Beyonce, Hudson do star turns at inauguration

WASHINGTON (AP) — Beyonce drew a loud cheer at the inauguration Monday even before her impressive rendition of the national anthem. But in the role she played four years ago singing for the president and first lady at the inaugural ball was her "Dreamgirls" co-star Jennifer Hudson.

If President Barack Obama's first inaugural theme seemed to be summed up by Beyonce's "At Last," this time it was Hudson's version of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together."

Hudson was among the entertainment at Monday night's inaugural balls, joined by Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys, who modified her hit "Girl on Fire" to sing "He's the president and he's on fire ... Obama's on fire. Obama's on fire."

The crowd at the official Inaugural Ball joined in with the Grammy-nominated fun. anthem "We Are Young."

And Wonder got small knots of dancers going with crowd-pleasers such as "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours."

Earlier in the day, the applause for Beyonce started when she took her place with Jay-Z at the Capitol to watch President Barack Obama take the oath for his second term in office. The two stopped to chat with the Rev. Al Sharpton.

James Taylor kicked off the musical performances, strumming his guitar and singing "America the Beautiful." Kelly Clarkson followed with a different arrangement of "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Then Beyonce was introduced and the crowd again roared its approval.

Beyonce had a definite fan in Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who applauded eagerly after she finished singing the national anthem. She offered R&B-esque vocal riffs as she sang on and the crowd seemed to love it, cheering loudly as she finished. Clarkson, too, hit high notes.

Beyonce may have been the star musical attraction, but she had plenty of company from Hollywood at the Capitol on Monday. Katy Perry and John Mayer sat side-by-side, with Perry in an orange-striped coat and wide hat, and Mayer in dark sunglasses. Singer-songwriter Ke$ha was there, too.

People flocked to the colorful pop star, snapping photos. And Perry did the same, taking shots of "Girls" actress and daughter of news anchor Brian Williams, Allison Williams.

Actress Eva Longoria was seated on the platform outside the Capitol after making an appearance at a Kennedy Center performance Sunday night. Perry sang at the children's concert the night before.

Former Boston Celtics great Bill Russell was in the crowd, too, along with actor Marlon Wayans.

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AP writers Donna Cassata, Darlene Superville, Josh Lederman and Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report.

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

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The Week: A Roundup of This Week’s Science News

“Science,” a colleague once said at a meeting, “is a mighty enterprise, which is really rather quite topical.” He was so right: as we continue to enhance our coverage of the scientific world, we always aim to keep the latest news front and center.

His observation seemed like a nice way to introduce this column, which will highlight the week’s developments in health and science news and glance at what’s ahead. This past week, for instance, the mighty enterprise of science addressed itself to such newsy topics as the flu (there’s still time to get vaccinated!), and mental illness and gun control.

In addition to the big-headline stories that invite wisdom from scientists, each week there is a drumbeat of purely scientific and medical news that emerges from academic journals, fieldwork and elsewhere. These developments, from the quirky to the abstruse, often make their way into the daily news cycle, depending on the strength of the research behind them. (Well, that’s how we judge them, anyway.)

Many discoveries are hard to unravel. “In a way, science is antithetical to everything that has to do with a newspaper,” the same colleague observed. “You couldn’t imagine anything less consumer-friendly.”

Let’s aim to fix that. Below, a selection of the week’s stories.

DEVELOPMENTS

Health

Strange, but Effective

People with a bacterial infection called Clostridium difficile — which kills 14,000 Americans a year — have a startling cure: a transplant of someone else’s feces into their digestive system, which introduces good bacteria that the gut needs to fight off the bad. For some people, antibiotics don’t fix this problem, but an infusion of diluted stool from a healthy person seems to do the trick.

Genetics

Dig We Must

Hillery Metz and Hopi Hoekstra/Harvard University

Evolutionary biologists at Harvard took a tiny species of deer mice, known for building elaborate burrows with long tunnels, and bred it with another species of deer mice, which builds short-tunneled burrows. Comparing the DNA of the original mice with their offspring, the biologists pinpointed four regions of genetic code that help tell the mice what kind of burrow to construct.

Aerospace

Launch, Then Inflate

Uncredited/Bigelow Aerospace, via Associated Press

NASA signed a contract for an inflatable space habitat — roughly pineapple-shaped, with walls of floppy cloth — that will ideally be appended to the International Space Station in 2015. NASA aims to use the pod to test inflatable technology in space, but the company that builds these things, Bigelow Aerospace, has bigger ambitions: think of a 12-person apartment and laboratory in the sky, with two months’ rent at north of $26 million.

Biology

What’s Green and Flies?

Jodi Rowley/Australian Museum

National Geographic reported on an Australian researcher working in Vietnam who discovered a great-looking new species of flying frog. Described as having flappy forearms (the better for gliding), the three-and-a-half-inch-long frog likes to “parachute” from tree to tree, Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney, told the magazine. She named it Helen’s Flying Frog, for her mother.

Privacy

That’s Joe’s DNA!

People who volunteer their genetic information for the betterment of science — and are assured anonymity — may find that their privacy is not a slam dunk. A researcher who set out to crack the identities of a few men whose genomes appeared in a public database was able to do so using genealogical Web sites (where people upload parts of their genomes to try to find relatives) as well as some simple search tools. He was trying to test the database’s security, but even he did not expect it to be so easy.

Genetics

An On/Off Switch for Disease

Geneticists have long puzzled over what it is that activates a disease in one person but not in another — even in identical twins. Now researchers from Johns Hopkins and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who studied people with rheumatoid arthritis have identified a pattern of chemical tags that tell genes whether to turn on or not. In rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system attacks the body, and it is thought the tags enable the attack.

Planetary Science

That Red Planet

Everybody loves Mars, and we’re all secretly hoping that NASA’s plucky little rover finds evidence of life there. Meanwhile, a separate NASA craft — the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been looping the planet since 2006 — took some pictures of a huge crater that looks as if it once held a lake fed by groundwater. It is too soon to say if the lake held living things, but NASA’s news release did include the happy phrase “clues to subsurface habitability.”

COMING UP

Animal Testing

Retiring Chimps

Emily Wabitsch/European Pressphoto Agency

A lot of people have strong feelings about the use of chimpanzees in biomedical and behavioral experiments, and the National Institutes of Health has been listening. On Tuesday, the agency is to release its recommendations for curtailing chimp research in a big way. This will be but a single step in a long process and it will apply only to the chimps the agency owns, but it may well stir big reactions from many constituencies.

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Bank of Japan sets 2% inflation plan

TOKYO — Bowing to government pressure, Japan's central bank Tuesday pledged more aggressive action to boost the economy, including setting a 2% inflation target.

The Bank of Japan said it would conduct "open-ended" asset purchases to help achieve the goal of breaking out of a long spell of deflation.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had urged the central bank to ease monetary policy further to help the recession-struck economy escape from years of falling prices.

Whether the effort will succeed remains to be seen: the central bank has not achieved even its 1% inflation target, with price increases hovering below 0.5% for the past two years despite surges in energy costs.

The central bank described its inflation goal as a "price stability target."

"Under the price stability target, the bank will pursue monetary easing and aim to achieve this target at the earliest possible time," it said.

But it said it also would "ascertain whether there is any significant risk to the sustainability of economic growth, including from the accumulation of financial imbalances."

Among the risks are a ballooning public debt, already well over twice the size of Japan's gross domestic product.

Abe's government is seeking to spur growth both through heavy government spending on public works and other projects and through monetary easing. The announcement by the central bank Tuesday was in line with expectations.

The government was determined that the central bank set a 2% inflation target, trade minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters on Monday.

"We want a clear inflation target to aim for," Motegi said. "Other countries have inflation targets, and it's not just 1 percent. They are all at least 2%," he said.

Motegi said the monetary easing, which has involved tens of trillions of yen (hundreds of billions of dollars) in asset purchases and years of near-zero interest rates, so far has been "inadequate."

The Abe government is expected to nominate as Bank of Japan governor an expert known to favor its policies when the term of the current governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, ends this spring.

However, Motegi rejected accusations that the government's demands are meant to erode the central bank's independent status.

"We are not doing this to gang up and pick on Mr. Shirakawa," he said. But he said that "the policy of aiming to escape deflation will not change, not today, not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."

Critics of the government's strategy of pushing for more inflation argue that it will do little to stimulate real demand in the economy if it pushes up prices without accompanying gains in purchasing power.

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Clara Jane Nixon dies at 93; sister-in-law of President Nixon

Her famous brother-in-law had not yet been elected president. But he already had been vice president, as well as a U.S. senator and a congressman from California, and Clara Jane Nixon wanted to preserve some of his family history.

So, beginning in 1967, the Newport Beach homemaker set out to track down and collect the furniture, books and other belongings that had filled the modest boyhood home of Richard M. Nixon. She hoped that one day the artifacts might be displayed in a museum.

With the help of other family members, the wife of F. Donald Nixon, a brother of the future president, found and preserved hundreds of items from his childhood home in Yorba Linda, including the piano on which he took lessons, the table where his family ate its meals and the china and crystal his parents received as wedding gifts.

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012

She found the high chair he used as a toddler, the bed on which he was born and the quilt, dating from 1875, that had been used to cover it. The furnishings and other belongings of the Nixon family are displayed in the 900-square-foot farmhouse, a museum near the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda.

"Clara Jane was just essential to all those artifacts being saved," her brother-in-law Ed Nixon said in a phone interview Sunday. "We're very thankful she was there all these years and for everything she did to preserve the family history."

Clara Jane Nixon died Thursday at a convalescent facility in Irvine where she was receiving care after a recent fall at the home where she had moved after her husband's death in 1987, family members said. She was 93.

She was born Clara Jane Lemke on Nov. 16, 1919, in Westmoreland, a community in Imperial County where her parents were homesteading. She weighed in at less than five pounds, according to the scale — normally used for weighing chickens — that her father employed for the task, her daughter LawreneAnfinson said in a phone interview.

She grew up in Placentia, where her parents, Lawrence and Mae Lemke, were citrus farmers. After graduating from Fullerton High School, she attended Sawyer Business College in Westwood and later worked as a secretary at a law firm.

In 1940, when she was 20, she was introduced to F. Donald Nixon, who was her third cousin on her mother's side. They dated for just three weeks before he asked for her hand, and they were married on Aug. 9, 1942. They had three children: daughter Lawrene, who was named for her grandfather Lawrence, and sons Donald and Richard.

Their son Richard Calvert Nixon died in 2002. In addition to her daughter and her son Donald, Clara Nixon's survivors include six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

In later years, after President Nixon resigned in disgrace on Aug. 9, 1974, his youngest brother was often asked about the significance of the date.

"Whenever anyone asked me, I would say, 'Well, it was Don's and Clara Jane's 32nd anniversary,'" Ed Nixon said.

rebecca.trounson@latimes.com

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RIM heats up as BlackBerry 10 launch nears

Research In Motion (RIMM) shares are soaring ahead of the imminent launch of the firm’s next-generation BlackBerry 10 platform. The stock’s recent run could come screeching to a halt at any moment as short interest grows, but Jefferies & Company analyst Peter Misek thinks there’s plenty more good news ahead for RIM. In a note to investors on Friday morning, Misek told clients to buy RIM stock and set a new 12-month price target of $ 19.50, up from his previous $ 13 target with a Hold rating.

[More from BGR: Samsung’s latest monster smartphone will reportedly have a 5.8-inch screen]

“Our checks indicate that the carriers have agreed to volume commitments for the first two quarters post-launch,” Misek wrote. He also notes that “BB10 builds have been raised from 500K/month in early Dec to 1M-2M/month,” and “Developers are supporting BB10 more than we expected. RIM is targeting 70K BB10 apps available at launch.”

[More from BGR: Cable companies called ‘monopolies that stifle competition and innovation’]

Misek says that RIM’s next-generation platform will enable secure corporate email services on iOS and Android devices and the market has overlooked this major change so far. The analyst believes RIM’s March- and August-quarter results will beat Wall Street’s current consensus now that RIM’s huge installed base will finally have a “legitimate upgrade opportunity.”

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Well: A Check on Physicals

“Go Beyond Your Father’s Annual Physical. Live Longer, Feel Better”

This sales pitch for the Princeton Longevity Center’s “comprehensive exam” promises, for $5,300, to take “your health beyond the annual physical.” But it is far from certain whether this all-day checkup, and others less inclusive, make a meaningful difference to health or merely provide reassurance to the worried well.

Among physicians, researchers and insurers, there is an ongoing debate as to whether regular checkups really reduce the chances of becoming seriously ill or dying of an illness that would have been treatable had it been detected sooner.

No one questions the importance of regular exams for well babies, children and pregnant women, and the protective value of specific exams, like a Pap smear for sexually active women and a colonoscopy for people over 50. But arguments against the annual physical for all adults have been fueled by a growing number of studies that failed to find a medical benefit.

Some experts note that when something seemingly abnormal is picked up during a routine exam, the result is psychological distress for the patient, further testing that may do more harm than good, and increased medical expenses.

“Part of the problem of looking for abnormalities in perfectly well people is that rather a lot of us have them,” Dr. Margaret McCartney, a Scottish physician, wrote in The Daily Mail, a British newspaper. “Most of them won’t do us any harm.”

She cited the medical saga of Brian Mulroney, former prime minister of Canada. A CT scan performed as part of a checkup in 2005 revealed two small lumps in Mr. Mulroney’s lungs. Following surgery, he developed an inflamed pancreas, which landed him in intensive care. He spent six weeks in the hospital, then was readmitted a month later for removal of a cyst on his pancreas caused by the inflammation.

The lumps on his lungs, by the way, were benign. But what if, you may ask, Mr. Mulroney’s lumps had been cancer? Might not the discovery during a routine exam have saved his life?

Logic notwithstanding, the question of benefits versus risks from routine exams can be answered only by well-designed scientific research.

Defining the value of a routine checkup — determining who should get one and how often — is especially important now, because next year the Affordable Care Act will add some 30 million people to the roster of the medically insured, many of whom will be eligible for government-mandated preventive care through an annual exam.

Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who directed a study of annual physicals in 2007, reported that an estimated 44.4 million adults in the United States undergo preventive exams each year. He concluded that if every adult were to receive such an exam, the health care system would be saddled with 145 million more visits every year, consuming 41 percent of all the time primary care doctors spend with patients.

There is already a shortage of such doctors and not nearly enough other health professionals — physician assistants and nurse practitioners — to meet future needs. If you think the wait to see your doctor is too long now, you may want to stock up on some epic novels to keep you occupied in the waiting room in the future.

Few would challenge the axiom that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Lacking incontrovertible evidence for the annual physical, this logic has long been used to justify it:

¶ If a thorough exam and conversation about your well-being alerts your doctor to a health problem that is best addressed sooner rather than later, isn’t that better than waiting until the problem becomes too troublesome to ignore?

¶ What if you have a potentially fatal ailment, like heart disease or cancer, that may otherwise be undetected until it is well advanced or incurable?

¶ And wouldn’t it help to uncover risk factors like elevated blood sugar or high cholesterol that could prevent an incipient ailment if they are reversed before causing irreparable damage?

Even if there is no direct medical benefit, many doctors say that having their patients visit once a year helps to maintain a meaningful relationship and alert doctors to changes in patients’ lives that could affect health. It is also an opportunity to give patients needed immunizations and to remind them to get their eyes, teeth and skin checked.

But the long-sacrosanct recommendation that everyone should have an annual physical was challenged yet again recently by researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen.

The research team, led by Dr. Lasse T. Krogsboll, analyzed the findings of 14 scientifically designed clinical trials of routine checkups that followed participants for up to 22 years. The team found no benefit to the risk of death or serious illness among seemingly healthy people who had general checkups, compared with people who did not. Their findings were published in November in BMJ (formerly The British Medical Journal).

In introducing their analysis, the Danish team noted that routine exams consist of “combinations of screening tests, few of which have been adequately studied in randomized trials.” Among possible harms from health checks, they listed “overdiagnosis, overtreatment, distress or injury from invasive follow-up tests, distress due to false positive test results, false reassurance due to false negative test results, adverse psychosocial effects due to labeling, and difficulties with getting insurance.”

Furthermore, they wrote, “general health checks are likely to be expensive and may result in lost opportunities to improve other areas of health care.”

In summarizing their results, the team said, “We did not find an effect on total or cause-specific mortality from general health checks in adult populations unselected for risk factors or disease. For the causes of death most likely to be influenced by health checks, cardiovascular mortality and cancer mortality, there were no reductions either.”

What, then, should people do to monitor their health?

Whenever you see your doctor, for any reason, make sure your blood pressure is checked. If a year or more has elapsed since your last blood test, get a new one.

Keep immunizations up to date, and get the screening tests specifically recommended based on your age, gender and known risk factors, including your family and personal medical history.

And if you develop a symptom, like unexplained pain, shortness of breath, digestive problems, a lump, a skin lesion that doesn’t heal, or unusual fatigue or depression, consult your doctor without delay. Seek further help if the initial diagnosis and treatment fails to bring relief.

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Atari U.S. operation files for bankruptcy

The U.S. operations of iconic but long-troubled video game maker Atari have filed for bankruptcy in an effort to break free from their debt-laden French parent.

Atari Inc. and three of its affiliates filed petitions for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York late Sunday.

Its leaders hope to break the American business free from French parent Atari S.A. and in the next few months find a buyer to take the company private. They hope to grow a modest business focused on digital and mobile platforms, according to a knowledgeable person not authorized to discuss the matter privately.

Although the 31-year-old brand is still known worldwide for its pioneering role with video games such as "Pong" and "Asteroids," Atari has been mired in financial problems for decades. Since the early 2000s it has been closely tied to French company Infogrames, which changed its name to Atari S.A. in 2003 and in 2008 acquired all the gaming pioneer's American assets.

Chief Executive Jim Wilson has been with Atari Inc. since 2008, and in 2010 became CEO of the French parent. The New York-based executive has attempted to rebuild the company, which has just 40 employees in the U.S., by developing games for smartphones and the Web based on well-known properties -- among them a successful "greatest hits" compilation of arcade titles and an updated version of "Pong." He has also licensed the Atari logo for consumer products, a business that provides about 17% of the company's revenue.

There is evidence that the U.S. operation, which after the sale of other assets now makes up the bulk of Atari S.A.'s business, has been improving. The corporate parent has been profitable for the last two fiscal years, save for the effect of a money-losing French subsidiary, Eden Games, that has been up for sale. Before that, neither Atari S.A. nor Infogrames had been profitable for about a decade.

Still, its profits have been small ($11 million and $4 million, respectively, for the last two fiscal years) and revenue plummeted 34% in fiscal 2012 and 43% in fiscal 2011.

But the company's growth potential has been hampered by its near total reliance on London financial company BlueBay Asset Management for cash. A $28-million credit facility with BlueBay lapsed Dec. 31, leaving Atari without the resources to release games currently in the works, including a real-money gambling title titled "Atari Casino."

Efforts to recapitalize the corporation have been unsuccessful, in part because of its complex structure as essentially an American business with a French public stock listing.

Shares in Atari S.A. have dropped in value from more than 11 Euros in 2008 to less than 1 Euro recently.

Atari Inc. has secured several a commitment for $5.25 million dollars in debtor-in-possession financing to continue operations and release games. If Chapter 11 is successfully completed, the U.S. business could reemerge with its own resources and little or no debt to BlueBay.

It's not yet clear who might step up to buy Atari Inc., although Wilson will probably seek backers to help him keep control. It's also possible the company could be sold to another buyer, whole or in pieces.

Atari's remaining French businesses would probably seek legal protection to find a buyer or dissolve in that country.

Representatives for Atari S.A. and Bluebay did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

ALSO:

Atari reboot is underway

Digital projection has drive-in movie theaters reeling

Weinstein Co. asks toymakers to discontinue 'Django' action figures

Read More..

Some give up their guns as others rally against tighter laws

DALLAS — On one side of Young Street, volunteers from First Presbyterian Church of Dallas attempted to persuade gun owners to turn in their firearms. They would receive $50 to $200 — from donors — and know that their guns would be destroyed.

Across the downtown street, members of the Right Group — formed to compete with the church event — set up in a rented vacant lot to urge visitors to resell their firearms rather than destroy them. They had signs reading "We pay more" and "Gun rescue."

The dueling buybacks came on a day when thousands attended peaceful Guns Across America rallies at state capitals nationwide to oppose tighter gun laws. Separately, a Republican consulting firm had promoted Saturday as Gun Appreciation Day, three days after President Obama laid out a slew of proposals designed to restrict gun access in the wake of last month's Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

Among the hundreds who gathered in Sacramento in front of the Capitol was Christina Marotti, 33, of East Sacramento, who brought her daughters, ages 2 and 4. One had a sign saying, "My mom [hearts] guns." The other's said, "Arm my teacher."

"Wherever you take away the right to have guns, the crime rate increases," Marotti said. "As a mother, that scares me."

Some customers at the bustling Los Angeles Gun Club, a popular downtown shooting range, were unaware of the Gun Appreciation Day campaign.

"Yay for the 2nd Amendment, especially in the times we're in now," said Jonathan Wright, who was celebrating his upcoming 24th birthday with a group of friends.

Alex Katz, 25, who said he visited ranges a couple of times a month and described himself as pro-gun control, found the "appreciation day" concept "a little tasteless right now."

In Dallas, the church made the first buyback purchase: $50 for an old pistol from a pair of local women.

Scott Mankoff, 43, of Dallas waded through the rival group's crowd of about 100 — then headed to the church.

Mankoff, a retired artist, opposes new gun laws but came to turn in a spare .22 rifle to be destroyed because of the Newtown shootings.

"It's not about the money — it's about getting it off the street," he said.

For others, it was more about the money.

They showed up to sell .22 rifles, .40- and .45-caliber handguns, a Ruger M-77 rifle, a Chinese SKS rifle, some for $400. One 19-year-old showed up trying to sell his customized AR-15, worth about $1,000, knowing gun prices spiked after the Newtown shootings.

James Brown, 41, of Dallas initially went to the church buyback but got tired of waiting in the long line with his 13-year-old son.

When they crossed the street, they were applauded and led to the back of a pickup truck, where Brown's Rossi Ranch Hand .45 was auctioned for $300 and his .25 handgun for $200.

"I prefer to keep it in the family. If it's a good gun, and people can use it, why not sell it?" he said.

Brown said he didn't blame guns for the tragedy at Newtown.

"A gun can be your best friend. You get thugs on the street and you can protect your family," he said.

The church, a long-established landmark with a congregation of 1,600 that includes the mayor, has staged buybacks in the past, but it had never faced a counter-buyback. Some organizers were irritated to see people drawn to the other lot. The pastor's wife, Carol Adams, started toting a sign of her own and alerting police when she thought those across the street were becoming too aggressive.

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100 Years of U.S. Presidential Inaugurations

On March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office. Nearly 100 years later, Barack Obama will take that same oath.

The U.S. presidential inauguration looks a tad different than it did a century ago. In 1913, women still did not have the right to vote and Wilson rode to the Capitol in a horse-drawn carriage. And don’t expect to see President Obama wearing a silk top hat like Wilson either.

[More from Mashable: Watch Every President’s Inauguration Since Reagan in 36 Seconds]

Thanks to the digital archiving of government images, zipping through 100 years of presidential history doesn’t even require a trip to the library. We’ve compiled the most memorable photographs and videos taken at presidential inaugurations since 1913 for a scrollable history lesson.

[More from Mashable: The Letters Kids Wrote to Obama About Gun Control]

If you like your history well-aged, then there’s also a special gallery at the bottom featuring images from inaugurations that occurred before 1913 — including those of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ulysses S. Grant.

Woodrow Wilson, March 4, 1913

“President-elect Wilson and President Taft, standing side by side, laughing, at White House prior to Wilson’s inauguration ceremonies” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Woodrow Wilson, March 5, 1917

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“Telegram from Evangeline Booth, Commander of the Salvation Army” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Warren G. Harding, March 4, 1921

“Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Philander Knox and Joseph Cannon, in convertible” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Calvin Coolidge, March 4, 1925

“President Coolidge, Mrs. Coolidge and Senator Curtis on the way to the Capitol” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Herbert Hoover, March 4, 1929

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933

Inaugural Program, Inauguration. Franklin D. Roosevelt President of the United States. John N. Garner Vice President of the United States. Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 20, 1937

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“Ticket for the 1937 inauguration, the first to take place on January 20th.” Image courtesy of FDR Library

“Eleanor Roosevelt poses in her inaugural gown at the White House.” Image courtesy of FDR Library

Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 20, 1941

“Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt riding in an open car, returning to the White House from FDR’s third inauguration.” Image courtesy of FDR Library

Excerpt from home movie of FDR driving and walking with assistance to take the Oath of Office on January 20, 1941.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 20, 1945

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“Crowd stands in snow for inauguration” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Harry S. Truman, January 20, 1949

“Truman and Barkley during Inaugural parade.” Image courtesy of Truman Library

Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 20, 1953

“Ike responds to cheers of crowd.” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“With smiles and a wave, President Harry Truman and his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, leave White House in an open car on way to Capitol for inauguration ceremonies.” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 21, 1957

“President Eisenhower waves to the crowd” Image courtesy of Eisenhower Library

“Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon watching inaugural parade with Anne & David Eisenhower and Julie & Tricia Nixon” Image courtesy of Eisenhower Library

“Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower attend the Inaugural Ball with John and Barbara Eisenhower” Image courtesy of Eisenhower Library

John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961

Image courtesy of National Archives

“President-elect John F. Kennedy shakes hands with Father Richard J. Casey, the Pastor, after attending Mass at Holy Trinity Church … prior to inauguration ceremonies.” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Lyndon B. Johnson, January 20, 1965

“President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, Lynda Bird Johnson, and Luci Baines Johnson preparing for Inauguration ceremonies.” Image courtesy of LBJ Library

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“Secret service agents try to hold back the crowds that surge forward to watch President Johnson dance with the First Lady at the inaugural ball at the National Guard Armory” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Richard M. Nixon, January 20, 1969

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“President and Mrs. Nixon waving to the crowd from the Presidential limousine in the inaugural motorcade” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Richard M. Nixon, January 20, 1973

Image courtesy of White House

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Jimmy Carter, January 20, 1977

Image courtesy of Jimmy Carter Presidential Library

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Ronald Reagan, January 21, 1985

Image courtesy of Reagan Library

“1985 Inaugural Ball: President and Mrs. Reagan in National Air and Space Museum” Image courtesy of Smithsonian

George H. W. Bush, January 20, 1989

Image courtesy of Smithsonian

“1989 Presidential Inaugration, George H. W. Bush, Opening Ceremonies, at Lincoln Memorial” Image courtesy of Smithsonian

Bill Clinton, January 20, 1993

“While the Clintons and Gores watch, Chelsea Clinton rings a replica of the Liberty Bell during festivities kicking off the Clinton/Gore 1993 Inaugural events.” Image courtesy of Smithsonian

“George Bush and Bill Clinton shake hands just after the inaugural ceremonies at the U.S. Capitol.” Image courtesy of Smithsonian

Image courtesy of Smithsonian

Bill Clinton, January 20, 1997

Image courtesy of Smithsonian

Image courtesy of Smithsonian

George W. Bush, January 20, 2001

Image courtesy of White House

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

George W. Bush, January 20, 2005

Image courtesy of White House

Image courtesy of White House

Image courtesy of White House

Barack Obama, January 20, 2009

Image courtesy of Master Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo, U.S. Air Force

“President Barack Obama is given the Oath of Office for a second time by Chief Justice John G. Roberts” Image courtesy of Pete Souza/White House

“President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama share a private moment in a freight elevator at an Inaugural Ball” Image courtesy of Pete Souza/White House

“President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama ride in a golf cart at an Inaugural Ball” Image courtesy of Pete Souza/White House

BONUS: Pre-1913 Presidential Inaugurations

Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1861

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Original Batmobile from TV series sells for $4.2M

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.

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