Comment on Obama pushes agenda in 'virtual' town hall

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON, Associated Press Donald Trump’s inauguration as the country’s 47th president was expected to be an extravagant break from tradition — before it got moved indoors due to cold weather. There will still be well-known performers, influential billionaires as guests and foreign heads of state. Unlike his first inauguration eight years ago, Trump will be welcomed back to office by business titans and global leaders, groups that often shunned him in his first term. Country music star Carrie Underwood will sing “America the Beautiful” before Trump is sworn in.

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump consulted privately with Republican senators Sunday before heading off to a series of events designed to celebrate his return to power and the “Make America Great Again” movement — despite deep national political divisions on the eve of his inauguration. The private meeting featured a breakfast at Blair House, the president’s official guest residence, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, and gave top GOP leaders a chance to lay last-minute plans barely 24 hours before Trump moves back into the White House. Meanwhile, Trump supporters, many arriving from around the country and decked out in their fanciest clothes, including fur coats, filled parties — both formal and informal — at hotels and restaurants close to the White House.

Sunrun, a publicly traded solar company, is dialing back its Colorado operations. The San Francisco-based firm is laying off approximately 100 people, the majority of whom work in an Arvada office, Sunrun spokesman Wyatt Semaneck said in an email. He added that represents about 1 percent of the company’s overall workforce. Sunrun also will not take on any new projects in the state, a sales representative told BusinessDen on Wednesday.

Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer?

A Fort Collins woman will undergo a surgery to prevent pregnancy. A Thornton couple has decided to embrace male birth control through a vasectomy. A mother in Evergreen plans to stock up on morning-after pills. And a transgender man in Colorado Springs worries about his access to testosterone. Although voters enshrined abortion access in the state’s constitution last fall, some Coloradans still feel uneasy about the permanency of reproductive health care and gender-affirming care under President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

With the presidential inauguration on Monday, the Trump administration is set to kick off a series of policy moves focused on, among many things, reducing government waste. It’s not surprising to see a renewed focus on our government’s and politicians’ extravagant spending, especially when some families struggle to put food on the table because of persistent inflation (which is arguably also a result of government action).