NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s U.N. ambassador started her first day saying she’s prepared to “take names” of countries that oppose the U.S., as the new administration in the White House starts its overhaul of foreign policy.
The U.S. will “have the backs of our allies and make sure that our allies have our back as well,” Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters at the United Nations on Friday. “For those that don’t have our back, we’re taking names. We will make points to respond to that accordingly.”
Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, vowed to look at the U.N. with “fresh eyes” and to improve the global body, which has come under fire from Trump and Congress after the Security Council in December passed a resolution criticizing Israel’s settlements policy.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy stumbled in the fourth quarter, expanding at a disappointing 1.9 percent annual pace and making last year the weakest for growth since 2011, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
The figure for the October-through-December period was below analyst expectations and well off the 3.5 percent annual growth rate for the third quarter. But a sharp reversal in exports — down 4.3 percent after a 10 percent increase in the previous quarter — and slower pace of consumer spending growth in the fourth quarter offset an improvement in business investment.
The fourth-quarter data, the first of three official estimates, mean that the U.S. economy expanded just 1.6 percent for all of 2016. That was down from 2.6 percent the previous year and the worst performance since 2011.
WASHINGTON — Fast action on immigration policy, accusations of voter fraud, and renewed drive to build a wall at the Mexican border and a pipeline through the Dakotas hasn’t impressed voters surveyed by Quinnipiac University.
Only 36 percent approve of the job Donald Trump done so far, according to a poll released Thursday, the sixth day of his presidency. Thirty-seven percent expect he will be a better president than Barack Obama and 50 percent said he will be worse.
“Stumbling out of the blocks, President Donald Trump is considered a divider, not a uniter, flunking on honesty, empathy and level-headedness, while his predecessor sees his legacy burnished by better and better numbers every polling cycle,” said assistant poll director Tim Malloy.
The majority of those surveyed said he is strong and intelligent, but a majority also said he is not honest, he does not care about average Americans and he is not level-headed.
BOSTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she’ll vote against Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary.
The Massachusetts Democrat said Friday it’s “hard to imagine a less qualified or more dangerous person to be entrusted both with our country’s education policy and with a trillion-dollar student loan program.”
Warren says DeVos — an advocate for school choice, charter schools and school voucher programs — has demonstrated contempt for public education.
From Associated Press