Practically from the horse's mouth: The NY Times now says Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is "near a deal to invest about $250 million in The New York Times Company, helping to shore up the publishing company’s struggling finances." The Wall Street Journal had reported on this development on Saturday, saying that Slim's investment is structured like a loan; the Times adds that Slim may "get a special annual dividend, perhaps as high as 10 percent or more." Harvard professor and author of The Trust, a book about the Times, Alex Jones tells Reuters that Slim is an "ideal" investor: "This is a man who already has made his fortune and is in his own way an entrepreneur like Adolph Ochs was. That's different from some financiers looking for an opportunity to make a killing." At any rate, it's tought times for the Times: A $400 million credit line runs out in May and "as of September, the company had about $46 million in cash; its total debt load is $1.1 billion."