Catch up on the weekend's top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1. Amazon (AMZN) has progressed to late-stage talks on its planned second headquarters with a small handful of communities including northern Virginia's Crystal City, Dallas and New York City, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. The ongoing talks with some local officials come as discussions appear to have cooled in some of the other 20 cities on Amazon's shortlist, including Denver, Toronto, Atlanta, Nashville, and Raleigh, sources said. 2. Berkshire (BRK.A; BRK.B) reported Q3 operating earnings of $6.88B versus $3.44B last year. The company also announced Q3 net earnings of $18.5B, or $11.28B per class A share equivalent, from $4.07B in the year-earlier period. At September 30, 2018, Berkshire's book value per Class A equivalent share was $228,712. Insurance float was approximately $118B at September 30, 2018, an increase of $4B since year-end 2017. 3. As artificial intelligence, autonomous flying and driving, and cybersecurity play larger roles in warfare, software is likely to nibble away at the defense budget, too, Jack Hough wrote in this week's edition of Barron's. Over the long term, that could mean U.S. funds traditionally spent with tank, plane, and missile makers are shared with the likes of Amazon, Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOGL), the report noted. One reason that software and dot-com companies could become important defense players is their control over one of history's most powerful weapons, namely cash, as the five largest U.S. tech players together will probably spend more on research than the Department of Defense next year, the publication added. 4. 21st Century Fox's (FOX, FOXA) "Bohemian Rhapsody" soared to a $50M launch in North America, the second-biggest start of all time for a music biopic behind 2015's "Straight Outta Compton." Overseas, the Queen biopic rocked to $72.5M. The movie earned an A CinemaScore and sports 60% Rotten Tomatoes score. 5. Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOC), Raytheon (RTN), Ingersoll-Rand (IR), Lennox International (LII), Gap (GPS), Costco (COST), Southwest Airlines (LUV), Micron (MU), Alphabet, Resideo Technologies (REZI), Rio Tinto (RIO), and Glencore (GLNCY) saw positive mentions in Barron's.
