This week

BACK TO WORK, MADAME GOV'NOR

Party's over. Time to work. This morning, Gov. Beverly Perdue starts her first day with a promised list of "change orders." Among her expected directives: Establish an endowment to pay for both major parties' campaigns for governor and ask the state Board of Transportation to give up its power to decide where roads get built.

At 2 p.m., the governor will be in the Old House Chambers to witness the swearing-in of her cabinet secretaries.

LET THE GRILLING BEGIN

This will be a big week for confirmation hearings. Among the headliners:

TUESDAY: Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.

THURSDAY: Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Eric Holder as attorney general.

THURSDAY: Senate Finance Committee hearing for Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BAILOUT BUCKS?

On the economic front, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks at the London School of Economics before the U.S. stock markets open Tuesday. Meanwhile in Washington, the House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on the controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds, also known as the $700 billion financial industry bailout.

OPERATION REASSIGNMENT

The final three public hearings on the Wake student reassignment plan will be held this week from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on the following days:

* Tonight at Millbrook High, 2201 Spring Forest Road, Raleigh

* Wednesday at Fuquay-Varina High, 201 Bengal Blvd., Fuquay-Varina

* Thursday at East Wake High, 5101 Rolesville Road, Wendell

NOW THAT'S ADULT ENTERTAINMENT

You ought to go: Paperhand Puppet Intervention's "The Hungry Ghost" at Manbites Dog Theater in Durham. It's a puppet show for adults that concerns a timely subject: what the greedy will face in the afterlife. It opens Wednesday and runs through Jan. 24.

LOOK OUT: SALMONELLA SLITHERS INTO N.C.

A North Carolinian has fallen ill in a nationwide outbreak of salmonella that may be linked to an Ohio distributor of the King Nut and Parnell's Pride brands of peanut butter. So far, 399 cases of salmonella have been confirmed in 42 states, said officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

AT THE WATER COOLER

The Carolina Panthers were pecked to death by a flock of desert birds. Somewhere, Alfred Hitchcock is smiling.