Here's what's happening across the United States and around the world today.
Beachside memorials and prayers across Asia mark 10th anniversary of Indian Ocean tsunami
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) - Crying onlookers took part in beachside memorials and religious services across Asia on Friday to mark the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami that left more than a quarter million people dead in one of modern history's worst natural disasters.
The devastating Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami struck a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean rim, killing 230,000 people. It eradicated entire coastal communities, decimated families and crashed over tourist-filled beaches the morning after Christmas. Survivors waded through a horror show of corpse-filled waters.
As part of Friday's solemn commemorations, survivors, government officials, diplomats and families of victims gathered in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and elsewhere. Moments of silence were planned in several spots to mark the exact time the tsunami struck, a moment that united the world in grief.
"I cannot forget the smell of the air, the water at that time ... even after 10 years," said Teuku Ahmad Salman, a 51-year-old resident who joined thousands of people in a prayer service in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
"I cannot forget how I lost hold of my wife, my kids, my house," he said sobbing, recounting that he refused to believe for years that they had died but finally gave up looking for them.
U.S. & World
Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
Horror, silence, desperation: 10 AP journalists share indelible memories from 2004 tsunami
Some 230,000 people were killed in the Indian Ocean tsunami set off by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake on Dec. 26, 2004. A dozen countries were hit, from Indonesia to India to Africa's east coast. Scores of Associated Press journalists covered the disaster, and as the 10th anniversary approached, the AP asked 10 of them to describe the images that have stuck with them the most:
Jerry Harmer, AP's editor for video in Indochina, based in Bangkok, reported on the tsunami from Khao Lak, Thailand:
Forty-eight hours after the tsunami, I was on the beach at Khao Lak, where thousands of holidaymakers and locals died. I recorded rescue workers retrieving the corpses that were still strewn across the sand.
As I followed one squad toward an outcrop of rock, I saw a man's body dangling from a jumble of uprooted trees. A trunk was wedged under his shoulders and his arms were spread across it. He looked as if he'd been crucified.
Sony's 'The Interview' woes highlight struggle to meld gadget, entertainment businesses
TOKYO (AP) - Sony's iconic gadgetry and the star appeal of Hollywood may have appeared to be a perfect match when the electronics giant bought Columbia Pictures in 1989. A quarter century later, it's apparent that Sony Corp. has not attained the magic synergy it was hoping for.
The stolid silence of Sony's Tokyo headquarters over the hoopla surrounding Sony Pictures Entertainment's "The Interview" underscores the longstanding divide between the Japanese parent company and its U.S.-led and -run motion pictures subsidiary, successor to Columbia Pictures.
Marrying the cultures of Sony Corp., a quintessentially Japanese company, and its Hollywood studio was such a challenge that company founder Akio Morita and his successor as chairman, Norio Ohga, never really tried, analysts say. Instead, they left Sony Pictures to mostly run itself.
"They're separate businesses run by separate management," said Damian Thong, a senior analyst at Macquarie Capital Securities (Japan). "Since the late 1990s it's been run basically as a stand-alone business."
Sony Corp. in Tokyo refused requests for comment on developments related to "The Interview," referring all inquiries to Sony Pictures in the U.S. After first withdrawing the movie from a planned Christmas release on as many as 3,000 screens, Sony Pictures made the movie available on various digital platforms Wednesday, a day after Sony and independent theaters agreed to release it in over 300 venues on Christmas.
Wake to be held for Rafael Ramos, 1 of 2 NYPD officers killed in patrol car ambush shooting
NEW YORK (AP) - Mourners of a New York Police Department officer killed with his partner in an ambush shooting will gather at a Queens church for his wake.
Officer Rafael Ramos will be remembered Friday evening at Christ Tabernacle Church, in the Glendale section of Queens, where he was a longstanding and deeply committed member, according to family and friends.
His funeral is scheduled to be held there on Saturday and Vice President Joe Biden has said he will attend it.
Ramos was killed Dec. 20 along with his partner, Officer Wenjian Liu, as they sat in their patrol car on a Brooklyn street. The shooter, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, later killed himself.
Investigators say Brinsley was an emotionally disturbed loner, who started off his rampage by shooting an ex-girlfriend in Baltimore. He also posted threats to police online, and made references to high-profile cases of unarmed black men killed by white police officers.
Sanders says he'll decide by March whether to launch 'unique effort' to seek White House
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders says he'll decide by March whether to launch a 2016 presidential campaign and, if so, whether he'll seek the Democratic nomination. Either way, Sanders says he wouldn't run just to nudge the debate to the left.
"I don't want to do it unless I can do it well," he told The Associated Press. "I don't want to do it unless we can win this thing."
Sanders, a socialist, said he grew up "solidly lower middle class" in a Jewish family in Brooklyn - his father, an immigrant from Poland, sold paint for a living -and his views about the distribution of wealth were formed early.
"A lack of money in my family was a very significant aspect of my growing up ... kids in my class would have new jackets, new coats, and I would get hand-me-downs," Sanders said.
After the University of Chicago, Sanders came to Vermont in the 1960s as part of the counterculture, back-to-the-land movement that turned the state from solid Yankee Republican into one of the bluest in the country.
With Christmas visit to US troops, Obama marks end of combat in Afghanistan, says world safer
KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii (AP) - President Barack Obama marked the end of more than a decade of combat in Afghanistan by paying tribute to America's military, telling troops on Christmas Day that their sacrifices have allowed for a more peaceful, prosperous world to emerge out of the ashes of 9/11.
At an oceanfront Marine Corps base in Hawaii, Obama told troops that while tough challenges remain for the U.S. military in hotspots like Iraq and West Africa, the world as a whole is better off because American troops put country first and served with distinction. He said Americans and their president could not be more thankful.
"Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the American armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country," Obama said to applause from Marines and their families. "We are safer. It's not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again."
Thirteen years and $1 trillion later, the U.S. is preparing to pull the vast majority of its combat troops out of Afghanistan by year's end, as the U.S. and its partners seek to turn the page on a bloody chapter that started the day that al-Qaida militants struck American soil on Sept. 11, 2011. From a peak 140,000 troops in 2010, the U.S. and NATO plan to leave just 13,500 behind for training and battlefield support.
Although there are reasons for cautious optimism, including a new Afghan president whose seriousness of effort has inspired U.S. confidence, the broader picture still looks glim.
Ahead of polls, some Israeli ultra-Orthodox women call for greater representation
JERUSALEM (AP) - A struggle for women's rights is brewing within Israel's deeply conservative ultra-Orthodox community, where women, largely shut out of politics, are beginning to demand greater representation in the country's parliament.
More than 20 percent of Israeli lawmakers are female, but not one woman serves from the country's two ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, parties. In haredi communities, women are expected to manage a home, raise children and provide an income for the family, often while the husband studies Torah.
Those beliefs remain firmly entrenched, but in the run-up to the March 17 elections, traditional views of the role of women in haredi politics are being challenged in mainstream and ultra-Orthodox media - a shift that activists say marks a major stride toward more equitable representation.
The two haredi parties in the Knesset, Shas and United Torah Judaism, have long been central players in Israeli coalition governments, often figuring as kingmakers. Each party represents observant Jews who tend to vote based on their rabbis' instructions, and who largely oppose having women as lawmakers because it would be considered immodest.
Only a few haredi women have served in parliament, but never as members of ultra-Orthodox parties, and those who have served usually faced a backlash from their communities. Women do serve in the Jewish Home party, which mainly represents less conservative Modern Orthodox Jews.
Small Michigan college sees local benefit, national potential in loan reimbursement program
ADRIAN, Mich. (AP) - When it came time to pick a college, Abby Slusher leaned toward a private school near her southeastern Michigan home for the small campus and class sizes. Her mother pushed Adrian College for another reason: A new program guaranteeing every graduate would make more than $37,000, or get some or all student loans reimbursed.
Adrian is among the first colleges to take out insurance policies on every incoming freshman and transfer student who have student loans and at least two years of school remaining.
"She said, 'Look at me, I'm still trying to pay my student loans off - this would be great. I don't want you in this situation,'" said Slusher, 18, who is studying to become a social worker. "And seeing her in this situation, I don't want that."
The idea has been around for a few decades at Yale Law School and specific programs elsewhere such as seminary and social work degrees. Some small, religious schools started offering guarantees to all new students in recent years, but Adrian President Jeffrey Docking is taking it further by framing the program as a solution to skyrocketing tuition costs and student loan defaults. His crusade has gotten the attention of U.S. lawmakers and education officials.
"Obviously, we feel like this is a big solution to a big problem - maybe the biggest problem right now in higher education," Docking said. "We felt like we needed to make a grand statement."
Once essential at weddings, India's colorful brass bands struggle amid changing tastes
NEW DELHI (AP) - The wedding season is in full swing in India, marking what should be the busiest time of year for the traditional brass bands that lead raucous processions announcing the arrival of the bridegroom to the neighborhood.
Dressed in faded military-style uniforms or long silken tunics and turbans, brass bands playing the latest Bollywood tunes have long been a must-have at any Indian wedding.
But as the tastes of young, wealthier Indians shift to more modern music, young couples increasingly choose DJs playing electronic music instead of live bands. The shift is leaving band owners and musicians struggling to find gigs, exacerbating an already difficult existence.
Poor wages, irregular work hours and endless travel eventually take their toll, said Shanawaz Ali, a bandmaster who plays several instruments.
"At the end of more than 35 years of playing in different bands, I have no savings. Nothing," said Ali, who has urged his children to take up other trades. "There is no future in the band musician's profession."
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