State DOT Secretary Gene Conti is mentioned in Governing Magazine's list of potential candidates to run the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“I’m very honored to be on the list of so many prominent transportation leaders,” Conti said Friday. “It’s a nice recognition of the work we’ve done in the last four years in North Carolina.”

Conti was en route to his home town, Pittsburgh, for the annual meeting of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, where he will receive the group’s highest award this weekend. The Thomas H. McDonald Award recognizes a career of service in transportation and highway engineering.

He said the mention of his name for U.S. transportation secretary was “all speculation,” but he did not dismiss the possibility. ... [MORE]

President Barack Obama was a guest on last night's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," a show taped on the UNC campus. One of the highlights was when Obama slow-jammed the news with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots. The best thing about the video might be the most uncool mic-drop in the history of mic drops.

To Kill A Mockingbird (8pm, USA) - A special introduction from President Obama marks the 50th anniversary of this Oscar-winning classic film, which was adapted from Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In the film, Gregory Peck plays Atticus Finch, a small town lawyer who defends a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama. Robert Duvall made his screen debut in this film, as the mysterious Boo Radley. In other words, YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS, even if you've seen it before. The President also introduced the film at a special White House screening on Thursday, at which Washington, D.C., schoolchildren and the widow of Gregory Peck were in attendance.

iCarly (8pm, Nickelodeon) - Carly gets sick and transmits her illness to a member of the British pop group, One Direction (who also perform tonight on SNL).

Must Love Cats (8pm, Animal Planet) - John Fulton visits an Oregon woman who taught her cats how to swim and a cat hotel in Los Angeles.

Saturday Night Live (11:29pm, NBC) - Sofia Vergara from "Modern Family" hosts and the music guest is One Direction.

Live from the Artists Den (1am, UNC-TV) - The Fray perform at the Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York City's Lower East Side.

When high-level federal officials come down to Raleigh from Washington, they’re usually here to snip ribbons on multi-million-dollar construction projects, or to hand out checks with lots of commas and zeroes.

The check delivered to Wake County Wednesday by Ray LaHood, President Barack Obama’s transportation secretary, was for a mere $601,661.

That’s just 1.7 percent of a total $34.6 million in grants awarded Wednesday in 55 communities across the United States for the Veterans Transportation and Community Living Initiative, a new program to improve transportation options for veterans and military families.

Wake County Human Services will use the money to establish a 24-hour “one call, one click” communication center to improve the transportation services it provides to rural residents through Medicaid, public health and other programs.

“This will make it possible for veterans and their families to check bus and van schedules online or over the phone, or to schedule rides with vanpools and private transportation companies,” LaHood said, flanked by local veterans in a ceremony at Wake County’s A.A. Thompson Center in East Raleigh. ... [MORE]

Celgard, a Charlotte company that's become a darling of politicians for its green technology work and job creation, will get a little more love on Monday morning.

Gov. Bev Perdue is expected to announce that Celgard will receive another financial-assistance package in exchange for the promise of adding more jobs. Perdue is scheduled to make a jobs announcement at 10 a.m. in Concord, where Celgard is opening a facility to make membranes used in lithium-ion batteries.

U.S Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, N.C. Department of Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco and other officials are expected to join Perdue at the facility's dedication ceremony.

N.C. Commerce Department officials will meet in Raleigh shortly before that on Monday morning to approve an incentives package. It's unclear how much money is involved or how many jobs are planned.

White House officials and big-name CEOs will take a whirlwind tour of the Triangle Monday morning as the region awaits the arrival of President Barack Obama.

Members of Obama's administration and Jobs Council will divide up to meet and greet at ad agency McKinney and N.C. Central in Durham, Biogen Idec's and DuPont's operations in Research Triangle Park, and N.C. State's Centennial Campus in Raleigh.

The five "listening and action" sessions are tied to hot economic topics for politicians eager to prove they're fighting to produce more jobs, including entrepreneurship, biotechnology, energy innovation, workforce training and manufacturing. They'll hear from local business leaders, such as Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, Elster Solutions CEO Mark Munday and Geomagic CEO Ping Fu.

The group's local visit is scheduled to kick off with a reception at American Tobacco Historic District in Durham Sunday night, and will culminate with Obama's visit to Cree, the Durham-based LED lighting company.

Cree, the LED lighting company based in Durham, will host President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House announced today.

Obama will tour the company and make remarks to workers at Cree, again. Obama made a similar stop at Cree in May 2008 when the Democratic presidential candidate was stumping for votes in North Carolina.

During his visit to the Triangle on Monday, he's also scheduled to meet with his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which he appointed this winter. The council is made up of private-sector industry leaders, including General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly and Intel CEO Paul Otellini.

Former White House press secretary and N.C. State alumnus Robert Gibbs is in talks to join Facebook, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources.

The social networking site is interested in hiring Gibbs for a senior communications role as it prepares for a possible initial public offering in early 2012, the paper reported. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is often the public face of the company, may be interested in having help communicating his message to the media and investors.

Gibbs, who left the White House in February after two years on the job, had been planning to help establish President Obama’s re-election campaign before taking a private sector job, the Times reported.

President Barack Obama's Startup America 2011 tour will kick off in Research Triangle Park tomorrow.

The commander-in-chief won't make an appearance, but he will send administration officials such as Ronnie Chatterji of the Council of Economic Advisers and Esther Vassar of the Small Business Administration.

As part of the initiative announced in January, administration officials plan to visit eight cities to hear from small business owners and entrepreneurs about regulations, lending, hiring and more.

One goal is to identify burdensome regulations and other barriers that curb entrepreneurs' efforts to expand startup companies. The main mission is to generate more activity among entrepreneurs and small businesses that will create new jobs and bolster the slowly reviving economy.

View Oregon Inlet bridge in a larger map

Responding to complaints from state Sen. Marc Basnight about bureaucratic obstacles to a replacement for the deteriorating N.C. 12 bridge over Oregon Inlet in Dare County, a conservation group says Basnight himself is to blame for delaying the project.

Basnight urged President Barack Obama in a Feb. 24 letter to overrule federal officials he said were stalling a bridge replacement because they feared lawsuits from “out-of-state environmental groups.” Basnight, the state Senate leader, represents Dare County.

The Virginia-based Southern Environmental Law Center responded with a March 1 letter to Obama, advocating a bridge alternative that Basnight opposes.

“It was Senator Basnight’s intervention in 2003 that halted the process and prevented the construction of the Pamlico Sound alternative,” wrote Derb S. Carter Jr. and Julia F. Youngman, based in the environmental group’s Chapel Hill office. ... [MORE]