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NEWARK, N.J. — Mikie Sherrill, the four-term congresswoman and former Navy helicopter pilot who cast her November election in New Jersey as a victory over President Trump’s vision for the country, was inaugurated Tuesday as the state’s 57th governor.

Sherrill, 54, is just the second woman to lead the state of nearly 9.5 million people and is the first person from a major political party to be elected to a third straight term in more than six decades, succeeding two-term Democrat Phil Murphy.

She swept to victory over her Trump-endorsed GOP rival in part by pinning blame for high costs on the president’s tariffs and promising that her first action once in office would be to order a freeze on skyrocketing utility rates.

Sherrill spoke about New Jersey’s role in the Revolutionary War and quoted from the Declaration of Independence’s grievances against the king, drawing a comparison to Trump.

“We see a president illegally usurping power,” she said. “He has unconstitutionally enacted a tariff regime to make billions for himself and his family, while everyone else sees costs go higher and higher. Here, we demand people in public service actually serve the public.”

During her speech she also signed two executive orders, one declaring a freeze on utility rates, which have been rising sharply, and another aimed at establishing new sources of electricity production incident solar and nuclear.

Sherrill took the oath of office on a copy of the Constitution owned by the state’s first governor in Newark, the state’s largest city whose voters made up a key component of her winning coalition.

It is a departure from previous inaugurations, which have included military artillery salutes along the Delaware River outside the statehouse in Trenton. Tuesday’s ceremony included a similar gun salute and a military helicopter flyover.

She is being sworn in as her former congressional colleague Abigail Spanberger comes into office in as Virginia’s governor after a similar double-digit victory over her Republican opponent and as the midterm elections start to come into sharper focus. Democrats are hopeful the president will be a drag on GOP candidates in key races across the country.

Sherrill takes over from Murphy, a former Obama administration ambassador and Wall Street finance executive, who delivered on a number of progressive promises over eight years, including raising taxes on income over $1 million, boosting the minimum wage, expanding early childhood education and fully funding the state workers’ pension, which was underfunded for years before he took over.

Murphy said Friday in his final news conference that he has been in regular touch with Sherrill about the transition. He summed up his two terms as governor as having lived up to promises he made on the campaign trail.

“We were who we said would be,” Murphy said. “We didn’t campaign on my thesis and pull a fast one.”

He is also passing along a state budget that has swelled over the years, raising the prospect of potential shortfalls if state revenues dip as well as an unfunded promise to continue a property tax relief program begun in the governor’s second term.

Sherrill will have a Democrat-led Legislature to work with, one of more than a dozen where the party controls the legislature and governorship.

The first woman to be governor of New Jersey is Christine Todd Whitman, a two-term Republican who went on to serve as George W. Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator.

New Jersey’s governorship has often switched back and forth between the parties. The last time the same party prevailed in a third straight gubernatorial election was in 1961.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

Jan. 20 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1265, Britain’s House of Commons, which became a model for parliamentary bodies, met for the first time.

In 1778, James Cook became the first European to step foot on the Hawaiian Islands. He called them the Sandwich Islands.

In 1783, U.S. and British representatives signed a preliminary “Cessation of Hostilities,” which ended the fighting in the Revolutionary War.

In 1801, John Marshall was appointed chief justice of the United States.

In 1892, the first officially recognized basketball game was played at the YMCA gym in Springfield, Mass.

In 1936, Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, was formally proclaimed King Edward VIII.

In 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the oath of office for his second term as president. It was the first Inauguration Day held on January 20, a result of the 20th Amendment.

In 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to four terms in office, was inaugurated to his final term. FDR died three months later and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman.

File Photo courtesy of FDR Library

In 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy began his presidency with inauguration ceremonies on the newly renovated east front of the Capitol.

In 1981, 52 American hostages were released by Iran after 444 days in captivity.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan took the oath of office to become the 40th president of the United States.

In 1989, George H.W. Bush took the oath of office to become the 41st president of the United States.

In 1991, Iraq launched missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and paraded on television what Iraqi officials identified as seven captured allied airmen, including three Americans.

In 1993, Oscar-winning actress Audrey Hepburn died of cancer at her home in Switzerland. She was 63.

UPI File Photo

In 1993, Bill Clinton took the oath of office to become the 42nd president of the United States.

In 1996, Yasser Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Authority with 88 percent of the vote.

In 2001, George W. Bush took the oath of office to become the 43rd president of the United States.

In 2006, Lawrence Franklin, a former U.S. State Department analyst and Iran expert, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for passing classified information to Israel and two pro-Israeli lobbyists. The sentence was later reduced to probation and 10 months of home confinement.

In 2007, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., became the first former first lady to seek the U.S. presidency when she entered the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

In 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the United States’ 44th president and the nation’s first Black chief executive.

In 2010, senior Hamas Commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was assassinated in his hotel room while on a visit to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

In 2011, U.S. and local law officers arrested more than 100 suspected mobsters among seven families in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island on a variety of charges, including murder, racketeering and extortion.

In 2017, Donald Trump took the oath of office to become the 45th president of the United States, the first person to hold the title without prior military or political experience.

In 2021, Joe Biden took the oath of office to become the 46th president of the United States, while Kamala Harris became the first woman to be sworn in as vice president.

In 2025, Donald Trump took the oath of office for the second time, becoming the 47th president of the United States. After Grover Cleveland, he was the second U.S. president to have non-consecutive terms in the White House.

File Photo by Kenny Holston/UPI

Doumbouya was declared victor in the West African country’s first election since he led the 2021 military takeover.

Mamady Doumbouya, a general who led a 2021 military takeover in Guinea, has been sworn in as the West African country’s president.

The Saturday event, which took place in front of tens of thousands of supporters and several heads of state, came after Doumbaya was declared the victor in last month’s election.

The vote was the first since Doumbouya toppled President Alpha Conde four years ago.

Although he initially pledged not to run for president after seizing power, Doumbouya ultimately stood for election against eight other candidates. However, his most prominent opponents remained in exile, with the opposition calling for a boycott of the poll.

The West African country’s Supreme Court later said Doumbouya received 86.7 percent of the vote.

Dressed in a traditional gown, Doumbouya swore an oath to uphold the constitution – which had recently been altered to allow him to stand – during an hours-long ceremony at the General Lansana Conte Stadium on the outskirts of the capital, Conakry.

“I swear before God and before the people of Guinea, on my honour, to respect and faithfully enforce the Constitution, the laws, regulations and judicial decisions,” he said.

Heads of state from Rwanda, The Gambia, Senegal and other African countries joined the event, as did the vice presidents of China, Nigeria, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, as well as officials from France and the United States.

Assimi Goita, a general who has led neighbouring Mali since a military takeover in 2020, was also in attendance.

The election came after Guineans approved a new constitution in September that permitted members of the military leadership to run for office. It also lengthened presidential terms from five to seven years, setting a two-term limit.

Doumbouya has said the military takeover was justified due to alleged corruption and economic mismanagement under Conde, who in 2010 became the country’s first freely elected president since its 1958 independence.

During four years in power, the military dissolved state institutions and suspended the constitution, as it negotiated with regional bodies, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), over a return to democratic civilian government.

Doumbouya has cracked down on civil liberties, banned protests and targeted political opponents during his time as leader.

With about 52 percent of the population living in poverty, he has promised to tap the country’s vast natural resources, which include untapped iron ore deposits, as well as the world’s largest bauxite reserves.

Delcy Rodriguez, formerly Venezuela’s vice president, has been formally sworn in to lead the South American country following the abduction of Nicolas Maduro in a United States military operation.

On Monday, Rodriguez appeared before Venezuela’s National Assembly to take her oath of office.

Speaking before the legislative body, composed largely of government loyalists, Rodriguez reaffirmed her opposition to the military attack that led to the capture and removal of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

“I come with pain over the kidnapping of two heroes who are being held hostage: President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores,” Rodriguez, 56, told the assembly.

“I swear to work tirelessly to guarantee the peace, spiritual, economic and social tranquillity of our people.”

A former labour lawyer, Rodriguez has been serving as acting president since the early-morning attack that resulted in the abduction. Explosions were reported before dawn on Saturday in the capital, Caracas, as well as at nearby Venezuelan military bases and some civilian areas.

Monday’s swearing-in ceremony was overseen by Rodriguez’s brother – the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez – and Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, who held a copy of the Venezuelan Constitution.

Other members of Maduro’s inner circle, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino, were also in attendance.

The ceremony took place as Maduro, her predecessor and former boss, faced an arraignment proceeding in a New York City courthouse.

Federal prosecutors in the US have charged Maduro with four counts related to allegations he leveraged government powers to export thousands of tonnes of cocaine to North America.

The charges include narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, the illegal possession of machine guns and other destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess such guns and devices.

Maduro and his wife have pleaded not guilty to the charges, and their allies, including Rodriguez, have denounced the pair’s abduction as a violation of international law, as well as Venezuelan sovereignty.

In court on Monday, Maduro maintained he remained the rightful leader of Venezuela, saying, “I am still president.”

The administration of US President Donald Trump, however, has signalled that it plans to work with Rodriguez for the time being, though Trump himself warned that her tenure as president could be cut short, should she fail to abide by US demands.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine in a Sunday morning interview.

A day earlier, in a televised address announcing the attack, Trump had said his administration plans “to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition”.

On Air Force One on Sunday, as he flew back to Washington, DC, Trump doubled down on that statement.

“Don’t ask me who’s in charge, because I’ll give you an answer that will be very controversial. We’re in charge,” he told reporters.

He added that Rodriguez is “cooperating” and that, while he personally has not spoken to her, “we’re dealing with the people who just got sworn in”.

The Trump administration’s seeming willingness to allow Rodriguez, a former labour lawyer, to remain in charge has raised eyebrows.

Rodriguez, who served as vice president since 2018, is known to be a stalwart “chavista”: an adherent of the left-wing political movement founded by Maduro’s mentor, the late Hugo Chavez. She has held various ministerial roles under Maduro, including leading the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

But Trump’s allies in the Republican Party have argued that keeping Rodriguez in place is simply a practical reality.

“We don’t recognise Delcy Rodriguez as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela. We didn’t recognise Nicolas Maduro as a legitimate ruler,” Republican Senator Tom Cotton told CNN on Sunday.

“It is a fact that she and other indicted and sanctioned officials are in Venezuela. They have control over the military and security services. We have to deal with that fact. That does not make them a legitimate leader.”

While on Air Force One, Trump largely avoided committing to new elections in Venezuela, indicating he would instead focus on “fixing” the country and allowing US oil companies access to its vast petroleum reserves.

One reporter on the aeroplane asked, “How soon can an election take place?”

“Well, I think we’re looking more at getting it fixed, getting it ready first, because it’s a mess. The country is a mess,” Trump replied. “It’s been horribly run. The oil is just flowing at a very low level.”

He later added, “We’re going to run everything. We’re going to run it, fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time. But the main thing you have to fix: It’s a broken country. There’s no money.”

Recent presidential elections in Venezuela have been widely denounced as fraudulent, with Maduro claiming victory in each one.

The contested 2018 election, for example, led to the US briefly recognising opposition leader Juan Guaido as president, instead of Maduro.

Later, Maduro also claimed victory for a third term in office during the 2024 presidential race, despite election regularities.

The official vote tally was not released, and the opposition published documents that appeared to show that Maduro’s rival, Edmundo Gonzalez, had won. Protests erupted on Venezuela’s streets, and the nonprofit Human Rights Watch reported that more than 2,000 protesters were unlawfully detained, with at least 25 dead in apparent extrajudicial killings.

The opposition has largely boycotted legislative elections in Venezuela, denouncing them as rigged in favour of “chavistas”.

Monday’s swearing-in ceremony included the 283 members of the National Assembly elected last May. Few opposition candidates were among them.

Venezuelan state TV footage shows Vice President Delcy Rodriguez being formally sworn in as interim president in Caracas days after President Nicolas Maduro was abducted to face narco-terrorism charges in New York.

Jan. 5 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump issued a warning to Venezuela’s new president, Delcy Rodriguez, to “do what’s right,” or face a similar or worse fate than President Nicolas Maduro, who is in a U.S. prison after being seized by U.S. Special Forces over the weekend.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic, adding that regime change remained on the table, saying that it was preferable to the present state of affairs and the situation “can’t get any worse.”

Rodriguez, who was due to be sworn in as president in Caracas at 7 a.m. EST with the support of the country’s military and the supreme court, has said she is willing to cooperate with the United States after initially condemning the arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and demanding their release.

“We invite the U.S. government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation orientated towards shared development within the framework of international law,” she told her cabinet at her first meeting in charge on Sunday.

Trump said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken with Rodriguez and that she was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”

Amid conflicting messaging, it was unclear if that was Trump’s meaning when he said in his news conference Saturday announcing the military operation that the United States was “going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”

“We’re going to be running it with a group, and we’re going to make sure it’s run properly,” Trump said.

Rubio clarified Sunday that Trump was talking about exerting control from outside the country to bring about major policy shifts.

He said sanctions were one of the tools at the administration’s disposal to ensure the cooperation of the acting leadership, saying in an American broadcast TV interview that a blockade on Venezuela’s oil exports, being enforced by the U.S. military, would remain in place.

“We continue with that quarantine and we expect to see that there will be changes not just in the way the oil industry is run for the benefit of the people, but also so that they stop the drug trafficking, so that we no longer have these gang problems, so that they kick the [Columbian insurgent groups] FARC and the ELN out, and that they no longer cozy up to Hizballah and Iran in our own hemisphere,” Rubio said.

Meanwhile, Maduro was due to make his first appearance in Federal Court in New York later Monday, where he and Flores will be read a 25-page indictment accusing the pair of accumulating vast wealth from a narco-terrorism conspiracy.

They also face three related charges of cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

They are due to be transferred from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, which houses defendants accused of regular crimes, to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in White Plains, N.Y., to appear at 12 p.m. EST.

Zohran Mamdani has been sworn in as mayor of New York City, becoming the first Muslim and the youngest person in generations to take the oath of office in the United States’ biggest city.

Mamdani, a Democrat, was sworn in at a historic, decommissioned subway station in Manhattan just after midnight on Thursday, placing his hand on a Quran as he took his oath.

“This is truly the honour and the privilege of a lifetime,” Mamdani said.

The ceremony, administered by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a political ally, took place at the old City Hall station, one of the city’s original subway stops that is known for its stunning arched ceilings.

He will be sworn in again, in grander style, in a public ceremony at City Hall at 1pm (18:00GMT) by US Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the mayor’s political heroes. That will be followed by what the new administration is billing as a public block party on a stretch of Broadway known as the “Canyon of Heroes,” famous for its ticker-tape parades.

Mamdani now begins one of the most unrelenting jobs in US politics as one of the country’s most-watched politicians.

In addition to being the city’s first Muslim mayor, Mamdani is also its first of South Asian descent and the first to be born in Africa. At 34, Mamdani is also the city’s youngest mayor in generations.

In a campaign that helped make “affordability” a buzzword across the political spectrum, the democratic socialist promised to bring transformative change with policies intended to lower the cost of living in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

His platform included free child care, free buses, a rent freeze for about 1 million households, and a pilot of city-run grocery stores.

But he will also have to face other responsibilities: handling trash and snow and rats, while getting blamed for subway delays and potholes.

Tensions with Trump

Mamdani will also have to deal with Republican President Donald Trump.

During the mayoral race, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from the city if Mamdani won and mused about sending National Guard troops to the city and suggested that he should be deported.

He also called Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” in a social media post.

But Trump surprised supporters and foes alike by inviting the Democrat to the White House for what ended up being a cordial meeting in November.

“I want him to do a great job and will help him do a great job,” Trump said in the meeting, and the US president even came to Mamdani’s rescue as the two addressed reporters.

When a journalist asked Mamdani if he continued to view Trump as a fascist, the president stepped in.

“That’s OK. You can just say it. That’s easier,” Trump told Mamdani. “It’s easier than explaining it. I don’t mind.”

Still, tensions between the two leaders remain.

Following the meeting, Mamdani said he still believed Trump is a fascist.

“That’s something that I’ve said in the past; I say it today,” Mamdani told NBC News.

Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, the son of filmmaker Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani, an academic and author. His family moved to New York City when he was 7, with Mamdani growing up in a post-9/11 city where Muslims didn’t always feel welcome. He became an American citizen in 2018.

He worked on political campaigns for Democratic candidates in the city before he sought public office himself, winning a state Assembly seat in 2020 to represent a section of Queens.

Still, Mamdani had minimal name recognition when he launched his mayoral campaign late last year.

However, in the lead-up to the Democratic primary, he quickly rose in the polls with a message focused on lowering the cost of living.

Mamdani ultimately defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo twice: once to clinch the Democratic nomination in June, and a second time in the November election.

The incoming mayor will take his oath of office with two family editions of the Quran and a 19th century edition, symbolising New York City history, in the public ceremony on Friday.

Zohran Mamdani on Thursday became the first New York City mayor to be sworn in using a Quran.

The first Muslim and South Asian mayor of the United States’ biggest metropolis, Mamdani used his grandfather’s Quran and a 200-year-old copy on loan from the New York Public Library (NYPL) for the private swearing-in event held at a disused subway station under Times Square.

He then plans to use two copies of the Quran that belonged to his grandfather and grandmother for a daytime ceremony at New York City Hall on Friday.

The historic Quran, borrowed from the library, once belonged to Arturo Schomburg, a Black historian and writer who sold his collection of 4,000 books to the NYPL in 1926. His collection became the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Schomburg was born in Puerto Rico in the 1870s to parents of German and Afro-Caribbean descent. He later immigrated to New York and was a key player in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s – a period of intense cultural and intellectual flourishing within New York’s Black community.

The library praised Mamdani’s decision to use Schomburg’s Quran because of its connection to one of New York’s “most groundbreaking scholars and for its simple, functional qualities”.

The small size of the Quran and its black and red ink suggest it was designed for everyday use, the library said. The edition is neither signed nor dated, but its “minute naskh script and its binding, featuring a gilt-stamped medallion filled with a floral composition, suggest it was produced in Ottoman Syria in the 19th century”, the library added.

“The significance of this Quran extends far beyond the beauty of its pages,” said Hiba Abid, curator of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. “It is a Quran close to the people, not only because of its simple craftsmanship, but also because it is part of the collections of the nation’s largest public library system.”

Anthony W Marx, the library’s president and CEO, said the choice of Quran and its association with Schomburg “symbolises a greater story of inclusion, representation, and civic-mindedness”.

Mamdani is one of only a handful of US politicians to be sworn in with the Quran. New York does not require mayors to take the oath of office with their hand on a religious text, but many past mayors have used a copy of the Bible.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used a 100-year-old family Bible during one ceremony, while Mayor Bill de Blasio used a Bible that once belonged to US President Franklin D Roosevelt. Mamdani’s predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, also used a family Bible for his oath.

Mamdani’s faith and his background as a Ugandan-born American of South Asian descent were front and centre during his campaign, which focused on celebrating the diversity of New York.

In viral social media videos, Mamdani also spoke candidly about the effect of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the subsequent rise in Islamophobia in the US. Other videos featured the experiences of everyday New Yorkers, including many of its Muslim and immigrant communities.

Mamdani has also been a firm critic of Israel’s policies towards Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza.

Critics like New York Representative Elise Stefanik homed in on Mamdani’s background and left-wing politics as a Democratic Socialist, calling the incoming mayor a “jihadist Communist” and “terrorist” sympathiser.

Mamdani, however, pledged to never hide from his background during a campaign speech. “I will not change who I am, how I eat, or the faith that I’m proud to call my own,” he said during his campaign. “I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.”