Inauguration

A fund created to pay for Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's inaugural ceremony this month received nearly $730,000 in contributions, according to a list of donors released yesterday by the mayor's office. Several of the region's best-known contractors, unions and service companies - from Whiting-Turner Contracting to Constellation Energy - made large contributions to the fund, a practice that is far less regulated than traditional political giving. Dixon aides said creating a nonprofit to oversee the finances of her inauguration - a common approach for elected officials - was necessary so that no taxpayer money would be spent on the event.

WASHINGTON - Helicopters buzzed the skies. Law enforcement officers stood on the roofs of federal buildings, including the White House, watching the crowds through binoculars. Police officers brought in from as far away as Chicago stood shoulder to shoulder along the parade route. The wait at security checkpoints was up to 90 minutes long. Welcome to the 55th inauguration. Please remove your shoes at the door. It seemed a small miracle that anyone attended the swearing-in or parade at all. Anyone trying to get within eyesight of the parade route was subject to a pat-down and metal detector test.

Most of the year, Rodney James is in the van business - performing such tasks as shuttling Baltimore hotel guests to the airport. But come Inauguration Day, James will be transformed into a charter bus entrepreneur - with plans to transport as many as 550 people from Baltimore and the Eastern Shore to the swearing-in ceremony for President-elect Barack Obama aboard 10 leased motor coaches. James' mini-fleet will be joining a horde of thousands of charter buses expected to rumble into the Washington region for the festivities surrounding the Jan. 20 inauguration of the first African-American to be elected president of the United States and the first Democrat to hold that office in eight years.

Carroll County's new board of commissioners fired its top assistant, axed a predecessor's pet program and killed a disputed $16 million construction project - all in the first 30 hours after Monday's inauguration. The commissioners also showed signs of thawing relations with state officials for the first time in years and demanded resignations from the ethics panel that had investigated Julia Walsh Gouge, the new board's president. County political observers expected these moderates to make changes after staging a coup against the conservative wing of the Republican Party in this year's elections.

Oronde Short from Woodlawn, a volunteer for Martin O'Malley's campaign, had watched previous inaugurations on television and thought the shivering people who gathered outside the State House to cheer were crazy. But there he was yesterday, one of hundreds braving 30-degree temperatures to attend the O'Malley festivities. "This year," he said, "I wanted to be one of them." Anna and Ramon Ruiz of Silver Spring similarly said they felt it was important to wait an extra half-hour in a receiving line to be able to shake O'Malley's hand.

As part of what is described as the largest security effort ever in the nation's capital, officers from local police departments from Seattle to Baltimore are set to go to Washington for the first inauguration since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Baltimore County is sending 52 members of its special-response team. Baltimore City is lending 50 officers, and Howard County is sending 40 from its civil-disturbance unit. Maryland state troopers, along with officers from five other Maryland counties, also are expected to help out in Washington next week.

Pop icon Beyonce didn't sidestep the lip-sync controversy that erupted after her performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at President Barack Obama's inauguration. She embraced it. Before she took the podium to talk about Sunday's Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, she walked onstage at the Earnest N. Morial Convention Center with a hand-held microphone and belted out a flawless version of the National Anthem. "Any questions?" she said. It wasn't the most dynamic lead-up to the halftime extravaganza.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's second inauguration was much warmer than his first, and not just because of the absence of an outgoing Republican administration in the crowd. January temperatures in the 40s brought out signs of something not much in evidence in the state capital recently: optimism. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, introducing the governor before his speech on the sunny steps of the State House, quipped, "Remember the weather forecast? Stormy weather. O'Malley changed that. Remember the economic forecast?

WASHINGTON - The Bushes bristle - at least publicly - at being dubbed a political dynasty, but just look at the cufflinks George W. Bush decided to wear for his inauguration. Silver, with a naval insignia, they were on the wrists of another Bush - his father - at his presidential inauguration in 1989. And yesterday, they accompanied the new President Bush through a most memorable, if rain-soaked, day. As he navigated a frenzied inaugural schedule, Bush appeared serious but confident. It was the kind of day - one full of waving and schmoozing, and short on governance - that plays to the strengths of a man known for his personal touch, if not for his command of policy detail.