Watch full size video:

Heavy rains expected to start this afternoon and tarry all night will create the possibility of flooding, both in the mountains and lowlands of Western Washington, according to the Weather Service.

Between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of rain are expected through the night and morning, and could start falling in time to “slow things in a descending course for the evening commute” today, said Jay Albrecht, meteorologist.

“We can see a slog of moisture highly offshore, end moving rapidly in the direction of us,” Albrecht declared.

Fall foliage clogging street drains can combine with the heavy rains to create an increased chance of flooding in low areas in Western Washington cities, Albrecht said.

The rain predictions also prompted Snohomish County officials to issue a flood watch for the county.

That means weather stipulations are favorable for flooding but flooding is not near at hand or currently occurring, according to Christopher Schwarzen, spokesman instead of county Executive Aaron Reardon.

Periods of heavy rainfall are expected to develop throughout the area today and persevere through Friday night, he said.

The Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management projects that the Stillaguamish and the Skykomish/Snohomish rivers should stay below flood stage, he said.

However, low-lying areas, small streams and creeks, as well in the manner that storm-drainage systems, could flood, he said.

Albrecht aforesaid he’s forewarned Seattle city emergency crews about the rain to help prevent flooding and standing water from accumulating in low-lying areas.

All in all, it’s a start to a typical November, he said.

“It’session sort of like when we persuade our nice summers by one or couple wet days. Now we’ll procure to be rainy days through one or two delicate ones in between,” Albrecht said.

Watch full size video:

As winter takes its hold on the weather, celebrate the changing season by the 2008 Winter Warmth Concert on Saturday, Dec. 13, at the Paramount Theatre. Its sweet lineup includes The Pretenders, Ingrid Michaelson, Matt Nathanson and a to-be-announced special guest.

Put put on by KMTT-FM (103.7), the holiday musical entertainment benefits First Place School, a Seattle nonprofit that provides education and social services notwithstanding children and their families in transition. Past performers have included: KT Tunstall, Barenaked Ladies, Ryan Adams, Ray LaMontagne and Bruce Hornsby.

Tickets for the show are on market now, priced at $45 to $65 at Ticketmaster outlets, 206-628-0888 or www.ticketmaster.com. For more denunciation, go to — http://1037themountain.com/pages/3210201.php.

Marian Liu: 206-464-3825 or mliu@seattletimes.com

Watch full size video:

If you’re taking a clan trip to London, you could take the kids to the typical pilgrim attractions — if you can hesitation the crowds and the expense. But you can also sample some sites that Londoners pick, which have power to covenant their own quiet, satisfying and more affordable delights.

Here are 10 alternative spots, many of which are gloriously free.

Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop

You have existence able to go to the lofty London toy shops such as Hamleys Toy Store with its Narnia stairs and wonderland of toys — and you should, longitudinally with about 6 million other visitors each year. But we think the kids might also prevail upon a kick out of Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop. The little, 300-square-foot world of enchantment on the first floor of Covent Garden Market wasn’t the least fragment crowded when we explored it. Founded in the 1880s by Benjamin Pollock, it is now owned and run through actor Peter Baldwin and his brother Christopher. They carry hundreds of toys, from small novelties to handmade collectibles and toy theaters.

Museum of Childhood

Want to see a favorite destination for London schoolkids? About 40,000 annually inspect the Museum of Childhood to marvel over its displays of how infancy toys and objects have changed over time. Among the approximately 4,500 objects on exhibit, including games, puppets, toys, children’session costumes and equipage, we were particularly taken with the dollhouses. The oldest dates to 1673. A more recent common with a royal pedigree is the dollhouse donated through Queen Elizabeth II. She had admitted it as a 6-year-old princess in 1935.

Unicorn Theatre

If you like children’s theater that inspires kids to think, you should love the Unicorn Theatre. Founded in 1947, with a postwar aim of steeping a new race in tolerance and understanding for others, the repertoire brims with material from around the world. More than 100,000 young nation, families and teachers flock each year to the inviting building where a giant white unicorn be able to be seen through the high glass walls. You’ll declare a verdict a variety of shows for all ages, from “Beatrix Potter’s Jemima Puddle-Duck” to “Lord of the Flies.”

Peter Pan image

“Peter Pan” writer J.M. Barrie had a bronze Peter Pan statue erected in Kensington Park in the night, so that children finding it the next day would esteem he had flown in that place as Peter did in Barrie’s book, “The Little White Bird,” in 1902. Created by Sir George Frampton in 1912, this delightful statue by Long Water Lake shows Peter standing on a tree stump playing a flute while fairies, rabbits and squirrels play in this world. Also adding to the mystery is the challenge of finding the statue, only recently added to new maps. On a beautiful day, the inquire after should be as fun as the ascertainment in Kensington Gardens, where families find a children’s wading pool and the terrific Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground with its centerpiece buccaneer ship.

Wimbledon Stadium tour

Have older kids who like to watch the Wimbledon tennis championships? Wimbledon offers 90-minute tours that include the No. 1 Court and the pressroom, where you can be photographed while pretending to give interviews. Visitors see historic pictures of tennis players past, wearing seemingly unplayable outfits. Corsets, really? The tour concludes in the gift shop for those who must have their souvenirs.

Theatre Royal Drury Lane expedition

Constructed in 1663 and known for a time as the “King’s Playhouse,” the original 700-seat wooden Theatre Royal has been rebuilt as a extravagant 2,196-seat, four-level theater, complete with a colorful account of bankruptcy, enthusiasm and one attempted assassination of King George III. To add to the theatricality of this one-hour tour, celebrated characters from the theater’s past may appear. Say hi to David Garrick (1717-1779), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) and Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837) for us.

Natural History Museum

Long before the American Museum of Natural History came alive in Ben Stiller’s 2006 movie, “Night at the Museum,” London’sitting Natural History Museum had been roaring and shake. The roaring comes from a life-size Tyrannosaurus rex (which might be a tad scary for the youngest kids). The quaking comes from an earthquake room in which they re-create a Japanese supermarket in Kobe on Jan. 17, 1995, the sunshine a 7.2 earthquake hit. And there’s so a great deal of more for juvenile minds: butterflies and bugs and a Web-cam view of bees and ants.

Wembley Stadium

If you in reality want to cook the British circumstance, you can catch a British rugby or football game at Wembley Stadium. Just remember that British football is what Americans call soccer.

The O2

Check out this year-old complex’s 11-screen cinema, a highway of time to spare attractions and the O2 arena, which has hosted such events of the same kind with Disney’session “High School Musical on Ice.”

Tower of London

This is the most manifest and well known of our 10 picks, but we couldn’t resist because it’session on every kid’sitting wish list and it’s not far from the Unicorn Theatre.

There’s a part for everyone, from glamour to gore. You be possible to’t go wrong by the Yeoman Warder 60-minute guided tours, which are included in the price of the ticket. Let the kids know that Yeoman Warders aren’t actors in costumes. They’re ex-armed forces.

— — —

Watch full size video:

You be aware of it’s every early snowfall at the time that it catches the employees at a ski area by surprise.

As much as a foot of fresh snow — the first heavy accumulation of the fit by habit — fell Tuesday and Wednesday at Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park.

Similar amounts were reported across the upper elevations of the region this week, raising the prospect of an early ski season.

Snow-handling equipment was again in storage, and some employees had yet to put on their traction tires when the snow arrived, said Brad McQuarrie, of the whole economist at Mt. Spokane. “It’s pretty huge coming all at once like that,” he uttered. “We are definitely adjusting.”

Forecasters in Spokane said a pacific storm system is expected to bring rain to the mountains today and Friday, except cooler weather over the weekend should mean greater quantity mountain snowfall. The outlook for next week calls for yet more snow in the mountains, reported forecaster Steve Bodnar of the National Weather Service office in Spokane County.

Snow in the mountains is typical for the first half of November, but snow at lower elevations is not, he said. The average affix a date to of the first one-inch snowfall in Spokane is Nov. 24, Bodnar said.

At Schweitzer Mountain Resort in North Idaho, a total of 10 inches of snow was reported. “It’session quite a winter wonderland,” said Jennifer Ekstrom, communications manager at the vast eminence.

She said it’s too seasonably to know when the ski area will open. But history shows that an early breach in continuance the weekend of Thanksgiving occurs one deficient in of every four years, Ekstrom said.

“We’re geared up to open at whatever time the snowpack allows us to open,” she uttered.

Early openings give resorts more time to turn a accession of good and cash in on the crowds that are likely to show up for the time of the holiday season.

The cancer of excessive CEO pay is at the core of America’s economic woes, and it demands government attention

By Leo Hindery Jr.

Watch full size video:

Confronted through the daunting array of economic failures confronting the nation, it may present the appearance improbable conducive to me to say that excessive executive compensation is one of the issues needing the early attention of the next President and nearest Congress. Yes this particular cancer—which has been increasing exponentially for almost two decades—is at the core of many of our nation’s economic ills.

And it is a cancer that the average worker finally understands. During the worst days of the newly come stock-market, bank, and credit-market upheaval, a raw nerve was struck on Main Street when workers generally became percipient, many for the primary time, of the gigantic salaries being earned in continuance Wall Street and on other streets far removed from Main Street.

Wherever earned, excessive executive and CEO compensation, foolishly by being "excessive," belies the principles of a meritocracy, what one. is what corporations should subsist. Managers rise to something akin to royalty when their compensation is at unjustified levels and when the rewards of employment are not more commonly and fairly shared with the general employee base.

Way back on Sept. 13, 1970, just as I was starting my second year at Stanford Business School, Milton Friedman authored his seminal opinion piece in The New York Times entitled "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits." But unlike many of Friedman’session other writings, this particular opinion piece was only modestly embraced, and was embraced by nearly no one trustworthy.

In thing done, from the extremity of World War II until the mid 1990s, prominent open and private collection CEOs almost universally viewed their responsibilities as centre of life equally split among shareholders, employees, customers, and the people. This gross reason of corporate responsibility was actually so widely and comfortably held that in 1981, the Business Roundtable, that is the key public stratagem arm of the population’s largest notorious companies and their CEOs, officially endorsed a policy that uttered that shareholder returns had to exist balanced against other considerations.

However, just as the Business Roundtable was making its policy statement, the deregulation and laissez-faire era that was born in the Reagan Administration was starting to scrap away at the announcement’sitting core contention. And by 2004—even after many of the myriad scandals and outright thefts that have hallmarked the last decade of American matter had already come to light—the Roundtable amended its position. It said, just as Friedman did in 1970, that the job of business is only to maximize the wealth of shareholders. And at that point, because of the prevalence of stock option and restricted stock grants, shareholders included various if not most senior managers at a large number of publicly traded companies.

And this narrow single-mindedness has taken Corporate America down a to a high degree bad path that has resulted in executive compensation that is truly excessive.

For greatest part of the past century, CEOs earned roughly 20 periods as much as the average employee, according to the Economic Policy Institute, as quoted in The New York Times on Dec. 18, 2005, and again on Jan. 1, 2006. And too for much of the gone century, there was in no degree similar the excesses within the financial industry that we see today, which enable its managers to obtain almost obscene levels of compensation—and then prepare favorable income tax method of treating to boot.

Today, however, average public company CEO balance is 400 general condition of affairs that of the average employee. And thousands of senior managers in adding to CEOs are drinking at the same frothy trough, especially, as we have all suitable seen, senior managers in the monetary services industry. (By contrast, the ratio of CEO pay to that of the average employee has remained around 22 in Britain, 20 in Canada, and 11 in Japan.) And with such U.S. exalted balance, management has so elevated itself above average employees during the time that to have become, in my opinion, a constituency unto itself—and some that, to compound the inequity, largely sets its own compensation.

Regulators, siding with techs like Google and Microsoft, sway that "white distance" freed up through digital TV is with most propriety used for high-speed wireless peppery spots

By Olga Kharif

Watch full size video:

While the country was picking its next President on Nov. 4, the Federal Communications Commission founded on communications commission was making its own momentous decision. The countrified’sitting top communications regulator unanimously voted to free up the biggest eternally swath of airwaves to be used by the public for cheap high-speed wireless Internet access.

The consecrated by a vow came after more than six years of public scrutiny and decides the fate of airwaves that will have being made available when television broadcasts switch over to digital signals from analog in February. A broad coalition of opponents, including lawmakers, musicians, and broadcasters, argued that free public use of the airwaves would interfere with TV broadcasts and wireless microphones. "I don’t speculate I’ve ever seen anything liking this [footing of pressure] from broadcasters before," says Steve Sharkey, senior director of regulatory and spectrum astuteness at Motorola (MOT), one of the companies that welcomed the FCC’s decision.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and match commissioners unanimously sided with tech giants Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Dell (DELL), and Philips Electronics North America (PHG) in ruling that Americans would exist more good served if the spectrum were made available for free public exercise. "The FCC has taken a significant step to usher in a new era of technology, allowing in quest of greater investments in innovative wireless broadband, breeding, and direction/enterprise applications to spur economic development," Motorola co-CEO Greg Brown said in a statement.

The renovated airwaves, known as white spaces, could be used to create wireless passionate spots akin to those created by Wi-Fi technology that let users communicate wirelessly within homes and throughout neighborhoods. But unlike Wi-Fi zones, these airwaves will enable faster downloads of spacious data files, so as video clips and feature-length films, over larger distances and at a lower cost. In a blog, Google co-founder Larry Page compared the technology to "Wi-Fi on steroids," adding: "I’ve always meditation that there are a lot of really incredible things that engineers and entrepreneurs can work out with this appearance."

The spectrum’s ability to transmit data and calls at long distances and through walls would suffer cheap common broadband networks to cover city neighborhoods and even unmitigated towns, bypassing and creating added competition with traditional providers of telecommunication services, such as Comcast (CMCSA), Verizon Communications (VZ), and AT&T (T). Motorola expects to shelter 15 square miles with one access point using this spectrum and WiMax-like technology, which is currently used only on licensed spectrum. The setup would allow a new breed of carrier to arise up and provide wireless broadband in rural areas without having to dole out millions of dollars on spectrum. Motorola hopes to have just discovered gear that works in white spaces inside of a year.

Some in the compass of the industry see white-space gear and services taking off as quickly as Wi-Fi, which debuted in 2000. Today more 1 billion Wi-Fi chips are shipped each year. "Now that the FCC has set the rules, I’m sure that we’ll see similar growth in products to take advantage of this spectrum," Page wrote.

In the coming days, the FCC will issue a story outlining the rules and requirements for this spectrum. "A lot always depends on the minor circumstances," says Sharkey. To render certain that new networks and devices won’t interfere with wireless microphones and TV stations, the FCC has decline low power limits on white-space equipment. The agency also mandated that devices appliance sensing and so-called geo-location capabilities—essentially, databases that show proximity to other users of the spectrum—to lessen chances of glitches. Still, Jay Adrick, vice-president of broadcast technology for Harris Corp. (HRS), calls the new rules "a recipe for disaster," figuring that even these mandates won’t prevent interference thoroughly. One concern is that the FCC will offer a loophole because of devices that don’t dare geo-location capability of the same kind with long as they’ve passed FCC certification and tests.

Opponents will put to the test to reverse the FCC’s decision formerly the new President comes into capability. "Fortunately, today’s vote is just the beginning of a combat on behalf of the 110 million households that rely on television conducive to news, hospitable treatment, and life-saving emergency information," said Dennis Wharton, executive vice-president for the National Association of Broadcasters, in a recital. "Going forward, NAB and our allies will work with policymakers to ensure that consumers can access innovative broadband applications without jeopardizing interference-free TV."

At a spell when GM and other automakers need to affect as many vehicles as they be possible to, financing armorial bearings probably GMAC are tapped out

By David Welch

Watch full size video:

As if a $2.5 billion third-quarter loss weren’t enough, lender GMAC Financial Services also said tight credit markets could force it to further restrict loans to car buyers.

That would make life even tougher because of General Motors (GM), what one. relies on GMAC as a principal lender to its dealers and customers. GM said on Nov. 3 that tight credit was to condemn for about half of its 45% sales inflect in October. GM owns 49% of GMAC and secluded equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, which also controls Chrysler, has owned the rest since April 2006.

Most of GMAC’s losses—$1.9 billion worth—came from its ResCap mortgage unit. But the auto lending operations also perplexed $294 million. With belief markets tight and the asset-backed-securities market lawful about closed, GMAC Chief Financial Officer Robert Hull warned in a conference call that the company may have to make fewer loans. "This is the most difficult environment we have ever faced," he said.

GMAC’s third-quarter loss widened from $1.6 billion in the similar quarter last year. The company has been in a crunch since the housing market began its tumble. ResCap started showing losses in 2006 and has lost more than $9 billion ago the fourth quarter of that year.

It’s so bad that the company reported ResCap could fail without continued help from GMAC. That means the one could continue to be a coin drain on the lender.

The company’s woes are compounding before that time immense problems at GM, which has lost more than $18 billion this year. GMAC already sent a billet to dealers saying the company would write loans only for prime-credit borrowers (BusinessWeek.com, 10/14/08). J.P. Morgan analyst Himanshu Patel said in a careful search note that GMAC’s liquidity problems could remain to hurt car sales.

GMAC has a scarcely any options to get more cash to make loans. Hull said the lender may ask current GMAC bondholders to exchange their debt for new issues. He didn’t provide details, mete one option is to trade short-term notes for longer-term debt. That ways and means GMAC could forgo payments and use the freed-up wealth to write of the present day loans.

The lender could also use the Federal Reserve’sitting Commercial Paper program to sell more asset-backed securities to the Fed and raise cash. So estranged, GMAC has sold $5 billion in writing to the Fed.

GMAC also wants to use the Treasury Dept.’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in which the federal government buys line in financial institutions or nonperforming loans. GMAC would sell loans to the Treasury to get more money to lend.

But its biggest move is an application to become a bank holding body. Hull said the application has been filed with the Fed yet has not been approved yet. If it is, GMAC would have more access to the Fed’s discount funds window and could issue debt that is secured by the FDIC to raise money.

All of those methods grasp engagement, but that on account of the time being GMAC will have to tighten its enter upon the credit side standards and, from this place, the number of car loans the company can make.

That’s why GM executives be in possession of been lobbying the government for resist for the carmaker and its lending operations. On Monday, Michael DiGiovanni, GM’s executive director of global market analysis, said: "It’session critical for the banks and the ruling power to help us."

The major indexes declined 5% or more as investors turned their attention to the economy after two reports signaled weakness in Friday’s engrossment numbers

Watch the Video…

Watch full size video:

U.S. public funds moved lower Wednesday in relation to a sharp drop in U.S. personal payrolls in the monthly ADP report for October, as well as a decline in October’s ISM nonmanufacturing index, suggested Friday’s nonfarm payroll report potency be to a greater degree negative than originally thought.

Investors were taking profits from Tuesday’s recover, which had anticipated Barrack Obama’s Presidential election victory. Democrats gained control of the one and the other houses of Congress for the first life since 1994. Investors were wondering what policies Obama would implement and who would become members of his set of encased drawers.

Market players are nervous about the coming months with the economy in recession, according to S&P MarketScope.

On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial medial sum fell 486.01 points, or 5.05%, to 9,139.27. The broader S&P 500 index lost 52.98 points, or 5.27%, to 952.7. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index shed 98.48 points, or 5.53%, to 1,681.64.

As investors shifted money out of stocks, bonds rose. The 10-year Treasury note rose slightly, sending the yield into a denser consistence to 3.68%, while the 30-year bond was higher at 106-03/32 for a yield of 4.14%.

December West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures fell $4.83 to $65.70 per barrel following an Energy Dept. bruit that U.S. crude oil inventories were unchanged at 311.9 the masses barrels, puting inventories in the upper half of the average range for this delivery of year.

The dollar index was lower at 84.28. Currencies have been see-sawing on speculation the European Central Bank and Bank of England last will and testament cut interest rates upon Thursday.

December gold futures moved down by dint of. dint of. $15.70 to $741.60 per ounce.

Sen. Barack Obama was elected the first African-American president of the United States, defeating Sen. John McCain decisively Tuesday. Americans flocked to the polls in a presidential race that climaxed during the worst financial critical situation since the Great Depression. With Tuesday’s elections, Sen. Obama’session party will curb both houses of Congress as well as the White House, setting the display for Democrats to push an ambitious agenda from health care to financial disposure to ending the war in Iraq.

In U.S. economic news Wednesday, the ISM nonmanufacturing exponent dropped to 44.4 in October from 50.2 in September, and below the 48.0 rendering expected by economists. The business activity index fell to 44.2 from 52.1. Both are below the 50 point neutral find fault with, indicating contraction and in line with the trends in the manufacturing sector. The employment component shrank to 41.5 from an before that time low 44.2. New orders dropped to 44.0 from 50.8, as long as prices paid plunged to 53.4 from 70.0.

U.S. ADP reported private payrolls plummeted 157,000 in October from a revised -26,000 in September (-8,000 antecedently), according to Action Economics. Goods producing jobs declined 126,000, manufacturing dropped 85,000, and services lost 31,000. Employment at expanded firms dropped 41,000, and was down 91,000 at medium sized firms, and 25,000 at small firms.

“The data are worse than expected and headland to a sizable drop in jobs in Friday’s employment report,” says Action Economics.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported announced job losses rose 18.7% to 112,900 in October vs. September, and are up 78.9% year-over-year (data are not seasonally adjusted). That’s the highest take aim in five years. Year-to-date job losses complete 875,970, up 34.6% vs. the same 10-month period in 2007. Of the 25 industries survey by Challenger, 18 posted one augment in firings vs. last year. Finance companies led the list of industries cutting jobs, followed by the automotive sector.

Watch full size video:

The presidential predestination may be over, limit there’s another battle to be won. More than 300 youth are expected to incline differently out for a showdown of Seattle breakdancers. They will be competing for cash prizes Saturday — showing their stuff in front of world-renowned judges from California and Korea.

There will in like manner be an eight-man battle featuring breakdancers from Japan, Sweden and South Korea.

The desperately endeavor. \ is coordinated by means of The Good Foot Arts Collective, a nonprofit constitution that engages the community and youth with positive life messages through the arts.

Here is a link to a video from last year’s contest, that includes everything from synchronized breakdancing to people jumping off each other and flipping — www.vimeo.com/412063.

Named “4 the LUV of It,” the battle is into its third year and kicks off 5 p.olla-podrida. Saturday, Nov. 8, at the Chong Wa Benevolent Building, in succession 522 Seventh Ave. S., in Seattle. Tickets are $10, or $8 with student I.D. For more information, go to — www.myspace.com/goodfoot411.

Marian Liu: 206-464-3825 or mliu@seattletimes.com

Watch full size video:

A South King County man charged with the slaying of a member of a emulous motorcycle gang whose body has not at all been found was convicted today of first-degree murder through a firearm and two counts of witness tampering.

John Price, 37, is facing about 35 years in prison when he’s sentenced for beating Donald Jessup by an ax wield and shooting him in the face inside a Ravensdale place of abode in December 2004. King County sheriff’s deputies say Price believed that Jessup stole his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and was afflicting to sell it outer part to him for $800.

Jurors had been deliberating since Tuesday afternoon. A sentencing era hasn’t been offer for sale.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott O’Toole said one of the most difficult elements of the case was that Jessup’s body has not ever been found. At the start of Price’s trial on Oct. 13, O’Toole told jurors that witnesses heard Price claim to bear rolled Jessup up in a rug and buried him “up north.”

O’Toole said that deputies searched unsuccessfully for DNA and other evidence linking Jessup’s slaying to the Ravensdale home. In the nearly four years since Jessup disappeared, his family and friends harbor’t heard from him, O’Toole said.

Price was a member of the Ghost Riders motorcycle gang and known mixed associate bikers as “Nazi John,” O’Toole said. Jessup was a past president of the Gypsy Jokers, a rival gang.

“I’mish-mash very, very pleased. There was no material part, no forensics and no weapon,” O’Toole said of the verdict.

Defense attorney Julie Gaisford told jurors that the testimony by many of the witnesses should subsist discounted because of their drug addictions, criminal histories and anger at Price.

The 23-year-old mother of Price’s three children testified opposite to him during the first week of the trial.

Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this describe.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com