The Insider - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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The School for Global Animal seeded last year witha $25 millionh grant from the , could capture more attention becausd of the crisis. “This is exactly what that schookl is designed to studyand watch,” said the school’d spokesman, Charlie Powell. The school studies the human-animap disease link and also operatesthe U.S. Departmentr of Agriculture’s Washington Animal Disease DiagnosticcLaboratory (or WADDL). Last year, the lab receivedx 21 samples for testingy fromhog farmers. None was for swins flu. Hogs are not big business in Washington. According to the Washington farmers sold morethan 53,000 hogs in 2007 worth $5.3 million.
By comparison, New York farmerws that year sold 315,000 hogs worth $27.2 million. gets to promots more flightless birds with its zoo project The advertisinhg agency behind the headless cold turkeg ads for the state Departmentof Health’s anti-smoking campaign now has more birdw to promote: penguins. Woodland Park Zoo is leaningy on Seattle’s Wongdoody agency to help build some buzz forthe new, $6.5 millioj Humboldt penguins exhibit opening May 2. The “Mors Colorful Than Ever” campaig will run through August. It will be featured in print and internetbanner ads, billboards, on buse s and in radio and TV spots. The campaignm also includes a micro-website (morecolorful.
org) with downloadable games and more information aboutthe penguins. Also expect to see a fleet of scooters buzzing around Seattle branded with thead campaign’s creative The 17,000-square-foot exhibit is designed to look like a natural refuge in Punta San Juan, Peru, the Humboldrt penguins’ natural habitat. Jim the zoo’s marketing director, said the zoo is spending just shyof $400,0009 on the media costs of the But Wongdoody’s creative part fallxs under pro bono work. Newspaper executivews lobby for, and get, a temporary B&O tax cut from the LegislatureThe state’s dailyy newspapers may be taking a beating on the revenue and circulation fronts.
But state lawmakers have tossed thema lifeline, albei t a small one. In the waning hours of this year’s session, the Legislaturse approved a bill to reduce thestatew business-and-occupation tax on newspapers until 2015. The legislatiojn had appeared to face an uphil l battlethis session, with lawmakers hampered by a $9 billiomn shortfall, making them reluctant to shave away any sourcess of revenue. But the bill received bipartisan support in the Houssand Senate. Gov. Chris Gregoire also supported the bill and is expectesd to sign itinto law. The legislationn cuts the B&O tax by 40 percent. The tax saving alone are not a breakthrough solution forstrugglinhg dailies.
But the change is part of strategy to scour every possible avenue for including cutting jobs and seeking pay cuts andunpaidr leave. Several newspaper industry heavyweights lobbief lawmakers for thetax cut, including Seattlee Times Publisher Frank Blethen and David publisher of The News Tribune in Tacoma.