FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Steve Beshear has been sworn-in for a second term as Kentucky governor in a midnight state Capitol ceremony a little more than one month after overwhelmingly winning re-election.

Beshear was surrounded by his family, closest friends and advisers as he took Kentucky's traditional and archaic constitutional oath. The pledge requires him to swear that he has never fought a duel with deadly weapons, a holdover from Kentucky's frontier days that always draws modern-day snickers.

Newly elected Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson, formerly mayor of Louisville, was being sworn-in immediately after Beshear.

Beshear was re-elected Nov. 8 amid lingering economic uncertainty and widespread unemployment that political foes had hoped would be his undoing.

The a 67-year-old Democrat is only the third Kentucky governor to serve consecutive four-year terms.

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