Apr. 3--Here's some news you may have missed last week, based on staff and wire reports.

Monday

President Barack Obama gave troubled Detroit automakers General Motors and Chrysler an ultimatum: Shape up in 60 days (or more precisely, slim down), or don't expect any more help from U.S. taxpayers. GM Chairman Rick Wagoner, furthermore, resigned at the request of Obama's auto task force, which was unhappy with the pace of change at the company. And Chrysler was instructed to strike a deal to team up with Italian automaker Fiat.

Tuesday

In California, two candidates for major public office next year could be former Silicon Valley CEOs. Republican Meg Whitman, who led San Jose online auction powerhouse eBay, is running for governor. Carly Fiorina (also a Republican), the high-profile ex-chief of Palo Alto technology giant Hewlett-Packard, said she's "seriously considering" a challenge to longtime U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, according to the Merc's writer in Washington. Both Whitman and Fiorina were supporters of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

In Palo Alto, one of California's loveliest communities, social-networking upstart Facebook said Gideon Yu, its chief financial officer, was leaving the company. Facebook hired a recruiter to find a new CFO with experience running a large public company -- leading to speculation that Facebook would launch an IPO so it could become a large public company.

On Wall Street, it was the end of a bullish month for stock investors: The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average (home of tech titans Intel and HP) jumped 7.7 percent in March, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index (a favorite here in tech-heavy Silicon Valley) gained 10.9 percent. But it was also the end of the first quarter, the worst such period since 1939, at least for the Dow, which plunged 13.3 percent. The Nasdaq lost 3.1 percent in the first three months of the year.

Wednesday

April Fools' Day in Silicon Valley is traditionally an opportunity for pranks by our creative tech geniuses. This year, for example, YouTube offered videos in a new and improved upside-down format, while parent company Google introduced Gmail Autopilot, employing the latest in artificial intelligence to "automatically send the perfect reply" to messages in your inbox.