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AP: Trump inauguration latest, more polls

Posted at 11:37 AM, Jan 17, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-17 11:37:10-05

(FOX 17 – Editor’s Note) – Several stories regarding the new presidential administration of President-elect Donald Trump are in the news today.  Here’s a collection from the Associated Press.

Putin says US administration trying to undermine Trump

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin is accusing the outgoing U.S. administration of trying to undermine President-elect Donald Trump by spreading fake allegations.

Putin, speaking at a news conference Tuesday, described a dossier on Trump as part of efforts by President Barack Obama’s administration to “undermine the legitimacy of the president-elect” despite his “convincing” victory.

He said some now want to “stage a Maidan in Washington,” in reference to the alleged U.S. role in organizing protests in the main square of the Ukrainian capital, which chased the nation’s Russia-friendly president from power in 2014.

Asked about a dossier alleging Trump’s sexual activities at a Moscow hotel, Putin dismissed it as “fake” and charged that people who ordered it are “worse than prostitutes.” Trump has rejected the allegations as “fake news” and “phony stuff.”

NEW: Trump to take oath with his Bible and Lincoln’s

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Presidential Inaugural Committee says Donald Trump will be sworn in as president Friday using two Bibles — his own and the Bible that Abraham Lincoln used at his first inauguration. The oath of office will be administered by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Committee chairman Tom Barrack says Trump “is humbled to place his hand on Bibles that hold special meaning both to his family and to our country.”

Trump’s Bible was presented to him by his mother upon his graduation from Sunday Church Primary School at First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, on June 12, 1955. The Bible is a revised standard version published by Thomas Nelson and Sons in New York in 1953 and is embossed with Trump’s name on the lower portion of the front cover.

The Lincoln Bible was purchased by William Thomas Carroll, clerk of the Supreme Court, and is bound in burgundy velvet with a gold-washed white metal rim along the edges of the covers. After Lincoln’s first inauguration in 1861, it was next used for President Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009 and again in 2013.

Trump shrugs at unpopularity in ‘rigged’ polls

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is shrugging off polls that show him with low approval ratings.

The president-elect tweeted early Tuesday, “The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before.”

Poll: Young Americans fear they will be worse off post-Trump

NEW YORK (AP) — A new GenForward poll shows that young Americans are more likely to expect they’ll be worse off than better off after four years of a Donald Trump presidency.

Young blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans are particularly concerned, while young whites are more evenly divided.

GenForward is a survey of adults age 18 to 30 by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The first-of-its-kind poll pays special attention to the voices of young adults of color, highlighting how race and ethnicity shape the opinions of a new generation.

Americans aged 18 to 30 are far more likely to think Trump will divide than unite the country, by a 60 percent to 19 percent margin.

UPDATE: DeVos tells Senate she will push for school choice

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican donor Betsy DeVos says she will push for school choice and advocate for “great” public schools if confirmed as education secretary.

DeVos’ confirmation hearing is set for later Tuesday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

DeVos is a prominent charter school supporter and conservative activist. In remarks released by the committee, she says “parents should be empowered to choose the learning environment that’s best for their individual children.” She says she will advance magnet, virtual, charter, home and religious schools.

Teachers’ unions have charged that DeVos intends to dismantle public education. Critics also have raised concerns of a possible conflict of interest, since DeVos has donated heavily to Republicans, including several of the Senate committee members.

Premiums would rise under 2016 GOP repeal bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress’ nonpartisan budget analyst says premiums would jump sharply and millions more people would be without health coverage under a bill Republicans passed last year eliminating President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

The Congressional Budget office says under that measure, premiums for people buying policies on the law’s online marketplaces would jump up to 25 percent in the first year after enactment. They’d about double by 2026.

It also says there’d be 18 million new uninsured people in the first year after enactment. That number would grow to 32 million by 2026.

Republicans have said they’re using last year’s bill as a starting point as they try to dismantle Obama’s law this year and replace it.

Last year’s measure did not include any replacement provisions.

Obama vetoed last year’s bill.

Iran says Trump’s talk on nuclear deal is ‘mainly slogans’

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s president has compared talk of renegotiating its nuclear accord to “converting a shirt back to cotton,” and says U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s talk of doing so is “mainly slogans.”

Trump has strongly criticized the deal struck with world powers, in which Iran agreed to curb its uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief, but has not said what he plans to do about the agreement.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani told reporters Tuesday that “renegotiation has no meaning at all.” He added that “Mr. Trump has so far made many remarks on the deal. These are mainly slogans. I do not see it likely that something happens in practice.”

The agreement also included Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. None have expressed interest in scrapping the agreement or restoring sanctions.