Beverley Mitchell Blogs: My Husband Talks to My Baby Through My Belly Button

At 28 weeks along – Courtesy Beverley Mitchell

Please give a warm welcome to our newest celebrity blogger, Beverley Mitchell!

Best known for her role as Lucy Camden on the long-running drama 7th Heaven, the actress most recently played Kaitlin O’Malley on The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Mitchell, 32, and husband Michael Cameron have announced that they’re expecting their first child — a daughter! — in April.

You can find her on Facebook, WhoSay and Twitter @beverleymitchel.

In her latest blog, Mitchell admits that the first trimester wasn’t her favorite — but that the kicks of the second trimester more than made up for it.

(Also, is her husband the only one who speaks to the baby through their wife’s belly button?)

So I have to admit — at the beginning, I was not digging this pregnancy thing. I was truly struggling with the complete and utter loss of control of my body, mind and everything else. The first trimester — and even a good portion of the second trimester — was just, “Ehh.” I was tired. I was cranky. My already weird food aversions got even weirder. All in all, it was tougher than I thought it would be.

The hard part is when people ask you how you’re doing. You smile and say, “It’s all so wonderful” when really all I wanted to say was, “It is weird, my body feels foreign and who knows what’s happening in my head because of all the hormones?” But I smile and say how excited I am (and I truly am excited, I am just not loving this portion — I actually think it kind of sucks!) and carry on.

I find it rare for a pregnant woman to just say it like it is for fear of seeming ungrateful for the gift that is about to present itself, but let’s be honest — it is not all roses and rainbows!

Then come the kicks. The most beautiful thing about pregnancy is when you first start to feel your little human move. Honestly, it wiped away all the frustration from the previous months and instead holds me absolutely captivated by the simplest of things: belly watching. I often find myself lying down and just staring at my bump in complete awe as I watch my little angel move. It truly is remarkable; it is so hard to believe that there really is a little person in there.

I know this has been happening since the beginning of time, but until you feel it first-hand, it is truly one of the most incredible things. Every morning, Michael and I find ourselves lying in bed sharing the miracle that is her morning kicks. My husband talks to her and lays his hand on my belly. Funnily enough, she responds pretty much immediately — she has certainly grown to know who Dad is and rewards him with a fist pump on a regular basis.

It’s also quite a trip when I realize that this little human has a mind of her own. She jumps when startled, moves as she pleases and she is definitely taking on some likes and dislikes. For instance, Baby Girl loves chocolate — she practically does somersaults after my chocolate-chip cookie.

Baby also is not a fan of my current pants selection. (You see, I still haven’t brought myself to buy maternity pants. I’m already seven months along and don’t see the point in spending all that money for just a few months, but I digress.) Anyway, she definitely sends a message when she is feeling cramped and doesn’t like to sit for too long. She sends me right to my room to put on my favorite Bird & Vine sweatpants — they do not apply any pressure to the belly and she seems to be a fan, as am I.

We spent NYE in Colorado – Courtesy Beverley Mitchell

Needless to say, it has taken a few months and few phone calls from worried friends, but now I get it. Pregnancy is truly a miracle and I am utterly blessed and so madly in love with this little human already.

And watching my husband, who is so attentive and loving, rub my belly and speak to the baby makes my heart melt every time. He is already an incredible father and she isn’t even here yet! Isn’t it funny how men seem to think that your belly button is the direct line of communication to the baby? It honestly makes me laugh every time. It couldn’t be cuter see the man that you love speak into your belly button to tell the baby the plans for the day! Just pure unwavering love.

Now that I’m at 30 weeks, pregnancy has taken a new turn yet again. First frustration, then pure bliss and now as I embark on my third trimester, the true realization that baby will be here soon. Time is running out and in just three more months we will have our little bundle in our arms.

At the beginning, 40 weeks feels like a long time, then all of a sudden you’re where am I now and have no idea where the time has gone. Especially when you are the clever one who decided that an entire house renovation is a good idea after finding out you’re pregnant… I tend to go big — no small projects for this girl.

Lucky for me, I have the most patient and organized husband a girl can ask for. He has taken on this ginormous project I have laid in front of him (I can’t help with most of it because I am a bit off-balance with my growing bump) and there is no doubt that we will get it done just in time for Baby Girl to arrive!

So I’ll be sure to give you an update next time with the progress of the complete home renovation and the exciting adventure of planning the nursery. I have always had an idea of what I would want, but now that April is getting closer, it’s a bit overwhelming. There are so many cute choices! Can’t wait to get started, and don’t worry — I will definitely share the finished product.

Until then, don’t mind me — I’ll just be here staring at my belly in awe watching this precious little being kick and tumble. Leave me a comment below or send me a Tweet @beverleymitchel!

Best husband ever – Courtesy Beverley Mitchell

– Beverley Mitchell

More from Beverley’s PEOPLE.com blog series:

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.

In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.

The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.

Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.

Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.

In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.

Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.

Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.

The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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S&P 500 posts biggest monthly gain since October 2011

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged lower on Thursday on caution ahead of Friday's all-important jobs report, but the S&P 500 still posted its best monthly gain since October 2011.

The benchmark S&P 500 advanced 5.1 percent in January as investors cheered a compromise that temporarily postponed the impact of the "fiscal cliff" and fourth-quarter earnings were better than expected.

The S&P 500 registered its largest monthly advance since a rise of more than 6 percent in October 2011 and the best January showing since a 6.1 percent jump in 1997. For the month, the Dow gained 5.8 percent and the Nasdaq rose 4.1 percent.

Investors expect a pullback in equities after the recent gains, though they have bought on dips over the past four weeks. The largest daily decline on the S&P 500 so far in 2013 was Wednesday's 0.39 percent drop after data showed the economy contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012.

On Friday, the government is due to release January's employment figures at 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT). Economists polled by Reuters expect non-farm payrolls to show employers added 160,000 jobs compared with a rise of 155,000 in December. The unemployment rate is likely to hold steady at 7.8 percent.

A survey by payroll processing company ADP on Wednesday showed private sector employment rose higher than expected last month, but the government's measure of jobless benefits claims increased last week.

"It's the calm before the potential storm. The uncertainty about tomorrow's numbers comes from that fact that we had a decent ADP report but the weekly claims were not so great," said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said American incomes rose 2.6 percent last month, the biggest increase since December 2004.

"We could see an overly sensitive market to a bad number tomorrow, given that we've been up without a major correction, and that makes the market sensitive to the downside."

Friday will also bring reports on consumer confidence, U.S. manufacturing, construction spending and car sales.

Limiting losses on the Nasdaq composite index, Qualcomm gained 3.9 percent to $66.02 after the world's leading supplier of chips for cellphones beat analysts' expectations for quarterly profit and revenue and raised its targets for the year.

Facebook shares fell 0.8 percent to $30.98 after falling as low as $28.74 a day after the social network company said it doubled its mobile advertising revenue in the fourth quarter. However, growth trailed some of Wall Street's most aggressive estimates.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 49.84 points, or 0.36 percent, at 13,860.58. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 3.85 points, or 0.26 percent, at 1,498.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 0.18 points, or 0.01 percent, at 3,142.13.

UPS shares lost 2.4 percent to $79.29 after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that were below analysts' estimates on Thursday and forecasting weaker-than-expected profit for 2013.

Constellation Brands shares tumbled 17.4 percent to $32.36 after the U.S. Justice Department moved to stop Anheuser-Busch InBev from buying the half of Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo that it does not already own. Constellation would have distributed Corona beer in the United States if the transaction had been approved.

Thomson Reuters data through Thursday morning shows that of the 231 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings this season, 69.3 percent have exceeded expectations, a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.

Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings rose 3.7 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. That's above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season but well below a 9.9 percent profit growth forecast on October 1.

(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)

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Metropolitan Museum Collaborates With Chinese Museum

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CHINA, which opened two years ago to much fanfare as the Communist Party unveiled this mammoth showpiece to project its cultural ambitions, has now taken another step in trying to establish its legitimacy in the art world.

The museum, reinvented from past incarnations and criticized by some for its party-approved depictions of modern Chinese history, on Friday will open an exhibition of nature-theme works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is the first large-scale exhibition that the National Museum has put on with the Met, and it is being hailed by both sides as a major expression of the growing cultural exchange between China and the United States.

“Never before has an exhibition of this scope and theme, drawn entirely from the Met’s holdings, traveled to China,” Thomas Campbell, the Met’s director, said at a news conference here on Thursday.

The exhibition, “Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art,” aims to introduce to Chinese viewers the breadth and depth of the Met’s vast collection. Drawn from the galleries of 12 of the 17 curatorial departments at the Met, the 130 pieces represent an assortment of textures, mediums and time periods. The objects include tapestries, lacquerware and oil paintings, and they date as far back as the third millennium B.C. It is scheduled to run through May 9.

The exhibitors aimed to recreate a quintessential Met experience for Chinese visitors to the National Museum, which is on the east side of Tiananmen Square at the heart of this ancient capital. It begins on the second floor, where viewers enter the exhibition via a model of the Met’s neo-Classical facade. Highlights include masterpiece works by major artists like Rembrandt, Monet and Hopper. There are two paintings by van Gogh, who is loved by many Chinese and whose “Cypresses” appears on the cover of the exhibition’s comprehensive Mandarin catalog.

“I chose the theme of nature as a very broad-based theme from which we could pull from all over our collection,” said Peter Barnet, the exhibition creator and organizer, as well as the medieval art curator at the Met.

“By bringing these objects together I think we can see things in a way that one cannot even when you visit New York,” he added.

Unusual juxtapositions of pieces are found throughout the exhibition, like that of a Babylonian frog-shaped weight from 2000 B.C. placed opposite a 19th-century Monet painting of coastline cliffs. The exhibition takes a broad interpretation of the meaning of Western art, with pieces ranging from a landscape painting of American mountains by Frederic Church to a falcon statuette from ancient Egypt that depicts the god Horus and dates to around 360 B.C.

The Met show is the latest in a series of international exhibitions hosted by the National Museum. In less than two years since it opened after its renovation the museum — the largest in the world under one roof at two million square feet — has featured a number of exhibitions from prominent museums, including the Uffizi Gallery, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

“The team we have here at the National Museum is young just like the museum itself is young,” Chen Lusheng, deputy director of the National Museum of China, said. “So we are very willing and open to learn from the varied experience of well-known museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum.”

But whether the National Museum has what it takes to propel itself into the top ranks of the world’s museums is unclear.

“Right now I think that the National Museum may become like the National Concert Hall, which has become a routine stop on international tours,” said Alfreda Murck, a Chinese-art historian living in Beijing, referring to the striking dome-shaped performance space west of Tiananmen Square. “They need more staff, but they have been doing a brilliant job with what they have.”

Many liberal Chinese and Western critics have raised questions about whether the museum, which they deride as a centerpiece for the Communist Party’s propaganda efforts, can or should be accepted in a field that places strong emphasis on the integrity of an exhibition’s narrative. A central part of the museum’s permanent exhibition is a historical showcase of modern China called “The Road to Rejuvenation,” which glorifies Communist China while avoiding accurate depictions of the era. For example references to the Cultural Revolution are almost entirely omitted.

Some might see the Metropolitan Museum’s partnership with the National Museum as lending legitimacy to an institution designed for the dissemination of party propaganda.

“I suppose the Met’s very presence does legitimize the propaganda to a degree,” Ms. Murck said. “But it’s also good for the Met because it gives them a high profile.”

Mr. Campbell said collaborating with the Chinese museum seemed natural since the Met had lent some of its pieces to an exhibition in the Shanghai Museum. “We see this as an opportunity — a central space in Beijing to share the treasures of the Metropolitan Museum with a broad Chinese audience,” he said. “I’m sure in the future we will have other collaborations as well.”

Edward Wong contributed reporting.

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Are Weak Wii U Sales a Bellwether of Shifting Game Demographics?

Nintendo expects to sell fewer Wii U and 3DS units than originally claimed, according to reports this morning. The company says it sold three million Wii U units through December, but slashed its forecast of 5.5 million Wii U units sold by the end of March to just four million in all. On the Wii U software side, Nintendo is now forecasting 16 million units in the same timeframe, a number that’s down by roughly a third from original expectations.

The 3DS takes a similar hit in the standings: down from 17.5 million units predicted through March to just 15 million units and a commensurate drop in 3DS software sales.

(MORE: Apple to Sell 128GB iPad Starting Next Tuesday)

You can look at this any number of ways. From a numbers standpoint, there’s no doubt that the Wii U lags behind its predecessor in raw sales when you contrast launch windows. But the Wii arrived at just the right time: It was the world’s first fully motion-control-driven game system — a system that went on to capture the imaginations of consumers who’d never really engaged with a game console before. Whatever you thought of the Wii, however much you actually played it in the years that followed, it did more to popularize gaming as a mainstream pastime than any gaming-related device in history.

The Wii U, by contrast, is an evolutionary step forward designed to appeal more to traditional gamers. Though even lacking the Wii’s novelty, the Wii U GamePad is a far more intrepid technological concoction than, say, either Microsoft or Sony’s imitative motion-control approaches. And suggestions that Nintendo’s just mining Apple territory with the Wii U’s tablet-style controller seem shortsighted: With its two-screen dynamic and hybrid haptic/deterministic controls, the Wii U GamePad couldn’t be less like an iPad. Or, put another way, the Wii U is as much a riff on the iPad as the iPad is just a riff on Nintendo’s original dual-screen DS — a handheld that predated Apple’s tablet by six years.

Another explanation for the Wii U’s slow start could be pricing. The Wii U hardly seems a bargain by Nintendo’s own standards. The GameCube sold for $ 200 at rollout in 2001 (no pack-in), while the Wii cost $ 250 at launch and included a game. The Wii U, by comparison, starts at $ 300 for the stripped down model sans game, then jumps $ 50 if you want a decent amount of storage and something to play — a pack-in (Nintendoland) that frankly lacks the distinctive “so that’s what all the hype’s about” flair of Wii Sports.

But let’s cut to the chase: Whither mobile gaming? Isn’t the Wii U’s sluggish start because, well, hello smartphones and tablets? Not so fast: The data we have on this is inconclusive and potentially misleading.

According to NPD research, of the roughly 212 million people playing games in the United States last year, mobile gamers only slightly outranked core gamers. The number of core gamers shrank slightly in 2012 (NPD attributes this in part to the extra-long life cycle of the current consoles) while the number of mobile gamers was up a tick, it’s true. But how many people bought a Wii U because they needed a phone? An Xbox 360 to sync with their computer’s day-planner? Conversely, how many people bought a smartphone or tablet because all they wanted was to play games like Angry Birds or Temple Run 2?

(MORE: Nintendo Wii U Review: A Tale of Two Screens)

How many mobile gamers are buying souped up phones or tablets just to play games, in other words? Anyone? Or is the mobile gaming angle more of a perk, like the Philips head or mini-scissors in a Swiss Army Knife?

I’m not saying mobile gaming isn’t big — because it is. But just as sales of a game like Wii Sports were deceptively high because you couldn’t not buy it when picking up a Wii, talking about the prevalence of mobile gaming in a pre-fab market gets tricky. Is playing games on phones or tablets siphoning gamers from PCs and consoles? It’s impossible to say at this point because we lack the data.

Nintendo can’t be all things to all people any more than Apple’s been to gamers with its iPhone or iPad. If I want to play a game like Ni No Kuni or Guild Wars 2 or Devil May Cry, I wouldn’t look to my smartphone or tablet. Likewise, I have no interest in playing stuff like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja or Cut the Rope – the same old increasingly tiresome mobile top-sellers for years — on a console or PC. I don’t want to sell the mobile/tablet gaming market short, not with titles like Battle of the Bulge and Radiant Defense or others like Space Hulk, Shadowrun Returns and Warhammer Quest on the horizon, but concluding that the Wii U or 3DS’s slightly-lower-than-expected sales can be attributed to a shift in gamer tastes — from core to mobile/tablet gaming — oversimplifies things in my view.

What we may be looking at in these reduced Nintendo sales numbers — and what I’d expect to continue to see with the launch of new systems from Microsoft and Sony — is segmentation of a market that experienced a kind of cross-demographic boom in the mid-to-late 2000s. Before iPhones and iPads, casual gamers had the PC. The Wii was essentially a way to bring that sort of gamer into the living room. But we’d be torturing indulgence to claim the shift that occurred after 2006 was tantamount to a conversion. Casual gamers, if you’ll pardon that label, are by definition uncommitted gamers. And with buyers already spending considerably more for something like the iPad (and considerably less on that platform for games), would it be such a surprise to find a much pickier audience for a system like the Wii U in 2013 than existed in 2006?

I have no idea what sorts of devices the kind of more core-oriented games I like to play are going to live on a decade from now. All it’d take, for instance, is for Apple to flip a few switches and double down on gaming to shake up the market in ways that could make what happened with the Wii seem tame. But that won’t mean the demise of traditional gamers any more than the rise of touchscreens entails the downfall of deterministic interfaces like keyboards, mice and gamepads. Core gamers aren’t this tiny minority on the verge of extinction, after all.

Far from it, in fact: Revenue contributions from core gamers still outpace all others, reports NPD, which calls the core gaming demographic “vital to the future of the industry.” From a financial standpoint, in other words, whatever the reasons for the Wii U’s lower-than-expected sales, the ball remains clearly in core gaming’s court.

MORE: Murfie Converts Your CDs into a Lossless Online Library, Lets You Sell and Trade Your Music

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Selena Gomez Is 'Really Good' Post-Justin Bieber Split

By Dahvi Shira

01/30/2013 at 06:30 PM EST

Girls just wanna have fun – especially single ones!

Selena Gomez, 20, isn't following in the footsteps of her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber, who says he's "not in the happiest place" since the two parted ways.

"I've been recording, having a lot of fun with my girlfriends, having a good time," she tells E! Online.

Although she recently sang a heartfelt rendition of Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River," Gomez remained mum on the types of songs her upcoming album will include. She said simply, "I'm having a lot of fun expressing everything that I'm feeling."

One thing is for sure – she's definitely breaking away from her Disney image.

"I've been telling people I'm definitely a little bit more sassy now," she said. "I'm a little bit more mouthy."

Aside from edgier tunes, the starlet is excited for people to see her risqué role in Spring Breakers.

"I think people are used to seeing me in a certain way," she said. "I think it will be a little shocking for people, but in a good way. The movie as a whole is a lot to take in, and I've definitely expressed that to my younger fans."

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths

Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.

All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.

Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting from real solutions to the nation's weight problems.

"The evidence is what matters," and many feel-good ideas repeated by well-meaning health experts just don't have it, said the lead author, David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report's authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine print in the journal.

"It raises questions about what the purpose of this paper is" and whether it's aimed at promoting drugs, meal replacement products and bariatric surgery as solutions, said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies.

"The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices," such as limits on soda sizes and marketing junk food to children, she said. Some of the myths they cite are "straw men" issues, she said.

But some are pretty interesting.

Sex, for instance. Not that people do it to try to lose weight, but claims that it burns 100 to 300 calories are common, Allison said. Yet the only study that scientifically measured the energy output found that sex lasted six minutes on average — "disappointing, isn't it?" — and burned a mere 21 calories, about as much as walking, he said.

That's for a man. The study was done in 1984 and didn't measure the women's experience.

Among the other myths or assumptions the authors cite, based on their review of the most rigorous studies on each topic:

—Small changes in diet or exercise lead to large, long-term weight changes. Fact: The body adapts to changes, so small steps to cut calories don't have the same effect over time, studies suggest. At least one outside expert agrees with the authors that the "small changes" concept is based on an "oversimplified" 3,500-calorie rule, that adding or cutting that many calories alters weight by one pound.

—School gym classes have a big impact on kids' weight. Fact: Classes typically are not long, often or intense enough to make much difference.

—Losing a lot of weight quickly is worse than losing a little slowly over the long term. Fact: Although many dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts.

—Snacking leads to weight gain. Fact: No high quality studies support that, the authors say.

—Regularly eating breakfast helps prevent obesity. Fact: Two studies found no effect on weight and one suggested that the effect depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not.

—Setting overly ambitious goals leads to frustration and less weight loss. Fact: Some studies suggest people do better with high goals.

Some things may not have the strongest evidence for preventing obesity but are good for other reasons, such as breastfeeding and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, the authors write. And exercise helps prevent a host of health problems regardless of whether it helps a person shed weight.

"I agree with most of the points" except the authors' conclusions that meal replacement products and diet drugs work for battling obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, a prominent obesity research with Boston Children's Hospital who has no industry ties. Most weight-loss drugs sold over the last century had to be recalled because of serious side effects, so "there's much more evidence of failure than success," he said.

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Wall Street ends lower after Fed statement

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said in its latest statement that economic growth had stalled but indicated the pullback was likely temporary.

Stocks were flat for most of the session prior to the Fed statement at the end of a two-day policy meeting. The Fed repeated its pledge to keep purchasing securities until employment improves substantially.

The statement followed data that showed the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter. Economists stressed that the 0.1 percent contraction, caused partly by a plunge in government spending and lower business inventories, is not an indicator of recession.

"The unemployment rate is likely to fall below 6.5 percent next year, so the Fed may be raising interest rates as soon as mid-2014. The fiscal drag from the tax increases will be offset this quarter by rebuilding post-Sandy, so real GDP growth should still come in at 2 percent," said Kurt Karl, chief economist at Swiss Re.

The S&P 500 held above 1,500, seen by technical analysts as an inflection point that will determine the overall direction in the near term. The index is on track to post its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997.

"This is a very modest pullback after a steep run," said Paul Zemsky, head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management in New York.

"It is too soon for the Fed to start talking about the end of (their bond buying program). The economy needs stimulus to sustain this recovery."

Chesapeake Energy rose 6 percent to $20.11 a day after it said Aubrey McClendon would step down as chief executive. The company has had a tumultuous year in which a series of Reuters investigations triggered civil and criminal probes of the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer.

After the bell, shares of Facebook Inc fell 5.9 percent to $29.40 following the company's earnings announcement. Facebook said its revenue in the fourth quarter grew 40 percent year-on-year to $1.585 billion.

Both Boeing Co and Amazon.com shares gained after earnings beat expectations, continuing a trend this quarter of high-profile names advancing after results.

Amazon rose 4.8 percent to $272.76 and Boeing rose 1.3 percent to $74.59.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 44.00 points, or 0.32 percent, at 13,910.42. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 5.88 points, or 0.39 percent, at 1,501.96. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 11.35 points, or 0.36 percent, at 3,142.31.

Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 192 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings this season, 68.8 percent have been above analyst expectations, which is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.

Research In Motion shares fell 12 percent to $13.78 after the company, which is changing its name to BlackBerry, unveiled a long-delayed line of smartphones in hopes of a comeback into a market it once dominated.

Giving the market extra support, private sector employment topped forecasts with the ADP National Employment report showing 192,000 jobs were added in January, higher than the 165,000 expectation.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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The Lede Blog: Germans Press Morsi on Slurs Against Jews as Berlin Marks Somber Anniversary

During a visit to Germany that coincided with somber commemorations of Hitler’s rise to power eight decades ago on Wednesday, Egypt’s president was pressed several times to explain anti-Semitic comments he made in 2010, when he called Israelis “bloodsuckers” and “the descendants of apes and pigs.”

As my colleagues Melissa Eddy and Nicholas Kulish report, President Mohamed Morsi insisted that his comments had been taken out of context, when asked about them by a German reporter at a joint news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. “I am not against Judaism as a religion,” he replied. “I am not against Jews practicing their religion. I was talking about anybody practicing any religion who spills blood or attacks innocent people — civilians. I criticize such behavior.”

Before her meeting with the Egyptian president, Ms. Merkel spoke at the opening of a new exhibition on the Nazi era at the Topography of Terror Museum and urged Germans to remember that Hitler was appointed chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, with popular support.

A video report from the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle on commemorations of Hitler’s rise to power on Jan. 30, 1933.

Speaking at the museum, which is on the site of the former Gestapo and SS headquarters, Ms. Merkel said, “There is no other way to say this: the rise of the National Socialists was made possible because the elite and other groups within German society helped and, most importantly, because most Germans at least tolerated their rise.”

Later in the day, when Mr. Morsi sat down for a discussion of the upheaval in the Arab world organized by the Körber Foundation, he was again reminded of how seriously Germans take his inflammatory remarks about Zionists and Jews. As video of the event shows, the first question put to the Egyptian president by Georg Mascolo, editor in chief of Der Spiegel, concerned “this infamous video” of Mr. Morsi calling Jews “bloodsuckers.” In response to Mr. Mascolo’s question, “did you really say that or not?,” Mr. Morsi first complained that he had already answered the question “five times today” and reiterated his claim that the comments needed to be put into context.

He then went on to essentially defend his rhetorical attacks on Jews and Zionists as an appropriate response to the killing of civilians in Gaza by Israel’s military during the offensive that preceded his remarks in 2010. “The bloodshed of innocent people is universally condemned, now and in the future. The colonizing of the land of others is to be condemned as unacceptable, and the right to self-defense is also guaranteed” as a human right, Mr. Morsi said.

Mr. Mascolo then asked about a report in his magazine this week, in which a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood said that Mr. Morsi, in his previous role as a senior leader of the organization, was ultimately responsible for the publication of even more inflammatory remarks in articles on the society’s Web site, Ikhwan Online. In one such article from 2010 that was discovered last week by an anti-Islamist American Web site, a Brotherhood official called the Holocaust a myth fabricated by American intelligence agents and “the biggest scam in modern history.”

That Spiegel report was based on an interview with Abdel-Jalil el-Sharnoubi, a former editor of the Brotherhood’s Web site, who said that Mr. Morsi had used the same words about Zionists in 2004 and had never objected to hate speech against Jews on the site.

Sharnoubi wasn’t surprised by the Morsi hate video. “Agitation against the Israelis is in keeping with the way Morsi thinks. For the Morsi I know, any cooperation with Israel is a serious sin, a crime.” Morsi’s choice of words is also nothing new, says Sharnoubi. As proof, he opens his black laptop and shows us evidence of the former Muslim Brotherhood member’s true sentiments.

Indeed, the video gaffes do not appear to be a one-time occurrence. In 2004 Morsi, then a member of the Egyptian parliament, allegedly raged against the “descendants of apes and pigs,” saying that there could be “no peace” with them. The remarks were made at a time when Israeli soldiers had accidentally shot and killed three Egyptian police officers. The source of the quote can hardly be suspected of incorrectly quoting fellow Brotherhood members: Ikhwan Online, the Islamist organization’s website.

Few people are as familiar with the contents of that website as Sharnoubi, who was its editor-in-chief until 2011. The current president became the general inspector of the organization in 2007, says Sharnoubi. In this capacity, Morsi would have been partly responsible for the anti-Jewish propaganda on the website, which featured the “banner of jihad” at the time and saw “Jews and Zionists as archenemies.”

Without pointing to any specific factual errors, Mr. Morsi claimed that the Spiegel article was inaccurate and reiterated that he was “not against Judaism or Jews,” but reserved the right to criticize Zionism in the strongest terms.

Mr. Morsi was also met in Berlin by protesters who objected to his government’s continued use of tear gas and bullets against demonstrators.

Demo gegen #Mursi in Berlin startet jetzt. You are not welcome here! http://t.co/pCyhgffz via @Pedam73 #mursiberlin #Ägypten

— Heike Hänsel (@HeikeHaensel) 30 Jan 13

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RIM faces its day of reckoning with BlackBerry 10 launch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The innovative line of BlackBerry smartphones that Research In Motion Ltd will formally unveil on Wednesday has already succeeded on one crucial count – getting RIM back in the conversation.

The new BlackBerry 10 has created a buzz among technology watchers and financial analysts, thanks to nifty features that may set it apart in an overcrowded smartphone market. RIM stock has almost tripled over the past four months on hopes the devices can restore RIM to sustained prosperity.

Reviewers like the browser speed and the intuitive keyboard on RIM’s new touchscreen. A feature called BlackBerry Balance, which keeps corporate and personal data separate, could help RIM rebuild its traditional base of big business customers.

It’s a welcome start for RIM, the smartphone pioneer that has teetered on the brink of irrelevance. But success will come only if consumer and business customers embrace the new technology in the weeks and months after CEO Thorsten Heins takes the wraps off the phone at a glitzy New York launch.

RIM is gambling its survival on the much-delayed BlackBerry 10, hoping to claw its way back into an industry now dominated by Apple Inc’s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s Galaxy.

The timing may be just right. The new phone hits the market just as the iPhone’s remarkable run is showing some signs of slowing.

“I really do believe that the consumer market as a whole is ready for something new,” said Kevin Burden, head of mobility at Strategy Analytics, an industry consulting firm.

“I have to believe that there is some level of user fatigue that plays into the longevity of some of these platforms,” he added, referring to Google Inc’s Android and Apple’s iOS, which are both more than five years old. “RIM is probably timing it right.”

U.S. BATTLEGROUND

To be sure, RIM shares are about 90 percent below a 2008 peak near $ 150 a share and the company still has a tough fight ahead. It may take investors some time to determine whether RIM’s big gamble on an untested technology has paid off.

RIM’s market share collapsed in the three years ahead of the launch. Strategy Analytics data shows RIM’s global share of the smartphone market was about 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter, down from around 20 percent just three years ago.

While RIM has done well in developing markets, it has hemorrhaged customers in the United States, a market that sets technology trends. RIM’s fourth-quarter North American market share fell to 2 percent from more than 40 percent three years ago.

Acknowledging that it is crucial to win back U.S. customers, RIM will hold its main BlackBerry 10 launch in New York, although there are simultaneous events in six cities across the globe.

Underscoring the point, RIM is splurging on a costly Super Bowl ad to tout its new devices and attempt to brighten its faded image in the U.S. market.

BIG QUESTIONS

Over 150 carriers already have tested the new devices and RIM has said the launch will be the largest ever global rollout of a new platform.

The two big questions the market expects RIM to answer on Wednesday are when the phones – a full touch-screen device and one with a traditional physical keyboard – will hit store shelves, and how much they will cost.

The company is expected to unveil specifics on pricing and availability in different regions at the launch.

“The Street is expecting mid-February for a launch. Anything earlier than that is a positive, anything later will be viewed as negative,” said RBC Dominion Securities analyst Paul Treiber.

That said, there are few mysteries to be cleared up on Wednesday. Leaked photos and specifications of the devices have been splashed across the tech world.

“We’ve had the beta devices for a few weeks and in terms of the devices, they are right up there with the competition,” said Andy Ambrozic, head of IT Infrastructure at Ricoh Canada. “The Balance feature is crucial for corporations that are becoming increasingly concerned about data security.”

Scotiabank analyst Gus Papageorgiou feels RIM has a good chance of a comeback. He says the new BB10 operating system outpaces Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s market-leading Android system in every category except app selection and content.

“There is, we believe, huge potential for the platform and devices to bring people back to BlackBerry or draw entirely new users into the platform,” said Papageorgiou, who has a “sector outperform” rating on the stock.

BlackBerry 10 will not be able to compete on the number of apps, but RIM says its operating system will have the largest application library for any new platform at launch, with more than 70,000 apps available.

It has already gathered big-name music and video partners for its BlackBerry 10 storefront, including Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures, Universal Music and Warner Music Group.

Wireless carriers already report strong demand for the new devices. Rogers Communications Inc, Canada’s top wireless carrier and the first globally to take pre-orders for the new devices, said orders are already in the thousands.

“Our customers are excited,” said John Boynton, Rogers’ head of marketing, adding that some users are holding off on upgrades in anticipation of the BB10 launch.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Frank McGurty, Janet Guttsman and Andre Grenon)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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