Amazon Web Services, the biggest cloud computing provider, went down this morning — crippling thousands of services from some of the biggest companies on Earth, Axios' Emily Pecks writes.

• ⚙️ Between the lines: Amazon is one of just three massive cloud providers serving as the technical backbone of the internet (Microsoft and Google are the others).

Zoom in: More than 11 million people worldwide reported issues with over 2,500 companies as of 12:45pm ET, according to tracker Downdetector.

• Zoom, Venmo, WhatsApp and many gaming, banking, social media and consumer sites saw large spikes in reported outages.
• Downdetector also showed reports of outages impacting Delta Air Lines and United Airlines today, Axios' Avery Lotz reported.

What went wrong: According to Amazon, the outage was caused by a problem inside its own internal network system — a problem that ultimately created network connectivity problems for AWS services in the East Coast region.

• AWS engineers then had to slow things down for much of the day to fix the issue as its systems recovered.

The latest: Amazon said it addressed the problem and the outage had largely been fixed as of this afternoon, though some websites on the East Coast were still experiencing disruptions.

📈 The intrigue: Amazon investors didn't blink today. Shares actually closed up 1.6%, perhaps buoyed by the display of how central a role AWS now plays in global infrastructure.

🌐 Threat level: For all of its complexity and size, the global economy is fragile. Breaking just one weak link drives big disruptions, online and in the real world — a lesson we learned last summer with the CrowdStrike outage.

• "Computer systems have always had glitches or failed. What's different now is the "centralization risk," Corey Quinn, chief cloud economist at Duckbill, an AWS consulting firm, tells Emily.

Go deeper

Apple shares hit a new all-time high today, fueled by a report that its newest iPhone sales are off to a hot start, Axios' Pete Gannon writes.

Zoom in: iPhone 17 series devices have outsold the 16 series by 14% in its first 10 days of availability in China and the U.S., according to a Counterpoint Research report.

• That's added to a growing chorus of belief among analysts that this "upgrade cycle" for iPhone customers could turn out better than what was seen for the 16 models.

🗣️ "We are now at the front end of Apple's long-anticipated adoption cycle," Loop analyst Ananda Baruah wrote today in a note. The firm upgraded the stock to buy from hold.

💄 Kering, the owner of Gucci, is selling its beauty business to L'Oreal for $4.7 billion. L'Oreal will also own the right to develop beauty products under the Gucci brand for 50 years. (CNBC)

⛏️ Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves told analysts that the company is looking into building a rare earths mining business. (CNBC)

The Magic Kingdom is throwing a big party for America's 250th birthday.

State of play: Disney today unveiled a sweeping plan to mark the big occasion, including:

• An "immersive new flight experience" called "Soarin' Across America" at Disney California Adventure Park and EPCOT.
• A 24-hour broadcast dubbed "Disney Celebrates America" on July 4th weekend airing on Disney+, Hulu, ABC, ESPN, Freeform, FX and National Geographic.
• A supersized fireworks show at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom Park.
• A $2.5 million donation to Blue Star Families, and a host of special offers to veterans.

💭 Nathan's thought bubble: Now would be a good time to memorize the word semiquincentennial — you'll be hearing it a lot.