Sherwin-Williams to pay $9B for Valspar

Sherwin-Williams to pay $9B for Valspar

WASHINGTON

Sherwin-Williams, which has long claimed to “cover the Earth” with its paints, is buying rival Valspar for about $9 billion in a move that it says will expand its reach in Asia and Europe.

Sherwin-Williams said Sunday that it is paying $113 a share in cash, a 35 percent premium to the closing price of Valspar’s stock Friday. It valued the deal at $11.3 billion including the assumption of about $2 billion in Valspar debt.

The combined company would employ 58,000 people and would have had revenue of $15.6 billion last year.

Zuckerberg meets with Chinese official

BEIJING

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a rare meeting with China’s propaganda chief, at a time when Chinese authorities are tightening control over their cyberspace.

Liu Yunshan told Zuckerberg in their meeting Saturday that he hopes Facebook can share its experience with Chinese companies to help “Internet development better benefit the people of all countries,” China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported. China has called for the creation of a global Internet “governance system” and cooperation between countries to regulate Internet use, stepping up efforts to promote controls that activists complain stifle free expression.

Facebook and other Western social media, including Twitter, are banned in China.

Marine killed in Iraq

TEMECULA, Calif.

The U.S. Department of Defense says a coalition service member killed Saturday by enemy fire in northern Iraq was a Marine from Southern California.

Officials say in a press release Sunday that Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, of Temecula, died March 19 from wounds suffered when his unit was hit by rocket fire. The incident is under investigation.

Cardin was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press that the attack occurred at the Makhmour base outside the Islamic State group-held city of Mosul.

Mom accused of putting child in oven

GLEN ROSE, Texas

Officials say a Texas woman has been charged after her 2-year-old daughter suffered burns and witnesses said she told them she’d put the child in the oven.

The Somervell County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that deputies were called Thursday to a home because a child had burns. The sheriff’s office says witnesses told deputies upon arrival that 35-year-old Tasha Shontell Hatcher said she’d put her child in the oven.

Hatcher was charged with injury to a child with serious bodily injury and arraigned Saturday. Bond was set at $300,000. It wasn’t immediately known whether Hatcher has a lawyer.

Bomber identified as militant with IS ties

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s interior minister on Sunday identified the suicide bomber who killed four foreign tourists in Istanbul as a militant with links to the Islamic State group.

Minister Efkan Ala said the bomber was Turkish citizen Mehmet Ozturk, who was born in 1992 in Gaziantep province, which borders Syria. He said Ozturk wasn’t on any list of wanted suspects and five other people were detained as part of the investigation.

Saturday’s explosion wounded dozens of others. Among the fatalities were two American-Israelis, another Israeli and an Iranian.

Istanbul was tense a day after the bombing, with Turkish authorities postponing a high-profile soccer match between two major teams, citing an unspecified threat.

Associated Press