BEIJING (AP) — China on Sunday accused the U.S. National Security Agency of carrying out cyberattacks on its national time center, saying any damage to related facilities could have disrupted network communications, financial systems and power supply.

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The Ministry of State Security alleged that the U.S. agency had exploited vulnerabilities in the messaging services of a foreign mobile phone brand to steal sensitive information from devices of the National Time Service Center’s staff in 2022. It did not specify the brand.

The U.S. agency also used 42 types of “special cyberattack weapons” to target the center’s multiple internal network systems and attempted to infiltrate a key timing system between 2023 and 2024, it said in a post on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform.

The ministry said it had evidence but did not provide it in the post.

It said the time center is responsible for generating and distributing China’s standard time, in addition to providing timing services to industries such as communications, finance, power, transport and defense. The ministry added that it had provided guidance to the center to eliminate the risks.

“The U.S. is accusing others of what it does itself, repeatedly hyping up claims about Chinese cyber threats,” the post said.

Western governments in recent years have alleged hackers linked to the Chinese government have targeted officials, journalists, corporations and others. The ministry’s statement could fuel tensions between Washington and Beijing, on top of trade, technology and Taiwan issues.

The U.S. Embassy did not address the Chinese allegation in an emailed response.

The response focused on China’s cyberattacks, calling them the most active and persistent threat to the U.S. government and companies.

By SYLVIE CORBET, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — The Louvre remained closed Monday, a day after historic jewels were stolen from the world’s most-visited museum in a daring daylight heist that prompted authorities to reassess security measures at cultural sites across France.

The museum’s staff asked dozens of visitors who were queuing in front of the glass pyramid entrance to leave. In a message posted on social media, the Louvre said visitors who have booked tickets will be refunded. It did not provide additional details.

On Sunday, thieves rode a basket lift up the Louvre’s facade, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels, officials said. The theft occurred about 30 minutes after the museum opened, with visitors already inside, and was among the highest-profile museum thefts in living memory.

It unfolded just 250 meters from the Mona Lisa, in what Culture Minister Rachida Dati described as a professional operation that lasted just a few minutes.

French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin acknowledged security failures on Monday.

“One can wonder about the fact that, for example, the windows hadn’t been secured, about the fact that a basket lift was on a public road,” he said on France Inter radio. “Having (previously) been interior minister, I know that we cannot completely secure all places, but what is certain is that we have failed.”

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez ordered prefects across France to immediately reassess security measures protecting museums and other cultural sites and enhance them if needed.

Culture Minister Rachida Dati said investigators are working on evidence found at the scene.

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“We did find motorcycles and they have a license plate,” Dati said on news broadcaster CNews. “I also want to pay tribute to the security officers who prevented the basket lift from being set on fire. One of the criminals tried to set it on fire, but they forced him to flee. This allowed us to recover evidence at the scene.”

Officials said the heist lasted less than eight minutes in total, including less than four minutes inside the Louvre. “They went straight to the display windows, they knew exactly what they wanted. They were very efficient.” Dati said.

Dati stressed that a decade-long “Louvre New Renaissance” plan that was launched earlier this year includes security improvements.

“When the Louvre Museum was designed, it was not meant to accommodate 10 million visitors,” she said.

The $760-million plan is intended to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the Mona Lisa a dedicated gallery by 2031.

Sunday’s theft focused on the gilded Apollo Gallery, where the Crown Diamonds are displayed. Alarms brought Louvre agents to the room, forcing the intruders to bolt, but the robbery was already over.

A worker in the Louvre filmed a person in the Apollo Gallery on Sunday morning wearing a yellow jacket and standing by a glass encasing, according to video viewed and verified by BFM television. It is unclear whether the person is one of the suspects.

Eight objects were taken, according to officials: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense; an emerald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife; a reliquary brooch; and Empress Eugénie’s diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch, a prized 19th-century imperial ensemble.

One object, the emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds, was later found outside the museum, French authorities said.

By KELVIN CHAN, Associated Press

Internet users around the world faced widespread disruption early on Monday because of a problem at Amazon’s cloud computing service that took down dozens of major online services, including social media site Snapchat, the Roblox and Fortnite video games and chat app Signal.

About three hours after the outage began, Amazon Web Services said it was starting to recover from the problem.

Amazon Web Services provides behind-the-scenes cloud computing infrastructure to many government departments, universities and businesses, including The Associated Press, which allows them to provide online services.

On DownDetector, a website that tracks online outages, users reported issues with Snapchat, Roblox, Fortnite, online broker Robinhood, the McDonald’s app and many other services. DownDetector said the problems were: “Possibly related to issues at Amazon Web Services.”

Coinbase and Signal both said on X that they were experiencing issues related to the AWS outage.

Even Amazon’s own services weren’t immune. Users of the company’s Ring doorbell cameras and Alexa-powered smart speakers posted on DownDetector that they weren’t working, while others said they were unable to access the Amazon website or download books to their Kindle.

Amazon pinned the outage on issues related to their domain name system, an apparatus that converts web addresses into IP addresses so websites and apps can load on internet-connected devices.

The first signs of trouble emerged at around 3:11 a.m. Eastern Time, when Amazon Web Services reported on its Health Dashboard that it was “investigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.”

Later, the company reported that there were “significant error rates” and that engineers were “actively working” on the problem.

Around 6 a.m. Eastern Time, the company said that it was seeing recovery across most of the affected services. “We can confirm global services and features that rely on US-EAST-1 have also recovered,” it said, adding that it is working on a “full resolution.”

This is not the first time issues with Amazon’s key services have caused widespread disruptions. Many popular internet services were down after a brief outage in 2023. AWS’s longest outage in recent history occurred in late 2021, when companies — everything from airline reservations and auto dealerships to payment apps and video streaming services — were affected for more than five hours. Outages also happened in 2020 and 2017.

The company reported that 64 internal AWS services were affected by the issue.

AWS customers include some of the world’s biggest businesses and organizations.

“So much of the world now relies on these three or four big (cloud) compute companies who provide the underlying infrastructure that when there’s an issue like this, it can be really impactful across a broad range, a broad spectrum” of online services, said Patrick Burgess, a cybersecurity expert at U.K.-based BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

“The world now runs on the cloud,” and the internet is seen as a utility like water or electricity, as we spend so much of our lives on our smartphones, Burgess said.

And because so much of the online world’s plumbing is underpinned by a handful of companies, when something goes wrong, “it’s very difficult for users to pinpoint what is happening because we don’t see Amazon, we just see Snapchat or Roblox,” Burgess said.

“The good news is that this kind of issue is usually relatively fast (to resolve)” and there’s no indication that it was caused by a cyber incident like a cyberattack, Burgess said.

“This looks like a good old-fashioned technology issue, something’s gone wrong and it will be fixed by Amazon,” he said.

There are “well-established processes” to deal with outages at Amazon Web Services, as well as rivals Google and Microsoft, which together provide most of the world’s cloud computing infrastructure, Burgess said, adding that such outages are usually fixed in “hours rather than days.”

Amazon Web Services said at about 5:30 a.m. Central time that “most AWS Service operations are succeeding normally now.”

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By KEN MORITSUGU, Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping delivered a speech Monday on the opening day of a major meeting of the ruling Communist Party to approve a draft plan laying out its goals for the country over the next five years.

A short dispatch from the official Xinhua News Agency said Xi “expounded on the Party leadership’s draft proposals” for the next five-year plan for national economic and social development, which will cover 2026-2030. It did not provide any details.

Chinese security personnel stand guard at the entrance to the Jingxi Hotel where the Communist Party’s Central Committee is holding its fourth plenum, in Beijing, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

The latest plan comes at a time of growing challenges and uncertainty for China, including a persistently sluggish economy, foreign restrictions on its access to the latest technologies and high tariffs imposed on its exports to the United States.

A Xinhua editorial said that the plan should focus on “high-quality” development and technological innovation, while also ensuring national security is protected and the benefits of economic growth are spread fairly and more widely.

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“There will be hardships and obstacles on our way forward, and we may encounter major tests,” the editorial said in discussing economic and national security goals. “We must be prepared to deal with a series of new risks and challenges.”

Analysts and investors are watching the meeting to look for clues about how the plan will balance economic and security interests, and to what extent the plan will call for structural changes to boost consumer spending and manage an aging society.

This week’s four-day meeting brings together about 200 voting members and 170 alternate members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

The body will approve the draft five-year plan, though full details likely won’t be released until it is formally approved at the legislature’s next annual meeting, expected in March.

Ahead of the meeting, the Defense Ministry announced late last week that nine senior officers suspected of corruption had been expelled from the Communist Party. Eight were members of the Central Committee, and their removal from the party allows replacements to be named to the committee.