Washington Post

The Justice Department made a final pitch against AT&T's $85 billion deal to acquire Time Warner, demanding in federal court that the deal be blocked or that AT&T should be permitted only to buy a portion of the media and entertainment giant. Addressing a packed courtroom that included the chief executives of both companies, Justice attorney Craig Conrath cited economic analyses, industry witnesses and AT&T's own statements to support the government's case opposing the tie-up.

The boards of Sprint and T-Mobile US struck a $26 billion merger that, if allowed by antitrust enforcers, would leave the US wireless market dominated by three national players. Under the terms of the deal, T-Mobile will exchange 9.75 Sprint shares for each T-Mobile share. T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom will own 42% of the combined company and Sprint parent SoftBank Group will own 27%. The remaining 31% will be held by the public. Deutsche Telekom would also control voting rights over 69% of the new company and appoint nine of its 14 directors.

In March, Quinnipiac University’s pollsters asked Americans if they thought certain news outlets — unnamed by Quinnipiac — were enemies of the American people? Nearly 4-in-10 said yes — including more than 8-in-10 Republicans. In a poll released April 26, Quinnipiac was more direct. Less than a quarter of the public says that the news media broadly is better described as “enemy of the people” than an “important part of democracy.” But among Republicans, more than half preferred the former term to the latter. Granted, there was a limited set of options from which to choose.

Users of Facebook, Google and other popular technology platforms are likely to benefit from stricter privacy regulations that will require new disclosures, new forms of consent and new power to limit how personal data is stored and utilized. The changes are being announced in emails, blog posts and new on-screen messages that many consumers are already beginning to see from Apple, Twitter, Airbnb, GoDaddy and others. Don’t bother thanking Washington.