Sioux City-based Terra Industries Inc. has agreed to be acquired by Yara International ASA, based in Norway, for $41.10 per share in cash. The deal has a total value of $4.1 billion, MarketWatch.com reported today. The companies have operated a joint venture, GRowHow UK, since 2007. Terra, a producer of nitrogen products, paid a cash dividend of $7.50 a share in December, the company said. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the second quarter, pending shareholder and regulatory approval. Once the deal is completed, the company will be called Yara North America. Michael Bennett, Terra’s president and CEO, will be president of the new company, and its headquarters will be in Sioux City. Terra had fought a takeover bid by CF Industries Inc.

Drake University has received $1.58 million in federal funds to support its Virtual Language Studies program, which is designed to help increase competence in less commonly taught languages for reasons of national security and global economic competitiveness. Students in the program are learning Russian and Mandarin Chinese. Drake is collaborating on the development of materials for the project with students and faculty at four other colleges and universities.

Lobbying appears to be recession-proof, CNNMoney.com said, regarding the annual report on special interest spending by the Center for Responsive Politics. Companies and interest groups spent a record $3.47 billion on federal lobbying in 2009, a 5 percent increase over the year before, according to the watchdog group, which tracks money in American politics at its site OpenSecrets.org. The pharmaceutical and health industry topped lobbyist spending at $266.8 million, the largest amount spent by a single industry in one year. Other big spenders included business associations at $183 million; oil and gas, $168.4 million; and insurance, $164.2 million. Each of those sectors spent more in 2009 than in 2008.

Responding to criticism of the privacy settings on Buzz, Google Inc. moved over the weekend to address concerns about its new social network service, CNNMoney.com reported. Google Buzz, which launched Feb. 9, is fully integrated with the search engine’s e-mail service, Gmail. It also included an auto-follow feature intended to make getting started on Buzz quick and simple by having new users follow their most frequent e-mail and chat contacts without clicking on anything. But users were furious their contacts would be revealed to the public before they even created a Buzz profile. Click here to read the full story.