POLITICAL HOT TOPICS: Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The CNN Washington Bureau’s morning speed read of the top stories making news from around the country and the world. Click on the headlines for more.

WASHINGTON/POLITICAL
For the latest political news:

CNN: Obama's speech ties current issues to founding principles
President Barack Obama sought to link the past and future on Monday in his second inaugural address, tying the nation's founding principles to the challenges confronting his second term in a call for Americans to fulfill the responsibility of citizenship.

CNNMoney: Obama: Let's 'revamp' our taxes
Ronald Reagan did it. George W. Bush did it. On Monday, Barack Obama did it. Each president used an inaugural address to herald his intent to push tax changes during his term. Reagan and Bush were successful, but experts say Obama faces high hurdles to achieve the tax code revamp he has in mind.

CNN: Republicans pause on partisanship: 'A day we can all come together'
As the nation celebrated the start of another term for President Barack Obama, Republican congressional leaders had a muted, bipartisan response to his second inaugural address. "Today is a day for all of us in this country to come together," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, told CNN, when asked about the president's speech. "It really doesn't matter who you voted for, which side you're on," Cantor added. "Today is a day we can all come together."

CNN: Biden on Obama at start of second term: 'In simpatico'
After four years in which he has alternately helped - and miffed - the White House, Vice President Joe Biden told CNN that his role as the deal-closer is clearly his most comfortable yet. He is quick to emphasize that he was not undercutting the president when he reached deals with congressional Republicans.

NATIONAL

CNN: Report: Unemployment to rise again in 2013
A total of 197 million people were without jobs in 2012, with youth being particularly hard hit, and those unemployment figures will increase again this year, according to an International Labor Organization report released Monday.

CNN: Pennsylvania girl, 5, suspended for talk of 'shooting' a Hello Kitty 'bubble gun'
5-year-old girl chats up classmates while waiting for the bus after school. The topic: Playing with a Hello Kitty "bubble gun" that, with the flick of a finger, blows bubbles everywhere. "I'll shoot you, you shoot me, and we'll all play together," the kindergartner says. The next day, that remark - which was made innocently, according to the lawyer for the girl's family, who related the story - landed the young central Pennsylvanian child in the principal's office.

CNN: Police: Las Vegas officer kills wife, son and then himself in burning home
Even for stone-faced, seen-it-all-before officers, the act that took place at a police lieutenant's Las Vegas-area home Monday was deeply distressing. The 52-year-old lawman, police said, killed his wife and child, called 911 to say he was burning his house down and warned he would take the life of anyone who tried to stop him.

CNN: Drama in red: First lady doubles down on Jason Wu
After all the anticipation and waiting, perhaps the biggest bombshell about Michelle Obama's inaugural ball dress was that it really wasn't a surprise at all. Like 2009, the first lady wore a gown by the Taiwanese-born American designer Jason Wu, who was catapulted into the highest echelons of fashion when Obama donned one of his designs four years ago.

INTERNATIONAL

CNN: Rebels in northern Syrian pin hopes on airbase's downfall
Here in the north, rebels call it "the final battle." For more than a month, lightly-armed fighters have hurled themselves against a well-fortified helicopter base located less than 15 minutes' drive from the border with Turkey. The rebels say the last piece of government-controlled territory between Turkey and Syria's largest city, Aleppo, is Mannagh airbase.

CNN: For Israeli voters, missile fire, money main issues in election
The pundits in Israel, the United States and the West Bank have pretty much forecast the winner of Tuesday's Israeli national elections. Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing political coalition with former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman– Likud Beitenu - will prevail. He'll trot to the finish line in an easy horse race, analysts say, citing poll after poll.

CNN: Indian court to hear request to move gang rape case outside New Delhi
The lawyer for one of the men accused in the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman wants the trial moved out of New Delhi, where emotions have run high over the case.

CNN: French police arrest suspect in killing of Kurdish activists
Police in France have arrested a man in connection with the killing of three Kurdish activists in Paris this month, prosecutors said Monday. The suspect, Omer Guney, is a 30-year-old Turkish national who, prosecutors said, has been a member of the Kurdish nationalist PKK for two years - the same group co-founded by one of the victims.

BUSINESS

CNNMoney: Davos: Too soon to celebrate
The euro survived. Washington is expected to muddle through its fiscal crises. China is heading for a soft landing, and markets and corporate earnings are recovering. Nearly five years after the banking meltdown, the world economy is back on track, right?

CNNMoney: What your health care will really cost
Until recently you were more likely to solve a Rubik's Cube than figure out what you might pay for a health care service. These days those costs are less puzzling. As consumers shoulder more of their health care bills, insurers, government officials, and private firms are starting to provide the tools to allow you to research and compare.

Financial Times: Spain escapes aid but doubts remain
Ever since the European Central Bank unveiled its crisis-fighting program last summer, strategists have confidently predicted it was only a matter of time before Madrid would be forced to ask for help. The economic outlook was simply too dismal and the borrowing needs too great for Spain to avoid the same fate as Greece, Ireland and Portugal. But predictions for when the country would turn to the eurozone’s rescue fund have repeatedly proved wrong.

In case you missed it…
Watch highlights of the ceremony and celebrations that commemorated the 57th Presidential Inauguration.