The Mexican mogul is reported to exist talking about a subsistent investment in the newspaper’s struggling parent, in return for specific preferred shares

By Jon Fine

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So much for the native New Yorker fantasy that The New York Times‘ white knight might be billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Carlos Slim, owner of Mexican communications firm Telmex (TMX) and one of the nature’session richest men, is in talks with he New York Times Co. (NYT) to take a substantial investment in the companionship. One scenario under discussion, according to the Journal, would be for Slim to throw in hundreds of millions into the cash-strapped concourse in exchange for preferred shares, which would pay Mr. Slim a special dividend.

In September of last year, Slim disclosed he had taken a 6.4% stake in the Times Co.’s low stock. At that time, a Slim spokesman told the Financial Times that Slim’s interest came about solely on this account that "it’s a great company, the price is cheap, and it gives a good dividend." But in November, the Times Co. divide its dividend from 23¢ through share to 6¢ per share.

A New York Times spokeswoman declined to comment in succession any aspect of the Journal’s story, and representatives of Mr. Slim’s Telmex did not directly be agreeable to to an inquiry.

The Times Co. is still controlled by descendents of the Sulzberger and Ochs families, who own a special class of stock, and the Journal said that Mr. Slim’s preferred shares would lack the "super voting" status of the families’.

Unlike with the Bancroft family, what one. in times past controlled The Wall Street Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones, but sold to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS) in 2007 for $5 billion, there has been no public subscribe of family contention within Times ownership. (Bancroft family members Billy Cox and Elisabeth Goth went public with their concerns past Dow Jones management in the late 1990s, notwithstanding to not any avail.)

Still, the fact that the Times Co. owns what is likely the world’s greatest in quantity renowned journalistic privilege has not insulated it from the destruction being visited upon the U.S. newspaper industry. Company ad revenues continue to shrink—in November, they fell 20.9%. Late hold out year, the company had $46 million in cash and a $400 million debt chastisement due in May 2009; the assembly too had an untapped credit dexterity and had signaled that it was discussing that debt situation with its lenders.

The company is also mulling selling its 17.5% adventure of the parent set of the Boston Red Sox baseball club, and last year signaled it would plan to borrow up to $225 million against its landmark Manhattan edifice, which was completed in 2007. Perhaps most significantly, it cut its dividend on both classes of stock. (Dividends represent the income that keeps the family owners of a publicly traded newspaper company rich.)

Slim’s move, and others, suggest a shift in where newspapers fall in with their investors of last resort. Newspaper industry lore long held that any journal’sitting last-ditch buyer or investor was the local real condition tycoon. But now big-city trophy newspapers are attracting interest from international moguls. London’sitting 171-year-old Evening Standard is nearing a deal to sell a controlling stake to Alexander Lebedev, one of Russia’s richest men (and a former KGB agent). Lebedev has also discussed the possibility of buying British national journal The Independent as useful.

Last May, it was disclosed Mr. Slim had taken a 1% stake in the Independent’sitting father company, Ireland’s Independent News & Media (INME.I). In the U.S., Slim also owns a sizable stake in not the same New York institution: Saks Inc. (SKS), operator of the Saks Fifth Avenue stores.

Stocks in the information Friday

From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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Bank of America (BAC) says in view of severe conditions in markets, economy, the U.S. government agreed to assist in Merrill acquisition by means of making a further investment in BAC of $20 billion in preferred stock. It says the government has also agreed to provide protection against further losses on $118 billion in selected capital markets exposure, primarily from former Merrill Lynch portfolio. Also cuts quarterly dividend to $0.01. Posts $0.48 fourth location loss, vs. $0.05 EPS a year ago, of the same kind through momentous increase in anticipation for believe losses, other expenses offset 19% revenue rise.

Citigroup (C) announces it will realign into two businesses, Citicorp and Citi Holdings, to optimize its global businesses for future useful growth and opportunities. Posts $1.72 fourth quarter loss, vs. $1.99 loss (both from continuing operations) despite 13% revenue decline. Says results included $6.1 billion in net money due losses, $6.0 billion without deductions lend loss reserve build, and revenues of $5.6 billion were affected by write-downs and losses in Securities and Banking.

Intel (INTC) posts $0.04, vs. $0.38, fourth quarter EPS on 23% revenue decline, narrowed gross margin. Results include $1 billion negative impulse from previously announced reduction in carrying value of the company’s Clearwire investments. EPS is in line with Street explore. For internal purposes, INTC says it is currently planning for principal quarter revenue in the vicinity of $7 billion. Gross margin percentage is expected to decline to the low 40s, primarily due to higher underutilization charges and 32nm start-up costs. S&P maintains buy.

Johnson Controls (JCI) posts $1.02 chief quarter injury, vs. $0.39 EPS, on 23% revenue decline.

Maidenform Brands (MFB) sees $1.17-$1.21 2008 EPS view (excluding items) to $1.05-$1.07 on sales of about $413 million. Also says it will take a charge of $0.03 in fourth quarter for a strategic workforce restructuring of 9% of incorporated staff.

CF Industries Holdings (CF) offers to buy all the outstanding shares of Terra Industries (TRA). Terms: 0.4235 CF shares for each TRA share held.

Saks (SKS) be disposed reduce workforce by about 9% (in adding to previously announced reduction-in-force kin to discontinuation of the Club Libby Lu business). Also says it will eliminate 2009 merit-based wage increases for the entire workforce and suspend 401(k) Plan Company matching contributions for a minimum of 1 year and suspend future benefit accruals for the limited number of associates remaining in SKS’s annuity plan. Lowers its planned capex for this year to about $60 the great body of the people.

Genentech (DNA) posts $0.95, vs. $0.69, fourth quarter non-GAAP EPS on 25% higher operating revenue, 13% rise in U.S. proceeds sales. Street was looking for $0.96. Sees 2009 non-GAAP EPS of $3.55-$3.90, recognizing that there are a large consist of of craft uncertainties that make it a unaccommodating year to forecast. Street is currently looking for 2009 EPS of $3.92.

Belden (BDC) cuts 2008 EPS direction to $2.53-$2.58 range, vs. foregoing guidance of $2.95-$3.00, revenue now expected to be about $2 billion, vs. previous estimate of surrounding $2.1 billion. Says current watch is adjusted for asset impairment, restructuring charges, gross advantage impact of revenue deferral in the Wireless Segment, and nonrecurring purchase accounting effects.

Broadcom (BRCM) announces that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has affirmed an ITC administrative disposition judge’s initial determination that SIRF Technology (SIRF) infringes 3 additional GPS-related patents held by Global Locate, Inc., a wholly-owned auxiliary of BRCM. The ITC issued an preclusion order against SIRF’s infringing GPS chips and products containing these chips imported by dint of. certain SIRF customers and cease and give over orders close up to SIRF and specified SIRF customers.

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What’s open and closed today, the holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

• Most schools and government offices will subsist closed, but many businesses will be open. Many workers produce not have the day on the farther side as a holiday.

• Most Metro buses will operate with a reduced weekday schedule, featuring more services than on weekends moreover somewhat less than ordinary weekdays, through some way or individual jaunt cancellations.

• Everett Transit and Pierce Transit bequeath be on regular weekday schedules.

• Snohomish County’s Community Transit local buses and most commuter weekday service will be on out-and-out schedules, but some commuter trips will be reduced or canceled because of expected low ridership.

• Sound Transit will be on holiday schedule. Sound Transit Express buses and Tacoma Link rail trains will subsist on formal weekday schedule.

• State ferries decree be on regular weekday schedules.

• Some basic services, such as offal pickup, will be on regular schedules, and Seattle’s pass over and recycling stations will be open.

• Most banks and doubt not unions will be closed.

• Post offices will be closed; no home delivery unless it be that in spite of accurate mail.

• Public libraries and state-owned liquor stores will be closed.

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“Yes We Can: Change Begins Now” MLK Day

TODAY On the edge of the historic investiture of our nation’s rudimentary African-American president and honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for his operate advancing racial equality and economic justice for all and his commitment to nonviolence, workshops, including several geared toward youth, 9:30-10:45 a.m.; rally through speakers, rhyme and music, 11 a.m.; march to the Federal Building, Second Avenue and Marion Street, Seattle, noon; Garfield High School, 400 23rd Ave., Seattle (206-353-5770 or 206-296-1002).

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade

TODAY Parade includes Fort Lewis Honor Guard, drill teams, Cleveland High School Drum Line, Franklin High School Dance Posse, Old Rides Car Club, 11 a.m. from Fourth Avenue and Pine Street by way of Fourth Avenue to Broad Street, steady Broad Street to Thomas Street to Seattle Center, Seattle (www.blackpast.organd click on “events”).

Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service

TODAY Volunteer to weed and entirely at the former Martin Luther King Jr. rudimentary admonish, being renovated as a community center, and other sites in Madison Valley. Bring work gloves, pruners, rakes, shovels, brooms and compostable garbage bags, 9:30-11:30 a.m., 3201 E. Republican St., Seattle; volunteers invited for coffee, treats, entertainment and accusation about the Martin Luther King Community Center project, 11 a.m., Valley School, 309 31st Ave. E., Seattle; nonperishable food-bank donations requested (www.mlkcommunitycenter.org).

King Holiday Hoopfest

TODAY High-school basketball tourney. Boys: Bellevue Christian vs. King’s, 9:30 a.m.; Kentwood vs. Bothell, 12:30 p.m.; Jim Reding Classic, Decatur vs. Federal Way, 2:30 p.m.; Rainier Beach vs. Dominguez (California), 4 p.mish-mash.; Bellevue vs. Bellarmine Prep, 6 p.m.; Franklin vs. Garfield, 7:30 p.m. Girls: Kentwood vs. Bellarmine Prep, 11 a.m.; Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, 2 p.m., Hec Edmundson Pavilion, University of Washington, Seattle; $10/adults, $5/ for seniors and students with ASB card (www.nwbball.com/).

MLK Day of Service

TODAY United Way links volunteers with a variety of volunteer projects for MLK Day at sites around King County. Call for information (206-461-3655 or volunteer.united-e-way.org/uwkc/user/events/one.tcl?Tpageno=1&event_id=10295357845&init).

MLK Service Day

TODAY City Year Seattle/King County honors the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with community-service projects at Union Gospel Mission and Dearborn Park Elementary School, 9 a.m.-3 p.mingle-mangle., Seattle (206-219-5010 or www.cityyear.org).

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For nearly six years, Haji Bismullah, any Afghan detainee at Guantánamo, has insisted he was no terrorist but had actually fought the Taliban and later had been part of the pro-American Afghan government.

Over the weekend, the Bush administration flew Bismullah home after a military panel concluded he “should no longer be deemed every satan participant in fight.”

Asked about the decision, a Pentagon spokeswoman said, “Mr. Bismullah was lawfully detained as an enemy participant in fight based forward the denunciation that was available at the time.”

The decision was sub-division of a pattern that has emerged in the closing chapter of the Bush administration. In the past three months, at minutest 24 detainees have been declared improperly held by courts or a tribunal — or nearly 10 percent of the number of people at the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where about 245 men remain.

The Bush administration has maintained the detention camp holds “the worst of the worst.” In a radio interview Tuesday, Vice President Dick Cheney said that “now what one.’s left, that is the hard core.”

But for Guantánamo’session critics, the timing of the decisions on the two twelve detainees adds new urgency to a review of the whole of Guantánamo cases, which the incoming Obama superintendence is expected to announce as easily as Wednesday.

“The house of cards is finally falling the floor,” before-mentioned Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has coordinated detainees’ lawyers. “There doesn’t seem to subsist a legal basis to hold these people.”

Lawyers for Bismullah, 29, presented sworn statements from officials of the U.S.-supported Afghanistan guidance of Hamid Karzai that indicated Bismullah had been named viewed like a terrorist by means of collaborators of the Taliban who wanted to take over his position as a provincial official. In fact, after Bismullah was shipped to Guantánamo, a limited official said in a sworn statement, an accuser sucker his car and herd it for two years.

President-elect Obama, who plans to close Guantánamo, has said some of the detainees are too dangerous to release. His administration is expected to sort these detainees from those who pose less of a denunciation or are being held attached weak evidence.

While hundreds of suspects have been released in the seven years the camp has been operating, the recent decisions are notable because they came after the Bush the ministry said it had reduced the peopling to the most dangerous terrorists.

While Bismullah’s case was determined by a military panel, the rulings during the other 23 detainees occurred in habeas corpus hearings in federal court. Since a Supreme Court decision in June gave detainees the right to have their detentions reviewed by federal judges in habeas cases, the government has won only three of them. The government is appealing some of the rulings it lost.

The cases provide a snapshot of the intelligence collected by the government on the suspects and suggest there was little credible evidence abaft the decision to state some of the men enemy combatants and to hold them indefinitely.

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At the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and East Cherry Street, there’sitting a convenience provision where those with a hankering be possible to get their fried wings hot and their Budweiser freeze cold.

Behind the contrary at King’s Deli, Kifle Mandefro greets all his customers — an increasingly diverse mix from the neighborhood — with the polite smile of a grateful merchant.

That Mandefro, an Ethiopian immigrant who came to the U.S. 20 years ago, could fulfill his dream of owning a business is the result, he believes, of another dream — one the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of more than 40 years ago.

A day before the nation was to celebrate King’s natal day, Mandefro and others who live, work, play and worship by the nine-mile stretch that bears the civil-rights leader’s name, spoke of how what he stood for is being realized today.

“Things have changed dramatically, and I’salmagundi blessed to be party of the progress,” says Mandefro, 42, who bought the store two years ago.”There’s no question Reverend King’s contributions are having an impact on the whole of of it.”

It is estimated that more than 730 U.S. cities have a street named in King’s honor — many traversing some of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods.

In Seattle, King Way is in the thick of a revitalization.

Dissecting the city’s core, its northern point starts at East Madison Street, through its boutique shops and trendy restaurants, and snakes past largely residential Madison Valley and Judkins Park, past newly constructed town houses and middle-class and modest homes, past playgrounds and parks, including one named for King.

At Franklin High School, the street doglegs across Rainier Avenue South as it darts east and continues southward, past hair salons and talon salons, tired-looking room buildings, past the newly developed NewHolly, myriad community centers, past warehouses, body shops, and soon-to-be-opened light-rail stations, past churches and places where you can rent a car, rent furniture or take a loan in advance of next week’s paycheck.

Most who speak about King say they comprehend sumptuous progress, given Barack Obama’s inauguration Tuesday as the nation’s primitive African-American president. In elocution of King’sitting vision, most couldn’t help but talk with articulate sounds of Obama, too.

More to be completed

Some believe that while the country does a good job of providing opportunities for those willing to work hard, there’s a lot yet to be performed to reaching racial, communicative and household equality.

Mandefro says some things may never change — that it is possible there for ever will exist discrimination. “But the kind of’s important is that there’s in addition progress and growth and that those who work grievous can also achieve.”

At East Madison Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, around the corner not far from her home, Christine Psyk is preparing to board the bus.

The 54-year-old points through that King spoke to economic, social and racial justice. “I think what we’ve done in this land is gone backward on the economic part,” she says.

“The whole notion of responsibility toward our fellow man has been lost in an atmosphere of selfishness.”

A few blocks south, at Powell Barnett Park, Christina Merkelbach watches her 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son climb the ropes of a heavy thicket gym.

She believes 40 years after King spoke about economic opportunities for all people, too much poverty remains in some communities of pigment.

“That goes against his vagary,” she says. “I worry that until we can figure out why poverty is so concentrated, we won’face to face influence to that nearest of the same rank.”

A few feet away, Samuel Blackwell encourages his 5-year-old, Savannah, being of the class who she, too, climbs the dally equipment.

Positive image

Blackwell, who owns Seattle Central Grind on East Cherry, uttered he hopes Obama’s election and the trope of his stable young group of genera will be a positive influence for the African-American common.

He hopes for others, especially young blacks, what he has been quick to achieve according to himself, he says, “taking favorable opportunity of a accident of the opportunities that Dr. King made possible.”

Richard Ito, 64, and his Shih Tzu, Jasmine, are the only ones strolling the path at Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park.

Ito, who lives in Mount Baker and served during the Vietnam War, said racism isn’t as much of a problem in Seattle as in other U.S. cities.

He ruined his job at Boeing in the seasonably 1970s — just two years out of the service — in a period of hard times that gave rise to the phrase: “Will the last person to leave please pivot out the lights.”

He recovered, retiring after 35 years in construction, and believes there are “more opportunities for all people of color than there were” 40 years ago.

Just across Rainier Avenue South, National Pride Car Wash is humming with smartness on this joyful day. Mount Rainier is out.

Michael Stears, 56, lathering up his black Infiniti, related he believes King would be frustrated by the even of elitism in the country now.

“Even people who aren’t bigots or racist have such a sense of entitlement, this pattern that my the breath of one’s nostrils is more important than yours,” Stears says.

He’s worried about the spate of recent crime, especially involving young black men — proof, he before-mentioned, that crowd have not taken advantage of the sacrifices made by those who came in the presence of them.

“But at the same time there are many others who are doing the not crooked thing, helping outright at hearthstone, staying out of trouble, getting good grades. Those are the ones I straits to see get esteem.”

Further south, outside the Rainier Valley Teen Center, 12-year-old Jamari Lewis says that for of King, America “is a better fortress.”

His friend Monique Foxx, also 12, says King made it possible for kids of all races to attend the same schools.

Standing outside Joy Palace Seafood Restaurant, Jacquie Bowen, her daughter Amena, sister Julie and friend Dale Tom have virtuous enjoyed dim sum.

Jacquie Bowen, 50, who lives in Burien, freshly read King’s “I Have a Dream” speech online in its entirety and reflected on what it the wherewithal now.

As a nurse in Seattle Public Schools, she works with kids of all races and ethnicities and income level.

She sees the inequities and says, “There’s for a like reason much operate left to do in fulfilling that dream.”

She says frequent of the gains made in areas of equal opportunity for the period of the Clinton years were eroded over the last eight.

“I’m so hopeful that under Obama, that culture will come back — and expand,” Bowen says.

Tom, 61, who lives in Renton, says she thinks today’s laudation of King Day is more particular because of Obama’session election.

“I opine part of King’s dream really is future good. We’ve been Band-Aiding everything, not finding solutions. I think this nation will be better.”

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com

The Mexican mogul is reported to be talking about a substantial investment in the newspaper’s struggling parent, in go for special preferred shares

By Jon Fine

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So much conducive to the vernacular New Yorker fantasy that The New York Times‘ white gallant might have existence billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Carlos Slim, owner of Mexican communications company Telmex (TMX) and one of the world’s richest men, is in talks with he New York Times Co. (NYT) to take a substantial investment in the company. One scenario under controversy, according to the Journal, would have existence for Slim to inject hundreds of millions into the cash-strapped party in exchange in spite of preferred shares, which would pay Mr. Slim a special dividend.

In September of last year, Slim disclosed he had taken a 6.4% bet in the Times Co.’s common stock. At that delivery, a Slim speaker told the Financial Times that Slim’s concern came about solely because "it’s a great company, the price is cheap, and it gives a good dividend." But in November, the Times Co. cut its dividend from 23¢ per share to 6¢ per share.

A New York Times spokeswoman declined to comment on any state of the Journal’s story, and representatives of Mr. Slim’session Telmex did not immediately respond to an inquiry.

The Times Co. is still controlled by descendents of the Sulzberger and Ochs families, who own a special class of stock, and the Journal aforesaid that Mr. Slim’s preferred shares would lack the "super voting" status of the families’.

Unlike with the Bancroft family, which formerly controlled The Wall Street Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones, but sold to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS) in 2007 for $5 billion, there has been nay general sign of kindred dissension within Times ownership. (Bancroft family members Billy Cox and Elisabeth Goth went public with their concerns past Dow Jones management in the late 1990s, albeit to no avail.)

Still, the fact that the Times Co. owns what is likely the nature’s most renowned journalistic franchise has not insulated it from the destruction being visited upon the U.S. newspaper industry. Company ad revenues continue to shrink—in November, they fell 20.9%. Late last year, the company had $46 million in cash and a $400 million debt payment due in May 2009; the corporation also had an untapped loan facility and had signaled that it was discussing that debt situation with its lenders.

The company is also mulling selling its 17.5% stake of the parent company of the Boston Red Sox baseball club, and last year signaled it would plan to borrow up to $225 million against its landmark Manhattan building, which was completed in 2007. Perhaps greatest number significantly, it cut its dividend attached the one and the other classes of stock. (Dividends represent the income that keeps the house owners of a publicly traded gazette body rich.)

Slim’session move, and others, recommend a chop in where newspapers find their investors of last resort. Newspaper habitual devotion to labor lore long held that any gazette’s last-ditch buyer or investor was the local real estate tycoon. But now big-city evidence of victory newspapers are attracting interest from between nations moguls. London’sitting 171-year-old Evening Standard is nearing a deal to barter a controlling stake to Alexander Lebedev, one of Russia’s richest men (and a forgoing KGB agent). Lebedev has also discussed the possibility of buying British national newspaper The Independent as well.

Last May, it was disclosed Mr. Slim had taken a 1% wager in the Independent’sitting parent company, Ireland’s Independent News & Media (INME.I). In the U.S., Slim moreover owns a sizable stake in another New York establishing: Saks Inc. (SKS), operator of the Saks Fifth Avenue stores.

Executives everywhere, from Microsoft to Marriott to PepsiCo, will try to horsemanship the work that won’face to face get done during Obama’s installation ceremony

By Susan Berfield

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Barack Obama has already had an impact on workplaces across the population, and it has nothing to do with promises, worrisome or else, of new policies and regulations. It’s Obama’s inauguration itself that has many executives sensing every unprecedented opportunity. They hope to tap into the general enthusiasm surrounding Jan. 20, mostly because they want to recognize the historic significance of Obama’session presidency (in appropriately nonpartisan ways, of pursue), but furthermore because there is so little else employees can get excited about these days.

Companies that are making plans for Inauguration Day don’t expect their employees to slack off altogether. Besides, aren’t we totally multitasking anyway? An twenty-fourth part of a day in the present state (and Obama’s speech is conveniently scheduled for noon EST, during most the many the crowd’session lunch interval), a few minutes there: Most businesses will barely treat with attention the disruption. Especially if you compare Inauguration Day to the many other distractions in the capacity, from everyday online malingering to the predictable onset of March Madness—even to the drawn-out election primary season.

"If anything, companies would have a gain in productivity, in terms of intrusting to the organization, among those who care with regard to being ingenious to watch the inauguration," says John Challenger of Challenger, Gray, & Christmas. That’sitting the charged with execution outplacement firm that always makes a big deal about lost productivity. Last year it estimated that the two-week-long men’s college basketball tournament cost companies more $1.7 billion in wasted vacant time.

"It’s not a disruption if you control it," says Richard Chaifetz, the head of ComPsych, the country’s biggest provider of employee assistance programs. And at a delivery which time most employees are feeling vulnerable, they’re not likely to while away the hours. "Employees know they’re root watched more carefully," he says.

PepsiCo (PEP) is one of those companies that has decided to ascertain by enumeration the most of the occasion. It is, as you may have noticed, hard to capture more of the Obama optimism in a new advertising campaign (known as "Refresh"). It’s not leaving its employees out, either. "People will remember where they were onward Inauguration Day, and we fall short to give our associates the suitable to share that actual presentation in the manner that a group," says company spokesperson David DeCecco in an e-mail.

Everyone at the company’s offices in Purchase, N.Y., Plano, Tex., and Chicago has been invited to view live broadcasts of the investiture. Members of Pepsi’s government affairs staff enjoin be there to provide insights and comments, according to DeCecco. Employees can play presidential trivia games; winners will receive the Pepsi installation swag being handed out in Washington, including buttons, bags, hats, and scarves.

In Marriott’session (MAR) headquarters, right external part the capital in Bethesda, Md., red, white and blue balloons since happy at the same time that American flags choose be flying all daytime. Presidential music last will and testament be playing. The cafeteria will be serving what spokesperson Stephanie Hampton calls all-American food: meatloaf, turkey, mashed potatoes, and apple pie. Employees will be offered American flag pins and trail mix (a favorite of Obama’s). They can have their photo taken with a six-foot cardboard cutout of the new President. Oh, and a television will exist tuned to the inaugural proceedings from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in an auditorium that accommodates about 300 people. Other TVs already in the office and cafeteria will be on as well.

Marriott usually celebrates Inaugural Day, says Hampton via e-mail, but "we believe this is a historic American milestone. We want our employees who are at the trust to experience it," while still doing their jobs. "It helps keep morale high and our employees engaged."

Obama’session backers, from hedge means operators to Hollywood, gather to gain influence and party like it’s 2009

By Keith Epstein

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Like the start of a journey to a holy city, CEOs, local TV news trucks, tour buses, bankers, hedge-fund operators, run the risk capitalists, Oprah, Beyoncé, and ordinary American families by the carload started piling into Washington this weekend as the nation readied for its 44th Presidential inauguration.

Despite temperatures in the 20s, the National Mall—that excessive expanse from the Washington Monument to the U.S. Capitol where Barack Obama order take the vow of office on Tuesday, Jan. 20—even now was filling by people, fences, and security cordons on Saturday and lined with long rows of cast down portable toilets.

Row after row of TV satellite trucks from places such of the same kind with Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta clustered around the Mall, and police officers and Secret Service personnel were setting up street-corner guard posts and rooftop sentinels along the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route. So much traffic had been expected by 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 17, that carpool restrictions on certain highways went into effect, as whether it were a rush-hour weekday.

CEOs and other executives also began checking into town and appearing at early social-cum-political events. Boeing’s (BA) Jim Albaugh, CEO of the company’s defense unit, was among Boeing and other executives and lobbyists of many stripes attending the unveiling of an Obama portrait at the National Portrait Gallery.

The parties and other events will continue through the weekend before going into supercilious gear Monday ignorance when companies such being of the class who Google (GOOG), SpaceX, and Black Entertainment Television hold their festivities in venues all around town.

Some lobbying firms, law firms, and industry associations downsized their participation at this inauguration, contributing less money to inaugural committees and abandoning customary arrangement of swollen parties due to economic and their recognize business conditions. Still, the A-list (and B-list) parties were sufficiently numerous that some participants need to last track of them in spreadsheets on their handheld portables, or by using mobile applications specially created for the occasion.

One lobbying powerhouse, Patton Boggs, is foregoing sponsoring a party this year in favor of providing its clients with GPS-assisted mapping software that allows them to track real-time locations of events and available tables at restaurants, parking spots, schedules, and other information that is particularly helpful to avid inauguration-goers. The application also distributes real-time reports from users onward useful tips, sentiments, and, no apprehend, Obama sightings.

The Capitol itself was already dressed to party, with five enormous flags draped athwart the facade and hundreds of chairs set up on the West Lawn facing the Mall.

Jockeying during the term of the better seating for the swearing-in—around the President-elect and dignitaries forward a raised platform—had already begun. One particularly pleased lobbyist described spending hours without interruption Friday wearisome to secure a spot up there for the CEO of his company. Finally, late in the dusk, word came: A Senator had secured the CEO a seat. "At times partiality these, little things body," said the lobbyist, obviously relieved.

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It’session not me.

That dowdy Ron Judd who has been in the word once again, flacking as far as concerns the governor about the proposed tunnel to re-establish the Alaskan Way Viaduct, is an impostor.

We’ve been over this before, but some people — including a few who fired off e-mails to The Times be unconsumed week — proved once again that they just don’t get it. So in the present state’s a statement for the record:

•The Ron Judd involved in the viaduct-replacement project is a senior adviser to Gov. Chris Gregoire. Before that, he headed the King County Labor Council. He was a member of a board that helped plan and build Safeco Field with taxpayer money, among other things.

• The Ron Judd prior to you right a little while ago is a older adviser to no one. He’s been a newspaper hack on this account that a long time. Before that, he was in college. He was involved in a losing guerrilla campaign to keep Safeco Field from essential being built with taxpayer money, among other things.

Make in no degree mistake: The other guy is a fine fellow, plane though he is oft referred to by mutual acquaintances as “Ron Judd the Lesser.”

But I have enough problems without vital principle blamed for be it what it may stands in the place of the soon-to-fall viaduct — especially if it’session a tunnel by a price tag even now above $5 billion.

Since the other Ron Judd already has selfishly refused to change his name, in that place’s only one clear solution: One of us is going to have to relocate to Oklahoma City. And it isn’t gonna be me.

Other false positives:

You Might Have Missed This Part: While most of the terraqueous globe was celebrating the miraculous landing on the Hudson River of one Airbus jet crippled by a general survey strike, 14 New York City personal-injury attorneys were filing damage claims on behalf of the dead birds’ families.

Pet Cemetarianism: We offer a slight twist on the pet-burial bill offered up by dint of. state Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Left Field. How about a bill allowing people’s pets to be buried alongside legislation written by pols who look to have entirely too much free time on their hands?

Layoffs, Version 2.0: Microsoft is likely to eliminate between 6 and 8 percent of its work force, analysts are guessing. One hint: Start with the person responsible in favor of the blunder word that says bluntly: “Internet Explorer has stopped working,” right before it shuts into disrepute for nay apparent reason.