Some inside baseball on how Sprint and T-Mobile are likely to try to convince suspicious regulators that their merger is a good thing. Hint: it has a lot to do with China and 5G – NYTimes

Meanwhile, Monday saw closing arguments in the antitrust trial pitting the DOJ against AT&T and Time Warner in the companies’ bid to join forces – WSJ

In a let’s just say bold proclamation at last year’s meeting of the International Standards Organization on the topic of blockchain, the head of the Russian delegation told the gathering of reps from 25 countries that while the internet belongs to Americans, blockchain “will belong to us.” Probably worth keeping an eye on that – NYTimes

Streetwise has a basic message for us: embrace the volatility (and quit stressing about the VIX!) – WSJ

Panasonic Corp. will pony up $280 million to “resolve U.S. allegations that executives at its in-flight-entertainment unit improperly hid payments to consultants in the Middle East and Asia.” The allegations were part of an ongoing FCPA probe against the company – Bloomberg and Law360

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum is leaving facebook (which purchased the messaging service in 2014) based—according to insiders—on his concern about the ‘book’s “position on user data in recent years,” including “the amount of information that Facebook collected on people,” and ads on the platform – NYTimes and WSJ

Prompted by Brexit, the ECB announced on Monday that it will increase the supervisory fees it charges banks to provide “prudential supervision” over the financial sector – Law360

Marathon’s $23 billion purchase of rival Andeavor, if approved, would create America’s largest oil refiner at a time when “an oil-price surge and growing global demand for fuels” could provide the right conditions for “an extended industry rally” – WSJ and Bloomberg

Last night was the deadline for an anxious world (of US allies, at least) awaiting final word on application of the White House’s steel and aluminum tariffs. But because this is so much fun, let’s just do it all over again in a month, shall we? – Bloomberg and NYTimes and WSJ

Fascinating read from the New Yorker on a former CIA operative who came in from the cold and eventually landed on Savannah’s thin blue line – NewYorker