Saturday Late Morning Reads

 Good Morning!!

I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed and paralyzed at the moment, so I’m going to have to limit myself to a link dump this morning. Otherwise I’m never going to get started.

Stories that may fill in some blanks on the Tsarnaev brothers.

A very helpful piece from the Wall Street Journal: Life in America Unraveled for Brothers, By ALAN CULLISON and PAUL SONNE in Moscow and JENNIFER LEVITZ in Cambridge, Mass.

The New Yorker’s David Remnick on The Culprits provides some background on the Chechen connection.

At Crooks and Liars, Boston Bombing Suspects Recall Home-Grown Terrorists in Madrid, London Attacks
By ProPublica

CBS News: FBI interviewed dead Boston bombing suspect years ago

Henry Blodget at Business Insider: The FBI Needs To Explain Why It Failed To Monitor Boston Bombing Suspect Despite A Clear Warning

FBI Press Release on their Investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

A little more news related to the Boston bombings

Report: 3 arrested in New Bedford in connection to bombing suspect

Neighbors say three have been arrested in New Bedford in connection with the Boston Bombing suspect.

Police apprehended suspects from the Hidden Brook Apartments on Carriage Drive in New Bedford. Neighbors say they think that the girlfriend of 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have lived in the complex and they have seen him in the area as recently as yesterday.

The National Memo: Lindsey Graham Does A Quick Trashing Of the Constitution On Twitter

Slate.com on the high tech methods used to catch the second suspect

Police used a robot, flashbangs, and a thermal camera to apprehend second Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Friday night, as Boston police recounted in a press conference shortly afterward. But it was a citizen’s alarming encounter with the suspect that proved to be the key in finding him.

Russ Baker at Who What Why: The Marathon Bombing: What the Media Didn’t Warn You About

Seth Mnookin at The New Yorker: Watertown Diary

I have lots more, but I’ll leave the Boston story there for now.

The Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion

NBC News: Investigators: Texas plant explosion death toll raised to 14

CBS News: Majority of deaths in West, Texas explosion were first responders

HuffPo: Texas Explosion: 60 People Still Missing According To Report

NYT: Texas on Fire, Again and Again

NBC News: Texas fertilizer plant also stored explosive chemical used in Oklahoma City bomb

Reuters: Texas fertilizer company didn’t heed disclosure rules before blast

The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate – which can also be used in bomb making – unaware of any danger there.

Fertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance. Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren’t shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year.

In other news…

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Across America, a week of chaos, horror — and hope

the International News: Pervez Musharraf transferred to farmhouse

Christian Science Monitor: Judge orders Musharraf held for 14 days before next hearing

PC Magazine: Transcript of Julian Assange, Eric Schmidt Chat Posted on WikiLeaks

Foreign Policy Magazine: Eric Schmidt: Money is the only reason Julian Assange redacted WikiLeaks files

The Guardian: Inside the mind of Eric Schmidt

That’s about all I have the energy for right now. I’ll post more links in the comments. What are you focusing on today? Please share your recommended reads, and have a great Saturday!