Surge pricing?... Doesn't stop Uber from spending $3.1B on "the Uber of the Middle East": Careem. The deal had leaked before — Tuesday's surprise was that Uber closed it just weeks before it plans to go public. Most companies would be focused on their IPO right now. Uber's not most companies.

Let someone else drive... That's been Uber's go-to move abroad. It's buying 100% of its regional rival Careem, but typically it invests in just a percentage of its competitors so they can keep running their own company. This way if a competitor wins, it wins. And a bunch of Uber copycats copy that same strategy:

• Uber owns 37% of Russia's Yandex, and 28% of Southeast Asia's Grab. And it used to own 20% of China's Didi but then sold it back to Didi.
• Didi invested $600M in Brazil's ride-hailer, 99 Taxis.
• Gett, which is Israeli, owns part of New York's Juno.
• It's incestuous competition in ride-hailing, defined by the Uber of (blank) cozying up with the Uber of (blank).

Let. There. Be. Lawyers... The SD-based chip company Qualcomm just won a major court ruling that Apple's illegally used its tech in iPhones. Without paying for it. At all. The Qualcomm/Apple relationship's been awkward since Apple left it for Intel a few years back.

Reminds us of Pied Piper... The algorithmic thing from TV's Silicon Valley is freakishly similar to what Qualcomm's patented. Nobody understands it, but it makes tech work better. And Apple's guilty of using Qualcomm's "inventions" that speed downloads. The judge's rec? A ban on selling iPhone 7 and 7 Plus (and maybe more).

Awkward... Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond surged 22% for their best day in a decade. But that's all because activist investors (funds who own 5% of the chain) want to replace the CEO and 12 board members. All of them. Fresh start. The stock's down 80% since 2014, so they're staging a corporate intervention. And they got personal (our favorite quotes):

• "The company has lost touch with modern retail"
• "A dizzying array of too-similar items"

Not enough "Bed" and "Bath"... Too much "Beyond." The activist investors simply think the destination for newly cohabitating couples has lost its focus. So they want it to make 2 moves since the competition is cheaper (Homegoods) and more convenient (Amazon):

1. Sell off its rando brands (@Christmas Tree Shops, @Buy Buy Baby).
2. Slim down its stores since you're probably still lost in one.

• Payday: Lyft wants to give free bank accounts to its drivers
• Fancy: Wayfair's building out its 1st brick-and-mortar store this fall
• Smackdown: World Wrestling Entertainment rises as it relaunches its own video network
• Fired: BBC yanks its podcasts from Google because it wasn't sharing enough audience data
• Repent: Purdue Pharmaceuticals pays $270M to settle claims with Oklahoma for its fueling of the Opioid crisis

• Earnings from Lululemon
• A US Senate Committee meets over Boeing's 737 Max crashes