Merger Mania: Corporate Consolidations Promise Lofty Returns, Can They Deliver?

Here’s what you’ll find on today’s show:

— The number of major wireless carriers in America may soon go from four to three. Over the weekend, T-Mobile C.E.O. John Leger and Sprint C.E.O. Marcelo Claure announced a nearly $27-billion merger between the third and fourth largest wireless carriers in the United States. The two companies will now have to convince the Trump administration not to block their merger, which it is currently trying to do in another case being argued in court: AT&T’s $85 billion dollar planned acquisition of Time Warner. That case could have major implications for the T-Mobile Sprint deal.

— The New York Times has obtained a list of nearly fifty questions given to President Donald Trump’s legal team by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. The questions cover topics ranging from the firing of former F.B.I. director James Comey to President Trump’s alleged connections to Kremlin-linked individuals.

— Twenty years ago today, Spike Lee released the basketball film “He Got Game.” The classic starred now-N.B.A. legend Ray Allen as Jesus Shuttlesworth, the number one high school basketball recruit in the country. It centered on the fraught relationship with his father who recently got out of prison, played by Denzel Washington. “She Got Game,” a short film commissioned by the Bleacher Report that reimagines Spike Lee’s original work, stars Jewell Loyd as Faith Mothershed, the top high school basketball recruit of her time. Faith even attends the same Brooklyn high school that Jesus did 20 years earlier, and the trailer teases her internal conflict as she decides what do with her future. 

— Ten journalists were killed in Afghanistan on Monday in the deadliest day for media professionals in that country since 2002. Two suicide bombings in Kabul killed 36 people; nine journalists died while gathering at the scene of the first blast when the second bomb was activated. On the same day, in Khost province, a BBC reporter was shot dead. According to Reporters Without Borders, at least 34 media workers have been killed by ISIS or the Taliban in the country since 2016.