Accused family killing NM teen was suicidal and homicidal, annoyed with mother: statement

ALBUQUERQUE, NM — The New Mexico teenager accused of fatally shooting his parents and three younger siblings told authorities he was annoyed with his mother and had been having homicidal and suicidal thoughts, according to a probable cause statement.

Nehemiah Griego, 15, was arrested following the shootings Saturday at a home in a rural area southwest of Albuquerque where he lived with his family. He remained in custody on charges of murder and child abuse resulting in death.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston plans to hold a news conference Tuesday morning, and the teen could make his first court appearance in the next day or two.

AP

A bouquet of flowers adorns the entrance to the home where Nehemiah Griego allegedly shot his parents and three siblings.

A sheriff's detective questioned the teen Saturday night. The statement detailed their conversation.

The teen allegedly told the detective that he took a .22-caliber rifle from his parents' closet around midnight Saturday and shot his mother in the head while his younger brother slept next to her.

Griego told the detective that his brother did not believe him that their mother was dead so he showed his mother's bloody face to his brother and then shot him, according to the statement.

He's accused of then shooting his two young sisters in their room. He retrieved an AR-15 rifle from his parents' closet and waited in a downstairs bathroom for his father to come home. The statement said he shot his father multiple times after he passed the bathroom doorway.

The teen said he reloaded the guns so "he could drive to a populated area to murder more people," according to the statement. His plan, the statement said, was to "shoot people at random and eventually be killed while exchanging gunfire with law enforcement."

Sheriff's spokesman Deputy Aaron Williamson said Monday he couldn't immediately comment on the document.

Detectives have spent two days collecting evidence and trying to piece together what led to the violence.

"There's no other way to say it, except that we have a horrific crime scene down there that we are working on," Houston said Sunday.

On Monday afternoon, the metal gate at the home's entrance was shut, a small bouquet of purple flowers was on the top of the gate and at each side sat religious signs, including one that read: "Jesus is the reason for the season."

The sheriff's office identified the victims as Greg Griego, 51, his wife Sarah Griego, 40, and three of their children: a 9-year-old boy, Zephania Griego, and daughters Jael Griego, 5, and Angelina Griego, 2. All appeared to have gunshot wounds to the head.

Greg Griego was a pastor who had once served at Calvary, one of Albuquerque's largest Christian churches. He was also well-known throughout the law enforcement community for his work as a voluntary chaplain.

Neighbor Terry Wootan described Greg Griego as a man with a big heart. The two sometimes chatted at the mailbox and waved when passing by. Wootan said Griego told him about his time in California when he was involved in gangs and how he turned his life around and found God.

"What he wanted to do was help people, and he would never quit," Wootan said.

The pastor's death has shocked the community, including the Albuquerque Fire Department and the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he volunteered his spiritual guidance.

A records check by the Children, Youth and Families Department indicated no trouble with the family and that Nehemiah Griego had never been in trouble with the law.

"This youth had no history with the juvenile justice system," agency spokesman Bob Tafoya said Monday.

Williamson confirmed there was no history of any emergency calls to the home in the recent past.

Neighbors said they saw the first police cars and ambulances arrive at the home Saturday night. The road was blocked and word of the shootings began to make its way through the neighborhood.

According to the probable cause statement, Nehemiah Griego told his girlfriend at Calvary that his family was dead and that he placed the two rifles in the family van as protection before driving to the church.

At the church, he was called into the pastor's office after his girlfriend's grandmother began asking questions about the youth's account, the detective's statement said. It was previously reported that a person at the church called 911, but the statement did not address that.

After being taken to the sheriff's office for questioning, Nehemiah Griego changed his story, according to the statement.

The statement said he was asked if he had told anyone else about killing his family. He allegedly told the detective that he had taken a picture of his dead mother and sent it to his girlfriend.

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Series for Miami’s emerging art collectors begins Thursday

For art enthusiasts interested in bring their interest home, Miami’s Bakehouse Art Complex is hosting a lecture series for emerging collectors. The first panel, slated for Thursday at 6 p.m., features arists and curators who will talk about fine tuning your taste and learning to make informed decisions. The second session, Feb. 7, is oriented to the mechanics of purchasing. The third, on Feb. 21, explores how to manage your collection.

Moderating all three panels will be Denise Gerson, independent curator who served as associate director for the Lowe Museum of Art for 24 years. Cost is $25 per session or $60 for the series. Seating is limited; reservations are recommended.

Information at 305-576-2828; www.bacfl.org.

Jane Wooldridge

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Cuban exile mother of inaugural poet laureate Richard Blanco now in spotlight as his inspiration

At first, Geysa Blanco thought her son was kidding.

"He said, ‘Mom, I have news for you,’ " Blanco said, recalling the telephone call from her son a few weeks ago.

"Between English and Spanish, he told me that they had chosen him to write and read a poem at the presidential inauguration,” she said.

But Richard Blanco, a child of exiles who was raised in Miami and graduated from Florida International University, was serious.

The Barack Obama inaugural committee chose the 44-year-old Cuban-American civil engineer and author to recite an original poem at Monday’s inauguration.

Richard Blanco has also been speechless. “It took me 10 minutes to remember what the word for inauguration is in Spanish," he said in a telephone interview Sunday from Washington, D.C., less than 24 hours before taking center stage.

Blanco, who now lives in Maine, will become the first Hispanic inaugural poet and the first openly gay one. He is also only the fifth and youngest poet in the exclusive club of poets.

The first was Robert Frost, who in 1961 wrote a poem for the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.

Then in 1993, Bill Clinton chose the African-American writer Maya Angelou. William Miller was chosen for Clinton’s second inauguration, and Elizabeth Alexander wrote the poem for Obama’s first ceremony.

In a statement, Obama said Blanco’s work represents "the great strength and diversity of the American people."

This diversity and strength could be reflected in the story of the poet’s Cuban exile mother.

"She is a very brave woman and has worked hard all her life for my brother and me," Blanco said.

During an interview at her Westchester home, Geysa Blanco, 75, said that it still seems surreal that a woman who grew up in a sugar refinery in Cienfuegos will stand in front of the National Capitol, watching her son recite a poem for the nation and the president of the United States.

“My son said reporters might want to interview me and I said, ‘Me? What for?’ ” Geysa Blanco said. Indeed, local reporters and TV cameras have come knocking and the proud mother has given several interviews.

Geysa Blanco has also become a celebrity among her neighbors, friends and customers at Regions Bank on Bird Road, where she has worked for more than 30 years.

The roots of Richard Blanco’s writing began in 1968 when his parents fled the Communist island and went into exile in Spain. At the time, Geysa Blanco, a teacher, was pregnant and she and her late husband Carlos, already had an older son, also named Carlos.

"We decided to leave Cuba because the government was becoming more and more difficult to live under," she said. "But it was very painful for me because I left my mother and brothers behind and came here virtually alone and with nothing."

After five months in Spain, where she gave birth to Richard, they emigrated to New York.

As a boy, she said Richard always had an interest in exploring his Cuban roots.

"I always had questions about Cuba, about the family we left there," he said. On his website he refers to himself as being “made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the U.S.”

That sense of not belonging and trying to belong seeps through his books of poetry, which often feature his family and their efforts hold on to their traditions.

When Richard was about 5 and Carlos 11, the family moved to the closest place to Cuba – Miami. His mother went to work in a supermarket and later landed her bank job.

"We lived three generations in one house, my husband’s parents, my husband and I, and Charles and Richard," the poet’s mother said. "Sometimes it was hard because grandparents are not accustomed to the modern ways of young people.”

Today, she laments that those family members are gone. “I wish Richard’s father and grandparents were here to enjoy this day,” she said.

Richard Blanco did get to visit the homeland his parents yearned for when he was growing up.

"Everyone thought he wasn’t going to speak Spanish and was going to feel uncomfortable," Geysa Blanco said of her relatives on the island. "But they were surprised because he picked yucca in the fields, jumped in the canals and danced a lot, just like everyone else.”

That trip as a young man would shape the poet’s future work, his mother said. "I think that’s where he caught the bug to write about his roots," she said.

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Why Google Isn’t Scared of Facebook’s Graph Search

Facebook may have just released a major search product that many are saying “declares war” on Google or may at least put the social network “on a collision course” with the search giant, but Google CEO Larry Page doesn’t sound all that worried about the new competition. Because who said Facebook and Google couldn’t get along someday? In an interview for the new issue of Wired published just two days after Facebook’s Graph Search came out to so-so reviews, Page tells Steve Levy that Facebook is “doing a really bad job on their products.” But before you laugh off that swipe — Google Buzz flopped, Google killed Reader, and Google+ has a loyal but relatively small user base — Page wants to remind everyone that Facebook isn’t direct competition, that these two Silicon Valley giants are too big for either to fail. “We’re actually doing something different,” Page tells Levy. “I think it’s outrageous to say that there’s only space for one company in these areas.”

RELATED: Three Things Google+ Can Learn from Myspace

That’s not to say Page isn’t making Google go social, or that Facebook isn’t in his rearview mirror. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long talked about the rise of social search, and Page has taken a vested interest of late in getting people to use Google+ — even if they don’t want to. In an attempt to conquer the space, direct orders from Page forcefully integrated Google’s social network into its main search results… and pretty much everywhere else its products touch. If it were up to Larry Page, Google would require a Google+ account just to read reviews. His evaluation of Google+ as it stands? “I’m very happy with how it has gone. We’re working on a lot of really cool stuff. A lot of it has been copied by our competitors, so I think we’re doing a good job.”

RELATED: FTC Is Officially Looking into Google’s Self-Promoting Search Features

Critics might beg to differ — Google+ is often referred to as a lesser “Facebook copycat” from the search king — but critics are now comparing Facebook’s search product (which was announced before the Wired interview with Page was conducted) to Google’s main offering. And from a product standpoint, Facebook may have yet to train its users to give Graph Search what it needs to be great. Furthermore, business analysts seem to agree that Facebook’s social recommendation engine won’t hurt Google’s core business … in the near future. But Zuckerberg said at Tuesday’s announcement that Facebook wasn’t focused on the business side of Graph Search just now — even if it does offer huge advertising potential. At the same time, Graph Search could take away eyeballs (and ad dollars) from Google. If Facebook, with its friend-powered engine, ends up giving “better” results than Google for recommendations on restaurants, travel, books, music, and movies — a domination Google is still fighting anti-trust charges over — then why end up Googling at all?

RELATED: The New Google+ Aims to Perfect Procrastination

Well, even Page might think Facebook and Google can complement each other — sort of. To wit, he asked Levy: “For us to succeed, is it necessary for some other company to fail? No.” As Zuckerberg said on Tuesday, “our mission is to make the world more open” by giving people tools to connect. And Google’s stated mission ”is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Are those so similar that they can’t get along? After all, that could be the future of search: You go to Facebook to see what your friends and the people you trust have to say, and then you head to Google for the facts. Of course, neither Facebook or Google wants the future that way, exactly: Facebook has actually teamed up with Microsoft to complement Graph Search, sending people to Bing for those fact-finding, Google-style queries; Google, meanwhile, as Google+ as its social-search equivalent of Graph Searching. And users don’t really want to go to so many different places for basic information that’s built to make their lives easier. Part of the reason people have stuck with Google, despite all of its privacy and anti-trust issues, is that the company’s ultimately done a really good job on their products — GMail, Google Drive, Reader, and their fellow “apps” have become an integral part of our Internet lives. Facebook wants that role, and if social search ends up working — well, then why not chat on Facebook, email (and make phone calls) with Messenger, sext with Poke, and read your news via the News Feed? 

RELATED: Why Google Really Wants You to Use Google+ This Year

Of course, Page said all this stuff weeks ago. And who knows how Graph Search is going over at Google headquarters. Maybe he just he meant a different product that was so… bad. Or maybe he really just doesn’t get Poke? Either way, Larry Page knew this fight was coming. The whole world did.

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The Wanted Give Final Tease of I Found You Video

The countdown is almost over, but in the meantime ET has one last tease of The Wanted's I Found You music video.

PICS: Who Would You Date?

In the clip, guitarist Tom Parker and the boys are cracking jokes after one wild night.

"That was metal," says Parker. "Remember that girl that ripped me tie off?!"

The group's latest single is off their upcoming album Third Strike, out later this year. ET will premiere the full music video for I Found You Tuesday, January 22nd, and you can catch the full video on Vevo.com and ETonline.com Tuesday night.

In Case You Missed Them, Check Out ET's First Four I Found You Teasers:

Get Your First Look at The Wanted's Next Video

The Wanted Teases I Found You Video

Sexy Siva Stars in the The Wanted's I Found You

More of The Wanted's I Found You Video!

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NY vets head to DC for inaugural parade

New York veterans, from every military campaign since Korea, boarded a bus for Washington this morning to march in President Obama’s Inauguration Day Parade.

Jeff Swansen, production manager for the United War Veterans Council which organized the trip, called today's journey an "incredible honor."

"We're very excited. It's the first time we've done this. I mean, the president is the Commander-in-Chief, so this is an incredible honor and we're proud to represent New York," Cold War-era vet Swansen told The Post.

Korean War vet Sal Scarlato said he would tell Obama "not to forget the vets."

Wayne Carrington

Sandi Williams, left, an Army Korean War veteran and Debbera Ransom, right, a Cold War veteran both from Buffalo, NY.

Wayne Carrington

Sal Scarlato, a Korean War vet

"[Obama's] in the ballpark in supporting the vets, but there's always more that can be done … medical, housing, education, jobs...especially for the new guys coming home. They need jobs."

Cold War vet Debbera Random drove from Buffalo to New York for the ride to DC.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Random said. "I'm so honored that I'm physically able to march and to be able to show how excited we are."

The 44 veterans, who left from downtown around 4:30 a.m., will roll past Obama and thousands of spectators on a float that’ll feature the Statue of Liberty wearing dog tags.

Organizers with the United War Veterans Council said the float will be blast Empire State-inspired songs like Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York."

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Three-generation family businesses share their secrets of success

In 2009, when Larry Zinn took over as sales manager for the Infiniti dealership that his father owned, he had a great idea: retrain the sales staff in a team approach and offer customers complimentary add-on services for the first year.

Some salesmen who were used to selling the same way for decades up and quit. But that didn’t deter Larry from insisting a new sales culture and value proposition for new car buyers was necessary. “I was persistent with everything I’ve believed we needed to do going forward. People were going to embrace change or move on,” says Larry, 28.

The resistance quieted, however, after Larry recruited young salespeople and had them trained in the new advantage program. The new approach helped push sales volume up 72 percent. "We had a lot of success with it,” he says.

Larry Zinn’s experience is not unusual for family-owned businesses that survive into a third generation and employ new tactics to keep from becoming obsolete.

Nationally, family-run businesses account for nearly 35 percent of the largest companies including Ford, Koch Industries, Hilton, Wal-Mart, Loews and Ikea. In South Florida, family-run businesses are particularly prevalent and account for a majority of the largest Hispanic companies, including Goya, Bacardi, El Dorado and Sedano’s Supermarkets.

But while more than 30 percent of all U.S. family-owned businesses survive into the second generation, only about 12 percent are passed onto the third generation, according to Family Firm Institute, a Boston-based association for family enterprise professionals. Those that do survive have a few intriguing commonalities: an ability to stay relevant, think bigger and take a long term view.

“They try to figure out where they want to be in 10 years and take steps to make that target,” says Wayne Rivers, president of The Family Business Institute in Raleigh, N.C.

Most third-generation family businesses, particularly those in South Florida, were started by a scrappy entrepreneur who saw business ownership as a way to provide for the family. Those businesses include grocery chains such as Sedano’s, restaurant operators such as Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine and airport concessionaires such as NewsLink.

Typically, in those businesses, the founder brought his kids with him to work, put them in the kitchen, the stock room, the sales floor, and taught them on-the-spot business lessons. Those kids eventually came to work full time and helped the company evolve beyond a seat-of-the-pants start-up into a more sophisticated business with processes and systems.

Now comes the third generation, who are more likely to have received formal business education before they return to the company. Often, they are able to leverage that training and move the company forward dramatically. But the succession also comes with challenges. They must keep the respect of longtime employees and show the same dogged commitment to seeing their company succeed, even after having already grown up enjoying the fruits of its success.

In successful third-generation businesses, the senior generation often stays on to ensure that commitment, adopting a role as mentor or advisor while creating an environment where younger family members can take on real responsibility, says Rivers, who consults for family businesses. “They get out of the way, let the next generation make their own mistakes, and gracefully exit when it’s appropriate.”

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Ex-Mayor Diaz to talk about new book at alma mater

Congratulations to my friend and former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, who has will be presenting his new book at 9:45 a.m. in the Roca Theater at his alma mater, Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, 500 SW 127th Ave. in West Miami-Dade.

His book is titled Miami Transformed: Rebuilding America, One Neighborhood, One City at a Time.

Born in Cuba, Diaz really is a Miami success story. He came to Miami when he was 6, and went on to become a local attorney and later mayor, serving two terms. He also served as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Diaz is being presented by the Belen Alumni Association of Jesuit Schools from Cuba and Miami, the Ramón Guiteras Memorial Library and the school's Social Studies Department.

For those who are unaware, the school was founded in 1854 in Havana. In 1961, Belen and all private schools in Cuba were confiscated by the new political regime. That same year, Belen was re-established in Miami. Today the all-boys' school has an enrollment of 1,500 in grades six through 12 and has more than 6,000 alumni.

The program is free and open to the public.

Music for Overtown

The Overtown Music Project will have its annual fundraiser from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. The program will include an 18-piece big band, along with hip hop, funk and soul.

According to Amy Rosenberg, spokeswoman for the fundraiser, the event will celebrate the connection between Overtown and the Fontainebleau, a hotel where Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Etta James once performed.

The program will include several musicians who played in Overtown's many venues during its heyday. The musicians are now in their 60s and 90s and will be showcased at the event.

Rosenberg said the event will fund the six annual events in Overtown, and three programs geared toward bringing music back to the area permanently.

For tickets and more information go to: www.evenbrite.com/event/5147700912 or www.overtownmusicproject.org.

Children’s Chorus

The Miami Children's Chorus will present a program, "Bring on the Boys," a singing workshop for boys with unchanged voices, from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday at the University of Miami Frost School of Music in the Victor E. Clarke Recital Hall, 5501 San Amaro Dr. in Coral Gables. Timothy A. Sharp is the music director for the Miami Children's Chorus..

The registration deadline is Thursday and the fee is $20 per person and $17 per person when registering five or more youngsters together.

For more information call 305-662-7494 or go to miamichildrenschorus.org or info@miamichildrenschorus.org.

Play looks at gay marriage law

A staged reading of the play 8 will be performed at 7 p.m., on Jan. 27, in Room E352 at the University of Miami School of Law. The play, written by Dustin Lance Black, chronicles the historic constitutional challenge to California's Proposition 8. Black is the Academy Award-wining screenwriter of Milk

The production of 8 will be staged under license from the American Foundation for Equal rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact. It will be directed by Marc Fajer, a member of the law school's faculty who has had more than 30 years of theatrical directing experience.

The performance was arranged by OUTlaw, a student organization at the University of Miami School of Law, that seeks to advance the priorities of the gay, lesbian, bisexzual and transgender community on the campus.

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Why does Michelle Obama need two Twitter accounts?

Michelle Obama is on Twitter! That was big news on Thursday, the first lady’s birthday. The White House announced that Mrs. Obama had launched a new Twitter account, @FLOTUS, and lots of folks chimed in with messages welcoming her to the world of micro-blogging social media.

But hold it – wasn’t she already on Twitter? We’ve been following @MichelleObama since the beginning of the 2012 presidential campaign. Is this a reboot, a dual account, or what? Is it the equivalent of the grand opening of a store that’s been in business for months?

Sort of, yes. Except it’s a retail establishment that has two branches kept separate for legal reasons.

RECOMMENDED: Michelle Obama: 10 quotes on her birthday

The invaluable Mashable has the full story here. The @MichelleObama feed is paid for and run by the Obama/Biden political campaign machinery. That’s why it was so active during the summer and fall, as it exhorted everybody to get out and vote, and in general pushed the fortunes of the incumbent presidential ticket. It’s an overtly political use of social media.

The first lady’s Pinterest site is run the same way. Most of those photos of her and her family, and favorite recipes (grilled peaches with yogurt and pistachios?), and exhortations about “why we vote” were put up by campaign staff.

Mrs. Obama’s new @FLOTUS handle reflects her official White House duties, however. It’s run by people from her office who are executive branch (and hence official US government) employees.

Legally speaking, @FLOTUS tweets will have to be stuff that deals with her official duties and the nation as a whole, as opposed to President Obama’s political fortunes. Thus on Thursday she tweeted “Join me and Barack for #MLK Day of Service” after thanking everyone for sending birthday wishes.

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Hmm. @FLOTUS has sent three tweets, and it’s got more than 78,000 followers. That’s a pretty good tweet-to-listener ratio.

Most of this social media stuff is done by staff, of course. The few that she sends herself are supposed to be signed “-mo.”

Is the White House actually good at social media? We think that question can be answered definitively only by someone more versed in the dark electronic arts than we are. But from our point of view, it’s a pretty shrewd operator. Take the White House petition site. You can put up a petition on anything, and if it reaches a certain signature level in a certain period of time, the White House will respond with its point of view.

Most of the coverage of this “We the People” effort has focused on the weird stuff: petitions for Texas to secede, to deport CNN’s Piers Morgan, and so forth. And responding to them has to be a pain for staff. Mother Jones has a piece on Friday in which anonymous staffers gripe about having to spend time actually writing about why the US won’t build a Death Star, and things like that.

But to us, “We the People” really is a clever technique for harvesting e-mail addresses. When creating an account to sign stuff, you can check whether you want to receive missives from the White House. Most of the petitions are in fact about real policy – the need for more or less gun control, for instance. What the White House may get out of this is a continually growing list of voter contact information segmented by policy interest. To push the president’s new gun policies, for instance, they may send targeted e-mails to pro-control addresses, urging them to contact Congress.

We think this because media organizations do the same thing with interactive questionnaires and quizzes. We figure out who’s interested in what kind of stories and we direct those subjects their way.

Surprised? Don’t be. Building brand loyalty – everybody’s got whole new ways of approaching this old problem in today’s Internet age.

RECOMMENDED: Betty Ford to Michelle Obama: How seven first ladies have changed the office

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VP Joe Biden sworn in for second term

WASHINGTON — Formally embarking on a second term, Vice President Joe Biden took the oath of office Sunday, surrounded by family and friends in an early morning ceremony that kicked off a day of celebrations marking four more years for the Obama administration.

President Barack Obama was to be sworn in just before noon at the White House, 24 hours before re-enacting the ceremony before an expected crowd of hundreds of thousands gathered at the Capitol and across the National Mall.

Biden, following a private Mass, was sworn in at the Naval Observatory. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, appointed by Obama as the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, administered the oath of office to Biden, who placed his hand on a Bible his family has used since 1893.

"I will support and defend the Constitution of the United states," Biden said as he recited the oath.

Among the 120 guests on hand to witness the vice president's second swearing-in were Attorney General Eric Holder, departing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and several Democratic lawmakers.

Sunday's subdued swearing-in ceremonies are a function of the calendar and the Constitution, which says presidents automatically begin their new terms at noon on Jan. 20. Because that date fell this year on a Sunday — a day on which inaugural ceremonies historically are not held — organizers scheduled a second, public swearing-in for Monday.

A crowd of up to 800,000 people is expected to gather on the National Mall to witness that event, which will take place on the Capitol's red, white and blue bunting-draped west front. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who famously flubbed the oath of office that Obama took in 2009, was to swear the president in both days.

Once the celebrations are over, Obama will plunge into a second-term agenda still dominated by the economy, which slowly churned out of recession during his first four years in office. The president will also try to cement his legacy with sweeping domestic changes, pledging to achieve both an immigration overhaul and stricter gun laws despite opposition from a divided Congress.

But for one weekend at least, Washington was putting politics aside. Obama called the nation's inaugural traditions "a symbol of how our democracy works and how we peacefully transfer power."

"But it should also be an affirmation that we're all in this together," he said Saturday, as he opened a weekend of inaugural activities at a Washington elementary school.

Only a small group of family members was expected to attend Obama's Sunday swearing-in, including first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha. A few reporters were to witness the event.

Roberts was to administer the oath of office shortly before noon in the White House Blue Room, an oval space with majestic views of the South Lawn and the Washington Monument.

The room, named for the color of the drapes, upholstery and carpet, primarily has been a reception room as well as the site of the only presidential wedding in the White House, when President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsum in 1886.

Obama and Biden were also to lay at a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery Sunday morning, then address supporters at an evening reception.

The president planned to save his most expansive remarks for Monday's inaugural address to the crowd gathered on the Mall and millions more watching across the country and the world. Obama started working on the speech in early December and was still tinkering with it into the weekend, aides said.

The president's address will set the stage for the policy objectives he seeks to achieve in his second term, including speeding up the economic recovery, passing comprehensive immigration and gun control measures and ending the war in Afghanistan. Aides said Obama would save the specifics of those agenda items for his Feb. 12 State of the Union address.

The president launched a weekend of inaugural activities Saturday by heading up a National Day of Service. Along with his family, Obama helped hundreds of volunteers spruce up a Washington area elementary school.

Obama wore rubber gloves, picked up a paint brush and helped volunteers stain a bookshelf.

Obama added the service event to the inaugural schedule in 2009 and is hoping it becomes a tradition followed for future presidents.

Mrs. Obama, speaking to volunteers Sunday, espoused the importance of giving back in the midst of the weekend of pomp, circumstance and celebration.

"The reason why we're here, why we're standing here, why we're able to celebrate this weekend is because a lot of people worked hard and supported us, and we've got a job to do and this is a symbol of the kind of work that we need to be doing the next four years," Michelle Obama said at Burrville Elementary.

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