’s update of the global business and political headlines you need to know this Tuesday.
First up, the world’s largest cloud provider, Amazon Web Services, is still facing issues after a widespread outage overnight affected customers around the world.
AWS accounts for about a third of the cloud market, which means it underpins a large proportion of internet services. The company has said a digital directory for a key database service malfunctioned, Bloomberg reported, which meant software reliant on the data trove was unable to retrieve information.
Several large companies, including Robinhood and Coinbase, reported outages, while Amazon's own services, including Alexa, also experienced issues. The company said it had fixed the issue but some users were still struggling to connect with rented servers, particularly on the east coast of the United States.
To markets now, where stocks moved higher thanks to a rise in Apple shares and investors anticipating a possible end to the US Government shutdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.8%, the S&P 500 was up 0.9%, and the Nasdaq increased 1.3%.
Apple shares were up more than 3% to hit a new record high of US$260.20, turning around earlier underperformance in 2025: Bloomberg reported its stock was down as much as 31% in April but it had since rallied more than 50%.
The boost came after Loop Capital upgraded the stock to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’, as global demand for iPhones showed signs of improving. “We are now at the front end of Apple’s long-anticipated adoption cycle,” Loop analyst Ananda Baruah wrote in an upgrade note.
Another tailwind for the market was National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett telling CNBC the US government shutdown, which has entered its 20th day, was “likely to end some time this week”.
In Gaza, where the ceasefire continues to be tested, Hamas has said it will hand over the body of another dead hostage today – returning 28 of the dead hostages was part of the ceasefire agreement – but, so far, 16 are still to be returned, causing outrage in Israel.
Israel had launched waves of deadly airstrikes and cut off aid into Gaza over the weekend in response to an alleged attack by Hamas, which put pressure on the ceasefire agreement. Israel also returned at least 135 bodies of Palestinians, which Gaza's health ministry alleged were held in a notorious detention centre subject to allegations of torture and unlawful deaths in custody.
US President Donald Trump has said Hamas was “going to behave” or would face severe repercussions, The Guardian reported. “They’re going to be nice, and if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them.”
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, has called for the delivery of an additional 25 US Patriot anti-missile batteries in response to further escalations in the country's war with Russia.
He also said he would be willing to join a summit in Hungary planned between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Financial Times over the weekend reported a tense meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump descended into a "shouting match" and that Trump had urged Zelenskyy to accept Russia's terms for ending the war.
Elsewhere, the US and Australia have signed a rare earth mineral deal ahead of a meeting between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The latter said the deal created a US$8.5 billion pipeline to supply critical rare earths to the US, which comes amid an escalating trade war with China – a country that has tightened its exports of rare earth minerals.
“We’re here to talk about trade, submarines, lots of other military equipment,” Trump said at the start of the meeting. Trump had earlier said he "loves" the Australian people.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Finally today, more details have emerged overnight of the weekend's robbery of the Louvre museum in Paris, the world's most-visited museum.
Reports said four balaclava-wearing thieves used an extendable ladder on Sunday morning to reach a second-floor window, where two of the thieves broke into the museum's Apollo gallery.
They then smashed glass displays and grabbed jewellery, with eight pieces stolen including a necklace and a pair of earrings originally given by Napoleon I to his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a diadem, brooch, and decorative bow belonging to Napoleon III's third wife, Empress Eugénie.
The hugely valuable crown of Empress Eugénie was dropped by the thieves on their way out, however. It is covered in 1354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, and is considered "priceless", while the US$60 million Regent diamond housed in the gallery was also missed by the thieves.
Officials have said a team of 60 investigators are working on the case, with the main theory being that an organised crime group was behind the theft. The robbery has reignited debates over a lack of security at France’s museums, with criminals breaking into Paris's Natural History Museum just last month.
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