Incoming first lady Melania Trump wore a sky-blue cashmere jacket and mock turtleneck dress by Ralph Lauren on Inauguration Day.
Trump’s oldest daughter, Ivanka, chose white Oscar de la Renta and wore a tiny American flag pin, and Hillary Clinton showed up in an off-white Ralph Lauren pantsuit that harkened back to one she wore in July to accept the Democratic nomination for president. Her overcoat matched the ensemble. Tiffany Trump also opted for white and wore a double-breasted coat.
Obama had
bigger crowd
Far fewer people attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration Friday than his predecessor’s swearing-in eight years ago.
Photos of the National Mall from President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 show a teeming crowd stretching from the West Front of the U.S. Capitol all the way to the Washington Monument. Photos taken from the same position on Friday show large swaths of empty space on the Mall.
Thin crowds and semi-empty bleachers also dotted the inaugural parade route. Hotels across the District of Columbia reported vacancies, a rarity for an event as large as a presidential inauguration. And ridership on the Washington’s Metro system didn’t match that of recent inaugurations.
Concern, prayer
and bubbly
Raucous Champagne toasts in Russia, prayerful wishes from the Vatican, late-night yawns in China and defiant protests in central London: The world greeted Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th U.S. president with apprehension, anxiety and a smattering of glee.
In China, already roiled by Trump’s rhetoric over trade and Taiwan, the state clamped tight controls on media coverage of fresh utterances from the fledgling U.S. president. In France, Friday’s lead headline in the left-leaning daily Liberation — accompanied by a photo of Trump leaning into a stiff headwind — read: “Here we go!”
There were some pockets of pride. Sevnica, the Slovenian hometown of Trump’s third wife, Melania, declared three full days of celebration built around her husband’s inauguration. In the Mideast, the mayor of Jerusalem expressed inauguration-eve hopes for a speedy fulfillment of Trump’s controversial pledge to move the U.S. embassy to the contested city.
Free joints
given away
As hundreds of people lined up for free marijuana in Washington Friday, Kareem Walker could hardly believe the sight.
“They’re passing out weed, man, it’s crazy!” said Walker, a New Yorker, who came to the marijuana giveaway to sell T-shirts that bore a catchy phrase in honor of the day: “When they go low, we get high.”
Supporters of marijuana legalization handed out more than 8,000 joints to a festive crowd hours before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, hoping to persuade him to join their cause.
While organizers originally planned to distribute 4,200 joints, they said they nearly doubled their goal.
.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
