Norton Co

Norton Co.'s planned acquisition of Laguna Niguel-based Furon Co. received U.S. antitrust approval and German regulatory approval, Furon said Monday. Norton, a unit of France's Compagnie de Saint Gobain, began a tender offer of $25.50 a share on Sept. 24 for Furon, which makes specialty plastic products for the commercial and health-care markets. The offer is scheduled to expire Friday.

DOROTHEA LANGE worked for the U.S. government. Her famous photographs of migrant workers and sharecroppers, shot in the early 1930s, were commissioned by the Farm Security Administration. In February 1942, not long after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the detention of Japanese Americans in internment camps. The following month, the War Relocation Authority hired Lange to photograph the process.

A Massachusetts company has cut its stake in Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. in Camarillo, selling 145,000 shares between June 25 and Oct. 16, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. With the sale, Norton Co., a Worcester manufacturer of abrasives and construction and plastics products, reduced its holdings in Vitesse to 5.5%, or 783,333 shares. In addition, on Aug. 24 Norton transferred 4,816 shares of Vitesse's stock to Victorian Partnership of Rancho Dominquez, Calif.

Horrors of horrors -- peach corduroy upholstery on a sofa and armchairs sitting amid Chippendale furniture, Queen Anne mirrors, Ming screens and modern lamps. This combination in a Pebble Beach home was considered "shocking" in 1926, but the eclectic trademark style of interior decorator Frances Elkins has profoundly influenced home aesthetics ever since. "During the five decades since Frances Elkins's death, she has been fittingly revered as one of the 20th Century's most legendary decorators.

Britain's BTR PLC moved closer to victory Friday in its hostile effort to take over Norton Co., announcing that almost two-thirds of Norton's stock was tendered under BTR's $1.64-billion buyout offer. While there are still a number of obstacles to a takeover of the Worcester, Mass.-based plastics and ceramics company, the one-sided tender result was another setback in Norton's effort to remain independent.

Ceradyne Inc. said it has acquired the ceramic air armor business of the Norton Co., Worcester, Mass., for an undisclosed amount of cash. The division will be transferred to Ceradyne's Costa Mesa facility where it will be integrated into Ceradyne's lightweight ceramic armor division. Ceradyne said the acquisition fits the company's strategy of making use of its under-used West Coast defense plant while focusing on new non-defense technical ceramics.

Widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of science history, I. Bernard Cohen brought enthusiasm and wide-ranging curiosity to the subject throughout his long career at Harvard University. As if to validate the Greek philosopher Pythagoras' hypothesis that numbers constitute the true nature of things, Cohen in his new book, "The Triumph of Numbers," which he was finishing at the time of his death at 89 in 2003, explores the history of numbers and describes how counting has come to occupy an enormous place in modern life.

In a brief introduction, former MountainZone.com editor and inveterate hiker Peter Potterfield writes "when I realized early on that there were more great wilderness places than one could see in a lifetime, I understood the need to prioritize." Potterfield has narrowed down the world to 23 priority hikes in a surprisingly meaty guidebook hiding between the covers of this coffee table book.

Not every outdoor enthusiast has the same budget or taste for roughing it. But every adventurer needs a base camp. This illustrated guide makes finding your backcountry bunk a snap, offering colorful descriptions of more than 100 destinations, from ultra-posh luxury lodges to bring-your-own-towels-and-food tented eco-camps. Hardy, non-motorized sports rate plenty of ink here, in keeping with the Outside tradition.

Remarkable Trees of the World Thomas Pakenham W. W. Norton & Co., $49.95 * Forty-six hundred years is a long time to be alive, but the twisted bristlecone pines of Inyo National Forest haven't given up the ghost yet, making them the oldest natural monuments in this spectacular volume devoted to botanical champions -- trees famous by girth, height, volume, age or, simply, character.

In 1998, when folk singer Woody Guthrie was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp, his son, Arlo, remarked: "For a man who fought all his life against being respectable, this comes as a stunning defeat." There were plenty of things stacked against Guthrie during his lifetime. He suffered from sweeping depressions, lost beloved family members to devastating fires and spent his last 13 years in a mental institution, dying slowly of Huntington's disease.

Someone who was innocent of literary fashion and the hierarchy of genres could easily write a thesis comparing the work of V.S. Naipaul and Jan Morris. Both, after all, are near-contemporaries and fellow graduates of Oxford and the British Empire (albeit on different sides). Both are master stylists, though in major and minor key, who have returned over and over to the same places as if to worry out a conundrum within themselves and in those places.

With its sale to a unit of a French company, specialty plastics maker Furon Co. in Irvine ended its role as a public company Monday, filing a certificate to terminate is registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Norton Co. of Valley Forge, Pa., a subsidiary of Compagnie de Saint-Gobain in Paris, said Monday that it has completed its $617-million acquisition of Furon. Under terms of a tender offer, Norton set aside $472 million in cash to buy Furon stock at $25.50 a share.

With its sale to a unit of a French company, specialty plastics maker Furon Co. in Irvine ended its role as a public company Monday, filing a certificate to terminate is registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Norton Co. of Valley Forge, Pa., a subsidiary of Compagnie de Saint-Gobain in Paris, said Monday that it has completed its $617-million acquisition of Furon. Under terms of a tender offer, Norton set aside $472 million in cash to buy Furon stock at $25.50 a share.

The term "Silicon Valley" was coined by technology writer Don Hoefler in 1971. Ever since, people have been trying to explain exactly what Silicon Valley is and what makes it tick. Outsiders regard it as an ethnographic curiosity, populated by tribes that practice strange rituals (all-nighters, IPOs, Comdex), communicate in techno-talk and business-babble, and possess a dazzling ability to conjure vast wealth out of thin air.