Daily News

WASHINGTON (AP) Michelle Obama made it a fashion tradition Monday night, wearing a custom-made Jason Wu gown to the inauguration balls. The ruby-colored dress was a follow-up to the white gown Wu made for her four years ago when she was new to Washington, the pomp and circumstance, and the fashion press.

She now emerged in velvet and chiffon as a bona fide trendsetter.

"I can't believe it. It's crazy," said Wu, reached at his Manhattan studio. "To have done it once was already the experience of my life. To have a second time is tremendous."

President Barack Obama also struck a similar style chord to his first-term inaugural balls: He wore a white tie with his tuxedo.

The red halter dress was the only one Wu, who went from fashion insider to household name on this night in 2009, submitted for Mrs. Obama's consideration. He collaborated with jeweler Kimberly McDonald on the jeweled neckline. "For this occasion, it had to be real diamonds," Wu said.

He said he felt the dress showed how he has grown up as a designer and how Mrs. Obama's style has evolved to be even more confident.

The first family headed out to inaugural festivities earlier on Monday with Mrs. Obama leading a very coordinated fashion parade in a navy-silk, checkered-patterned coat and dress by Thom Browne that were inspired by a menswear necktie.

The outfit was specifically designed for Mrs. Obama, but Browne said he wasn't 100 percent sure she was going to wear it until she came out with it on at Inauguration. "I am proud and humbled," he said.

The rest of Mrs. Obama's Inauguration Day outfit included a belt from J. Crew, necklace by Cathy Waterman and a cardigan by Reed Krakoff, whose ensemble she also wore to yesterday's intimate, indoor swearing-in ceremony.

Obama wore a blue tie with his white shirt, dark suit and overcoat. Malia Obama had on a plum-colored J. Crew coat with the hemline of an electric-blue dress peeking out and a burgundy-colored scarf, and her younger sister Sasha had on a Kate Spade coat and dress in a similar purple shade.

"It is an honor that Sasha Obama chose to wear Kate Spade New York," said the company's creative director, Deborah Lloyd, in an email to the Associated Press. "She epitomizes the youthful optimism and colorful spirit of the brand. We are so proud to have been a part of this historic moment."

Jenna Lyons, creative director of J. Crew, said it was "a huge point of pride for all of us" to be a part of the day as the brand was back in 2009 when the girls wore outfits by CrewCuts, its children's label.

"It's amazing to see the evolution of the family. I love the way Michelle looks. She looks beautiful in something so clean and tailored. It's such an elegant choice," Lyons said, "and they all look so sophisticated! You can see how the girls have grown up in the four years, and they're still so alive and vibrant, but more sophisticated."

The vice president's wife, Jill Biden, wore a gray coat and dress by American designer Lela Rose.

Mrs. Obama has worn Browne's designs for other occasions, including a gray dress with black lace overlay to one of the presidential debates last fall, and she honored him last summer at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards for his contribution to fashion.

Browne made his name in modern very modern menswear, but he launched womenswear in 2011. He was in Paris on Monday, just finishing previews for his next menswear collection. The idea to use the tie fabric came to him because he was indeed designing these men's clothes at the same time, he explained.

"I wanted 'tailored' for her. For me, she stands for strength and confidence, and that's what I wanted to design for her," he said.

Simon Collins, dean of the school of fashion at Parsons The New School for Design in New York, said the Obamas dressed in their typical fashion: one that shows pride in their appearance.

"They are a stylish couple and their children look fabulous. Too many people get dressed in the dark," he said. "They show it's good to dress up, take pride in how you look. ... It's a wonderful example for America and the rest of the world."

He also noted that the Obamas seem to understand that the fashion industry is a driving force in the U.S. economy and that its lobby is a powerful one. They don't treat fashion frivolously, he observed.

The first lady "is so supportive of so many American designers," Browne noted.

But Collins said he was a bit surprised the public doesn't pay much attention to the president's wardrobe. He joked that Obama should perhaps try one of Browne's signature shrunken suits the ones that show a man's ankles.

At the end of the Inaugural festivities, Mrs. Obama's outfit and accompanying accessories will go to the National Archives.

___

Samantha Critchell tweets fashion at (at)AP_Fashion, and can be reached on Twitter at (at)Sam_Critchell.

RIM is set to announce the first devices running its new BlackBerry 10 operating system at an event on January 30. A lucky few, however, have already gotten their hands on what looks to be the new hardware, including German site TelekomPresse.

[More from Mashable: Watch These iPhone Knockoffs Get Bulldozed]

The site has the BlackBerry Z10, a touchscreen device with a similar look to some of the other popular smartphones out there -- especially the iPhone 5.

Curious to see how the two compared, they put them side-by-side in the video above, running through both the physical design of both devices as well as some of their features.

[More from Mashable: RIM May License BlackBerry 10 to Other Manufacturers]

Notably, the video shows a Siri-like voice control functionality in BlackBerry 10, that we haven t seen previously. As you can see in the test above, it beats Siri for speed.

SEE ALSO: RIM Adds 15,000 BlackBerry 10 Apps in a Weekend

While similar at first glance, design-wise the two phones do have some differences. The Z10 has a 4.2-inch screen, slightly larger than the iPhone 5 s 4-inch display. Both phones have a power button on top, however, the button on the BlackBerry is in the center of the top of the phone, while the iPhone s is on the right on the device.

The volume controls are on the right side of the Z10, and left side of the iPhone 5. When it comes to power, the connection for the iPhone 5 is on the bottom of the device with the headphone jack, while the HDMI and USB connections on the Z10 are located on the left.

Check out the video above for a look at the full comparison of the two devices. Are you looking forward to BlackBerry 10? Can the new OS save RIM? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

BlackBerry 10 Lock Screen You unlock a BlackBerry 10 device by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

WASHINGTON (AP) Ke$ha is an all-American girl or at least she was following Inauguration Day at a concert Monday night.

The pop singer sported a bright red suit, blue shoes and a white shirt on the red carpet ahead of her performance at the 9:30 Club. The back on her suit read "U$A."

"I'm very proud to be an American tonight. I'm excited we have another four years," she said in an interview.

The 25-year-old said she was moved by President Barack Obama's speech at the Capitol launching his second term in office.

"I really appreciate him addressing equal rights," said Ke$ha, who is a supporter of gay rights. "It's an issue very close to my heart."

The patriotic vibe continued when she hit the stage just after midnight, where her four male background dancers wore cropped shirts bearing the American flag.

She no longer had on a suit, now wearing a shimmery black and silver leotard as she danced to her pop hits like "TiK ToK," ''We R Who We R" and "Die Young."

"Our president rules. In honor of President Obama, let's party," she said before performing another hit, the jam "Blow."

She gave Obama another shout-out before singing "Your Love Is My Drug."

"I'm looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend. This next song's about love, so I'm going to dedicate this to Mr. Barack Obama because I love him."

But he wasn't the only Obama the singer has fallen for.

"She's beautiful. She's so chic," she said of first lady Michelle Obama in the interview. "Her outfit, the purple gloves, the bangs. She's a very classy woman."

Ke$ha's concert Monday was a charity show for the Recording Industry Association of America and Musicians on Call.

She performed for roughly 40 minutes with a four-piece band as gold confetti burst from the stage. And there was alcohol.

"Can I have beer? I'm being serious," she said before grabbing and drinking a beer from someone in the crowd. "Thank you."

___

Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MusicMesfin

Monday s post-inaugural luncheon was a case study in body language--and nearly all of the physical evidence centered on House Speaker John Boehner. One interaction in particular already became an Internet meme: Michelle Obama rolling her eyes after listening to a comment from the Ohio Republican congressman.

Tumblr blogger Mattyrab was the first to capture the eye roll in action, sharing video of the exchange in a display described as a historical moment in shade throwing. The video has already been shared thousands of times across social media sites with viewers speculating on what sparked the First Lady s facial expression.

We don t have audio of their exchange so, for now, it s impossible to know exactly what Boehner had said. In fact, it s entirely possible that Michelle Obama's eye roll was simply a reaction to an innocuous joke from Boehner.

That moment was only one of several interactions involving the House speaker. For example, after Boehner s brief and gracious remarks during the luncheon, he shook hands with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Anyone watching the two exchanges closely would notice a distinct difference: While Boehner and Obama look friendly enough in the actual handshake, at no point do they appear to make eye contact; in contrast, Biden and Boehner appear to share a warmer greeting, smiling at each other and pulling in close.

Of course, any analysis is inevitably colored by one s own estimation of these three men. But it certainly appears to correlate with the understanding that Biden has far more amicable relations with Congress than Obama.

Interestingly, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor even appeared to have a warmer exchange with Obama after his remarks than the president had with Boehner, as the two men looked each other in the eyes and traded what appeared to be firm, but friendly, greetings. If that indeed is the case, it s noteworthy since Cantor is viewed as being even more ideologically opposed then the House speaker to Obama s political agenda.

What do you think? Are political audiences overreacting to Michelle Obama s facial expression? Or was it a candid moment captured on film showing that even during the most benign of political events, personality conflicts and personal feelings rise to the surface?

As the crowds thinned following President Barack Obama's second inaugural address and people headed home, they may have passed a military Humvee parked outside the Farragut Square Starbucks (because if a major state of emergency were declared, it would be essential to protect critical infrastructure, and the world's largest coffee chain certainly qualifies).

Out-of-town visitors looking for the nearest Metro station may have come across a happy man dancing on the steps of Constitution Hall on 18th Street.

And some people might have spotted me holding a wireless microphone with the iconic purple Yahoo! logo, ready to ask their impressions of the president's speech and how it made them feel about the next four years for the United States.

We interviewed two kinds of people on the National Mall today: those who heard President Obama's speech, and those who, because of serioustechnical difficulties at the westernmost Jumbotron, could not.

Meanwhile those who heard President Obama's words were hopeful for the future it's not surprising that people willing to stand in the cold for hours are fans of the president and felt that the next four years would be better than the previous four.

The president's references to equality, the economy, and climate change generated some of the more specific positive reactions. Meanwhile, asignificant number of people we interviewed stressed the president's seemingly central theme: that achieving any progress will require working together, with "together" meaning not only the White House and Congress, but also the American people more broadly. If the nation's elected officials can maintain even a small portion of the face-painted enthusiasm on display at the Mall, such progress may indeed be within reach.

A presidential inauguration is a big, long event that lasts all day and into the night-and who has time to really watch it? People have jobs, ones that don't let you off for a federal holiday.

Everyone (or, at least, some) will be talking about it, which means potential embarrassment for anyone who doesn't know what happened. Thankfully, ABC employs news professionals stationed in Washington, D.C., to pay attention to these kinds of things and boil off some of the less noteworthy or interesting stuff, presenting you with short videos of everything that really mattered. Or at least the things a lot of people were talking about.

A full day of paying attention to President Obama's second Inauguration leads one of those professionals to offer these 7 1/2 things:

1. Beyonce Sang the National Anthem

Boy, howdy! Did she ever? Beyonce has essentially become the Obama's go-to female performer: She recorded a music video for Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative in 2011, and she performed at the president's last inauguration in 2009. Her velvety, soulful "Star Spangled Banner" is getting good reviews.

2. Kelly Clarkson Also Sang

Kelly Clarkson is not as "in" with the First Couple as Beyonce seems to be, but they let her sing "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and she did a pretty good job with it. This was kind of weird, though, because at one point she said she loved Ron Paul, although she later said she would vote for Obama.

3. Obama Talked About Gay Rights

This may not seem shocking since more than half the country, including President Obama, supports gay marriage. But the president made a point of mentioning gay rights during his speech, equating the struggles of the LGBT community with those of past civil rights movements, and in doing so made history.

He name-checked Stonewall, the New York City bar that was raided by police in 1969 sparking riots to protest the anti-gay crackdown. And he actually used the word "gay": "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law - for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," Obama said in his address.

Plenty of inaugural addresses have been chock full of rhetoric about freedom and equality, but in the last four years, the political culture surrounding gay rights has changed significantly, as more states legalized same-sex marriage and as broad swaths of the country got more comfortable with homosexuality in general. Obama's "evolution" on gay marriage, and now his inaugural address, have helped signify that change.

4. Joe Biden Made Jokes and Shook Hands With People

Could we expect anything less?

Here's how the Vice President toasting Sen. Chuck Schumer instead of President Obama at the big luncheon: "I raise my glass to a man who never, never, never operates out of fear, only operates out of confidence, and a guy-I'm toasting you, Chuck." Watch it:

And here he is, scurrying around and jovially shaking hands with people along the parade route:

5. Richard Blanco Read a Poem That Was Sort of Whitman-esque, But Not Entirely

Cuban-born Richard Blanco became America's first openly gay, Latino Inauguration poet. He read a nine-stanza poem entitled "One Today," which set a kind of unifying American tableau scene.

6. Obama and Michelle Walked Around Outside The Limo

President Obama walked part of the parade route, from the Capitol to the White House, with Michelle. They waved to people. It is not entirely abnormal for a president to do this at an inaugural parade. But they walked quite a ways.

7. John Boehner: 'Godspeed'

The speaker of the House presented American flags to Obama and Biden, telling them: "To you gentlemen, I say congratulations and Godspeed."

7 1/2. Sasha and Malia Were There.

Obama's daughters, Sasha and Malia, were there. They didn't really do much, but they did wear coats of different shades of purple that got a lot of attention on Twitter.

Reports of the daughters looking at smartphones and applying lip gloss highlighted their day. As did this .gif of Sasha yawning.

Also Read

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) Stephenie Meyer knows all about obsessive fans. So it makes sense that the "Twilight" author should produce a movie about a woman who takes another writer's work a little too much to heart.

Meyer is a producer on the Sundance Film Festival premiere "Austenland," adapted from her friend Shannon Hale's novel that follows the romantic misadventures of a Jane Austen devotee.

"Austenland" stars Keri Russell as a woman named Jane who is so fanatical about the "Pride and Prejudice" author's fiction that she blows her life savings to visit an Austen-themed British resort. Jane is so fixated on finding her own Austen-style suitor that she has a life-size cut-out of Colin Firth as aloof suitor Mr. Darcy in a BBC production of "Pride and Prejudice."

"I have seen firsthand fanatic fans, passionate people who want to live in that world so badly, who want to be a part of it," Meyer said Saturday in an interview. "I've seen tattoos that scare me to death. I mean, those things are forever. That's not a joke. And I do think people can definitely take that fan love too far. I think it's nice actually to see Jane's journey here, because she realizes this and sort of steps out of it."

"Austenland" marks the directing debut of Jerusha Hess, whose career took off with the 2004 Sundance hit "Napoleon Dynamite," which she co-wrote with her husband, director Jared Hess.

She and Meyer met up through mutual friend Hale. Meyer, who read "Austenland" before it was published, said that she and Hale joked that 10 years down the road, they would get a camera, go to England and make it into a movie themselves.

Hale later met Hess about another film project and mentioned that she and Meyer were dreaming of turning "Austenland" into a movie.

Hess then read "Austenland" and said, "'No, this one's mine. Let's do this,'" said Meyer, who hit it off immediately with Hess. "Jerusha's really lovely and, like Shannon, someone I have a lot in common with. All three of us are moms, and we kind of balance the creative and the real life.

"Jerusha's phenomenally funny and she's just very self-deprecating. She doesn't realize how adorable she is. She's really fun to hang out with."

Hess, whose "Napoleon Dynamite" world was off-kilter, read Hale's novel of Austen zealotry and had her own vision for the film version.

"Let's make it weirder," said Hess, who joked that she instructed production associates to make sure 50 pounds of feathers were in every shot and suggested that the servants' codpieces all be stuffed. A codpiece covered the opening in front of a man's breeches in 16th-century European men's fashion.

"Austenland" co-stars Jennifer Coolidge, JJ Field, Georgia King and Bret McKenzie of the music duo Flight of the Conchords.

While Russell's Jane in "Austenland" is a hopeless romantic, Meyer said she's a very different character from Bella Swan, the love-struck teen played by Kristen Stewart in the five blockbusters adapted from the "Twilight" books.

"Bella isn't like this super fan girl," Meyer said. "Kristen has her own take on it, but for me, Bella is kind of a homebody. She's very practical, and she doesn't get lost in fantasies."

WASHINGTON (AP) Mallory Hagan says her first week as Miss America has been amazing, but she's not sure she's going to Inauguration Day because of the weather.

Hagan said in an interview Saturday that it may be too cold to attend President Barack Obama's public swearing in ceremony Monday. She says she has a ticket and is "in the middle of deciding if she'll go" because "it's going to be freezing."

Hagan spoke at an event for OurTime.org, which featured will.i.am and John Legend.

Hagan won the Miss America title last week. The 23-year-old was born in Alabama, but moved to New York at 18. She was named Miss New York last year and lives in Brooklyn.

She says she feels "overwhelmed, excited, humbled" after having the crown for a week.

WASHINGTON (AP) The third-ranking Senate Democrat says Democrats will pass a budget proposal this year that includes new taxes and "our Republican colleagues had better get used to that fact."

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that his party's budget will also include tax law changes to attract support from both parties and bring down the nation's debt.

Congress is trying to figure out how what to do when the government hits its borrowing limit soon. Republicans have indicated they'll extend that borrowing authority for three more months, but insist on bringing down the debt.

Schumer says he prefers a longer extension so lawmakers aren't always dealing with the question.

The Democratic-controlled Senate last passed a full budget in 2009.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The original Batmobile from the 1960s television series has sold at auction for $4.2 million.

A spokeswoman for the Barrett-Jackson Auction Co. in Scottsdale, Ariz., says the winning bidder has not been disclosed following Saturday's auction.

The 19-foot-long black, bubble-topped car was used in the "Batman" TV show that starred Adam West as the Caped Crusader.

The car's owner famed auto customizer George Barris, of Los Angeles transformed a one-of-a-kind 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car into the sleek crime-fighting machine. On the show, it boasted lasers and a "Batphone" and could lay down smoke screens and oil slicks.

Barris' publicist says his client is pleased with the auction result.