Snap’s awful Q3 be damned—Chinese tech giant Tencent has increased its stake in the company to more than 12% thanks to shares it purchased on the open market – NYTimes and WSJ

The latest from the antitrust side of AT&T and Time Warner’s merger bid could see Time Warner forced to sell its Turner Broadcasting unit or AT&T to shed its DirecTV division.  Officials from AT&T and TW were reportedly surprised by the news of such positions from the DOJ, based in large part to the fact that their proposed deal is a vertical merger – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and Law360

Bitcoin backers are laying down arms in an ongoing battle that could have led to a “major split” of the digital currency and likely would’ve erased the monumental gains the cryptocurrency has seen this year (up 656% since January).  At issue was a new version of bitcoin’s software that would’ve doubled the network’s processing capacity (and with it, the number of bitcoin transactions the network could handle). The change would also have created a new kind of bitcoin – WSJ and NYTimes

Some Law360 analysis suggests that immediate reaction to Judge Denise Cote’s allegation of prejudice against a jury that had just held JPMorgan liable for firing former wealth manager Jennifer Sharkey was decidedly not positive. Court watchers called Judge Cote’s criticism of the jury verdict inappropriate, gratuitous, and a “nightmare” – Law360

Panera’s adding a bit of Euro flair to its menu with a purchase of Au Bon Pain for an undisclosed sum – Bloomberg

Despite early concerns over the success of its iPhone X, Apple is continuing its steady march toward $1 trillion – WSJ and MarketWatch

Even as Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) looms for retailers in the U.S., China’s Singles Day (which we might just dub Alibaba Day and get it over with) on Nov. 11 will see a new experiment from Jack Ma, who for the first time has “enlisted 10 percent of China’s convenience stores” to “hawk goods and get billions of parcels shipped to customers nationwide” – Bloomberg

Are we excited about The Last Jedi?  Yes we are. Are we excited enough to take the physics of the Star Wars universe this seriously? We are not.  Luckily for you, Wired felt differently – Wired

Also, talking of [non-fictional] space, meet the zombie star – BBC