UPDATE 1-U.S. FCC approves Sprint/Clearwire/SoftBank deal-sources
July 03, 2013 at 17:27 PM EDT
WASHINGTON, July 3 (Reuters) - U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the merger of Sprint Nextel Corp and SoftBank Corp, sources familiar with the situation said, the last hurdle in the Japanese company's drawn-out battle to take control of the No. 3 U.S. wireless provider.