Here's what's happening across the United States and around the world today.
New GOP Congress: Speaker Boehner in line for 3rd term; Keystone looms as showdown with Obama
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are assuming full control of Congress for the first time in eight years in a day of pomp, circumstance and raw politics beneath the Capitol Dome.
They planned to move swiftly Tuesday toward a veto showdown with President Barack Obama over the Keystone XL pipeline, summoning unity despite a tea party-backed effort to unseat House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.
As mandated by the Constitution, Congress was to convene at noon.
In the Senate, with Vice President Joe Biden presiding, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was to automatically ascend to majority leader following his approval by rank-and-file Republicans last year.
McConnell and Boehner both were to deliver remarks on their chamber's floors as they positioned themselves for two years of clashes with Obama.
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Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
Counties across Florida issue marriage licenses, hold weddings for gay couples
KISSIMMEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida's ban on same-sex marriage ended statewide at the stroke of midnight Monday, and court clerks in some Florida counties wasted no time, issuing marriage licenses and performing weddings for same-sex couples overnight.
But they were beaten to the punch by a Miami judge who found no need to wait until the statewide ban expired. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel presided over Florida's first legally recognized same-sex marriages Monday afternoon.
Still, most counties held off on official ceremonies until after midnight early Tuesday, when U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle's ruling that Florida's same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional took effect in all 67 counties. Florida's attorney general, Pam Bondi, is still pursuing state and federal appeals seeking to uphold the ban voters approved in 2008, but her effort to block these weddings until the courts finally rule was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.
And now that same-sex marriage is a reality in Florida, Bondi's spokeswoman told The Associated Press "the judge has ruled, and we wish these couples the best."
The addition of Florida's 19.9 million people means 70 percent of Americans now live in the 36 states where gay marriage is legal.
SpaceX aims for pre-dawn launch to space station, unprecedented rocket landing on ocean barge
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A SpaceX rocket stands poised at Cape Canaveral, Florida, for a pre-dawn flight to the International Space Station.
The unmanned Dragon capsule contains more than 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments ordered up by NASA. That's the primary objective for SpaceX. But the California-based company will attempt an even more extraordinary feat once the Dragon is on its way: flying the booster rocket to a platform in the Atlantic. No one has ever pulled off such a touchdown.
SpaceX's billionaire founder Elon Musk figures there's a 50-50 chance, at best, that the first-stage booster will land on the platform that's stationed a couple hundred miles off the northeastern Florida coast. He says recovering and reusing rockets could speed up launches and drive down costs.
Launch is set for 6:20 a.m.
Obama hosts Mexican President Pena Nieto looking for help on immigration and Cuba
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is hosting Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto at the White House Tuesday, looking to his southern neighbor for help implementing the president's changing policies on immigration and Cuba.
Obama wants Pena Nieto to join him in pressuring Cuba to make democratic reforms now that the White House is moving to re-establish diplomatic and commercial ties. The U.S.-Cuba estrangement had been a point of friction with Latin American countries, including Mexico, that had normal ties with the communist island nation.
Pena Nieto's government also could help spread the word of qualifications for Obama's plan to defer some 4 million deportations for immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Two-thirds of those who are eligible are from Mexico.
Both actions from Obama in recent weeks drew praise from Pena Nieto, who may be hoping his visit to the White House can help give him a boost after a 2014 marked by scandal, violence and corruption. That includes soldiers killing 22 civilians in a questionable "shootout" and revelations that Pena Nieto and his treasury secretary live in luxury homes built and financed by a favorite government contractor.
Perhaps most notably, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to protest the Sept. 26 abduction and presumed murder of 43 college students, allegedly at the hands of local officials and police in league with a drug cartel. Pena Nieto told the country it was time to "move beyond" the case just weeks after their abduction, and he took a month to meet with their families.
Hundreds come face to face with Tsarnaev, jury selection to take weeks in marathon trial
BOSTON (AP) — As some prospective jurors got their first look at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the young man accused of bombing the renowned Boston Marathon, it became clear that choosing a jury in the closely watched terror case would not be a quick or simple process.
U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. told the first 400 people called for jury duty Monday that choosing a panel of 12 jurors and six alternates for the highly anticipated trial was expected to take at least three weeks.
He told the potential jurors not to think of the trial as "an annoying burden," but as a needed service and an "important duty of citizenship."
Tsarnaev is accused of planning and carrying out the twin bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others near the marathon's finish line on April 15, 2013. Prosecutors say Tsarnaev and his brother, now dead, also killed an MIT police officer several days after the bombings as they tried to flee.
Federal prosecutors and Tsarnaev's lawyers are beginning the process of trying to find jurors who can be fair and impartial. Jurors must also be willing, if Tsarnaev is convicted, to consider imposing the death penalty in a state that abolished its own death penalty three decades ago. Tsarnaev is being tried under the federal death penalty.
Israeli military divided over whether to probe wartime conduct by soldiers in Gaza
JERUSALEM (AP) — A fierce debate is raging within Israel's military over the extent to which soldiers should be held legally accountable for their actions during last year's Gaza war, with commanders increasingly at odds with military lawyers.
The dispute has set off a firestorm in Israel, where many say the legal threat would shackle soldiers in any future battle, lower their morale and shatter a sacred trust on which Israel's compulsory military service relies.
But with the Palestinians announcing their application last week to the International Criminal Court, the decision to investigate becomes all the more pressing: A robust Israeli inquiry into its military's actions could be essential in thwarting an embarrassing and potentially incriminating outside probe.
Israel launched the operation in Gaza on July 8 in what it said was a mission to halt relentless rocket fire by Hamas militants. During 50 days of fighting, more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry and the United Nations. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and 6 civilians were killed.
Israel has defended the operation as an act of self-defense and blamed Hamas for the heavy civilian death toll, saying the militant group used residential areas for cover. But critics have pointed to the heavy Palestinian civilian death toll and questioned whether Israel's response was proportionate.
In 2015 NATO shifts its focus to Europe and creation of fast-reaction 'spearhead force'
BRUSSELS (AP) — Leaving combat operations in Afghanistan behind, NATO is shifting its focus to Europe in 2015 and the creation of its new ultra-rapid-reaction force, designed as a deterrent to Russia.
The priority for the 28-member alliance will be to get the new agile expeditionary force into operation, but also settling the question of who will pay for it, analysts say.
The multinational force, often called the "spearhead," was ordered into existence by President Obama and other NATO leaders in September so it could be deployed to reinforce alliance members feeling threatened by the actions or ambitions of Vladimir Putin's Russia.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has called the new force and other components of the reboot of alliance capabilities "the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War."
Stoltenberg, now in his third month as the alliance's top-ranking civilian official, said it is his "top priority to implement this plan in full and on time."
After Shanghai disaster, China puts controls in place, keeps firm grip on public sentiments
SHANGHAI (AP) — Some wailed and some staggered with grief as the relatives of the 36 people killed in Shanghai's New Year's Eve stampede visited the disaster site Tuesday for seventh-day commemorations that are a revered ritual in China. But each family was allowed to stay only about five minutes in the tightly managed visits, and government workers roughly dragged away one middle-aged woman when she began crying out emotionally.
The government's strict arrangements reflect efforts to keep tight controls over the disaster's aftermath and prevent distraught relatives from coalescing into a critical group that would draw sympathy and galvanize public calls for greater accountability.
"Such a major public safety incident can tug the heartstrings of the public, and the acts and words by victims' relatives can make the public sentiments to swing, making it a key task for authorities to control the families, limiting their contacts with each other or with the media," said Zhao Chu, a Shanghai-based independent commentator.
The victims' relatives laid bouquets of white and yellow chrysanthemums and bowed deeply to the statue of the city's first Communist mayor that overlooks the 17 concrete steps on Shanghai's famed riverfront known as the Bund where the stampede took place.
Three dozen people, including a 12-year-old boy, were trampled and asphyxiated amid a crowd of hundreds of thousands of New Year's revelers.
Strong currents force Indonesia to expand search area for wreckage of crashed AirAsia plane
PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AP) — Strong currents forced Indonesia to expand the search area for the crashed AirAsia plane Tuesday, as rough seas and bad weather pushed debris and made it difficult to reach suspected chunks of the fuselage on the ocean floor.
With only 37 bodies recovered since Flight 8501 crashed Dec. 28, there are also concerns that it will become harder to find the remaining corpses.
"Time is of the essence," said the National Search and Rescue Agency's director of operation, Suryadi B. Supriyadi. "But it seems like it is hard to beat the weather."
The search operation will expand by about 185 square kilometers (70 square miles), search and rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said.
Dozens of new air carriers have popped up in Indonesia in recent years to meet the industry's booming demand, but a string of deadly accidents has raised concerns about safety.
TV isn't dead, but set makers and service providers focus design on growing online viewership
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Does anyone just watch TV anymore? The dramatic shift toward online and mobile viewing is driving television set makers to design as much for streaming video as for watching broadcast or cable channels.
Traditional TV is far from dead, but these days viewers care less about watching shows live and even prefer saving certain series to watch all at once in an evening or weekend of binge-watching. Broadcast networks and hundreds of cable channels share viewer attention with thousands of online services, including amateurs creating their own series on YouTube. Already, Netflix has outbid traditional channels for hits such as "House of Cards." And Dish this week announced it will sell online access to a bundle of channels including live sports network ESPN for just $20 a month. Online video will account for a third of all video viewing in 2020, up from about 10 percent in 2013, predicts The Diffusion Group, a research firm that specializes in Internet video.
So how to keep the television set, that focal point of the American living room for decades, relevant? Design for online video.
At the International CES gadget show this week in Las Vegas, TV makers unveiled new models with 4K resolution, or four times the clarity offered by today's high definition TVs. They are pushing the features even though not a single TV channel is yet available in 4K. But Internet services such as Netflix, Amazon and M-Go are starting to offer 4K video.
Sony on Monday promised to create more 4K content to watch on those sets. Four popular shows from its entertainment division — "The Goldbergs," ''The Blacklist," ''Masters of Sex" and "The Night Shift" — will soon be available in 4K and it's working with partners including Netflix and YouTube to deliver more 4K streaming video.
That's what's happening. Read more stories to jump start your day in our special Breakfast Buzz section.
