It wasn't your device. It was the Internet with widespread problems this morning. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. A problem with Amazon's remote computer service disrupted online operations early today at social media sites, newspapers, airlines, car service apps, and more. While Amazon now says most of its cloud services are returning to normal,

the original problem appears to have centered at its operations in Northern Virginia and was

not a malicious hack. The crypto exchange Coinbase had trouble. Same with Robin Hood, the online

stock trading site, the video game Fortnite. The British Bank Lloyd lift the car service in some areas. The incident

highlights how dependence so much of the digital world has become on a few cloud computing

providers. The U.S. dollar is up slightly this morning. It had fallen 1% in about a week and 10%

since mid-January. This cuts in different ways, marketplaces Mitchell Hartman explains.

Recently, the dollar's been weakened by several factors. First, worries about U.S. regional banks.

Also, President Trump's renewed tariff threats against China, says Maurice Obstfeld at the Peterson

Institute for International Economics. Trade tensions escalate. People worry about more negative consequences

for U.S. growth. That's negative for the dollar. And with growth flagging, the Federal Reserve has

signaled it'll keep cutting U.S. interest rates, says Paul Christopher at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

At the same time, you've seen banks like the European Central Bank

basically get to the end of their rate cutting cycle. So that interest rate differential has

been dollar negative. Another dynamic at play, says Cornell economist Ishwar Prasad,

central bankers and foreign investors stung by the Trump administration's trade policies.

Would dearly like to ditch the dollar as an international payment currency, as a reserve currency.

In the past, the dollar has served as a safe haven in times of global turmoil, but Maurice

Obstfeld says it isn't working that way now.

More and more of the kind of shocks that disturbed the world economy that trouble investors

are coming out of the U.S. Which could drag the dollar down even more. I'm Mitchell Hartman for

Marketplace. We have a partial federal government shutdown now in a 20th day here, plus trade and

...