Talking Biz News Today — Dec. 2, 2014

Some of Tuesday’s top business news stories:

The New York Times

To gain the upper hand, Amazon disrupts itself, by David Streitfeld

Insurance firms Aviva and Friends Life agree to $8.8 billion merger, by Chad Bray

The Wall Street Journal

Dodgy home appraisals are making a comeback, by Annamaria Andriotis

Supreme Court weighs when social-media threats become criminal acts, by Brent Kendall

Cirque du Soleil’s next act: Rebalancing the business, by Alexandra Berzon

Bloomberg

Web consumers expand holiday shopping beyond Cyber Monday, by Spencer Soper

DAX’s ‘brilliant’ run sends red flag as German index tops record, by Jonathan Morgan

Fortune

Fed’s Stanley Fischer: We still need to deal with the shadow banks, by Stephen Gandel

Blackstone to sell IndCor Properties to Singapore’s GIC for $8.1 billion, by Reuters

The Associated Press

FBI looking into hack of Sony Pictures’ computers, by The Associated Press

Today in business journalism

GQ Roll Call acquires Federal News Service from Dolan

NYT’s TV reporter Carter is taking the buyout

Capital Business names new web editor

Business journalists flocking to Ello

WSJ goes mobile using partners

This date in business journalism history

2009: Dobbs: Never talked to CNBC or Fox about jobs

2011: Consumer Reports launches iPad subs, smart phone apps

Business journalism birthdays

Dec. 2: Peter Burrows of Bloomberg Businessweek

Dec. 2: Spencer Ante of WhoWeUse

Dec. 2: Kristi Swartz of EnergyWire