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Good Monday morning from Washington, where questions have followed President Obama and Congress back to town. Can the president work with the Republican majorities? And can Republicans take advantage of the power they hold to pass the legislation they want? With Mike Huckabee giving up his Fox show, another contestant has joined the presidential guessing game. And we remember the lives of former Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York and former Senator Edward W. Brooke III of Massachusetts.

The 114th Congress convenes this week, and Republicans will rule the roost for the first time since 2006, with potent majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Now the big question: Can the party’s leadership hold fractious lawmakers together to effectively exert their new power?

The first test comes on Tuesday when Speaker John A. Boehner faces a rebellion of sorts, with a handful of very conservative Republicans declaring that they will not support him for speaker. Representatives Louie Gohmert of Texas and Ted Yoho of Florida have put themselves forward as alternatives.

Don’t get too caught up in the idea of a Speaker Yoho or a Speaker Gohmert. With his expanded 246-seat majority in the House, Mr. Boehner has a nice cushion and would have to be abandoned by 29 Republicans for his title to be in jeopardy. His allies consider that highly unlikely.

Still, the threat highlights the difficulty Mr. Boehner faces in assembling a working majority without at least some Democratic help. It also reflects the changing nature of Congress. Few lawmakers of the past would dare stray on such a party-loyalty vote and risk the wrath of the leadership. But today,they would rather register their objections and pay the price than stay silent.

Once they get through the pomp and celebration of opening day, House and Senate Republicans will turn to approving the Keystone XL pipeline, a measure they are confident they can get to the president’s desk.

Things get a little trickier after that, considering party divisions over what to do about health care, the push for a balanced budget and the multiple other big-ticket issues that await.

— Carl Hulse

So begins one of the more peculiar periods in politics, where White House hopefuls start running for the presidency without saying plainly that they are doing so.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida kicked off the pre-primary season last month by writing on Facebook that he was “actively exploring” a bid, and Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, threw his hat in the vicinity of the ring by announcing on his Fox talk show on Saturday that he was ending the program because he could not rule out the possibility of running.

Some of this is an authentic testing of the waters. Yet it also ritual. Would-be candidates typically want to get through the holidays and the State of the Union address before formally declaring.

A candidate could officially arise in the next few weeks. But for now, it seems likely that when a group of Republicans land in Iowa this month for a forum sponsored by Representative Steve King, each one will be there only as a potential candidate. That at least six are showing up for a single event in Iowa, more than a year before the presidential kickoff take place there, highlights a truism: The time and tides of Iowa’s caucuses wait for no man.

— Jonathan Martin

Mario Cuomo was his own favorite interlocutor.

I had sent him some hypothetical questions a year ago to suggest the gist of a video interview that would appear on NYTimes.com only after his death. He was already ailing, though, and demurred. But he responded by email, after deleting several questions and recasting others to frame answers that he favored.

It wasn’t his only mind game.

There was the time he refused to take my calls at the governor’s office because he was angry about what someone else at The Times had written. But he couldn’t help but come to the phone to make his case when I baited him at home almost every weekend.

Here is a partial transcript of the last interview I tried to conduct with him.

How big a role did discrimination play in your life?

I was born in the back room of a grocery store and spent my early years listening to my mother’s and father’s Italian language almost exclusively. When they took me to P.S. 50 in South Jamaica, Queens, and registered me for kindergarten I was at a loss because I couldn’t speak the English that the teacher and other students were speaking. I was sent home and spent the next year being tutored by my older sister and brother and went back to kindergarten again. This time they kept me.

Did you ever feel insecure – personally or professionally – because of your background?

No!

(Deleted: You could have become a Supreme Court justice. Why didn’t you?) Do you have any career regrets?

I don’t have any career regrets. I’ve loved being a lawyer, I’ve loved being a public servant, I’ve loved being a teacher, I’ve loved being a coach and I’ve loved dodging bullets fired by eager reporters.

(Deleted: What was your biggest failure, your biggest accomplishment?) What do you hope to be remembered for?

I’ve left instructions that when I die and am buried they write on my tombstone:

“Mario M. Cuomo — Born June 15, 1932

He tried!”

— Sam Roberts

For Senator Harry Reid, it seems like things can’t get much worse.

How tough has it been? The departing majority leader presided over two of the least productive congressional sessions in modern history. In November, voter dissatisfaction left Democrats beaten badly at the polls, relegating Mr. Reid of Nevada to minority leader — a defeat that will make his re-election bid in 2016 more challenging.

(There was a bright spot near 2014’s end. He used the lame-duck Congress to usher through many of President Obama’s nominees to confirmation while Democrats still had the majority.)

Then on New Year’s Day, Mr. Reid took a tumble while exercising, leaving him with broken facial bones and cracked ribs.

Despite the fall, Mr. Reid, a former amateur boxer, will not be resting for long. He is scheduled to be back in Washington for the opening round of another Congress on Tuesday.

— Alan Rappeport

The Times was succinct in October 1966 in asking one of the biggest questions of that year’s congressional elections:

“Will the voters of an old, poorly governed yet occasionally sophisticated state become the first to choose a Negro for their United States senator in anything that could be remotely referred to as modern political history?”

The answer was yes, and Edward W. Brooke III, a liberal Republican — at a time when there was such a thing — went on to serve two terms as a senator from Massachusetts. By the time of his death on Saturday at age 95, his groundbreaking role in American politics (The Times called his candidacy “experimental”) had been overshadowed by, among other things, the election of a black president.

The 1966 election wasn’t the first time Mr. Brooke had been a political pioneer. Four years earlier, he had been the first African-American to be elected attorney general of any state, a development that President John F. Kennedy called “the biggest news of the country.”

Still, that attention sometimes rankled. The Times’s Douglas Martin, in his obituary of Mr. Brooke, wrote that the former senator “grew tired of being called ‘first this, first that.’”

Like it or not, Mr. Brooke made history. And his role as the first black senator in the post-Reconstruction era was always going to lead his obit.

— Steve Kenny

President Obama’s first day of business after his return to Washington from his Christmas vacation.

The Association of American Law Schools annual meeting in Washington, where Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anita Hill are scheduled to speak.

The trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused of bombing the Boston Marathon in 2013, which is scheduled to start in Boston.

A two-week vacation can, at the beginning, seem like forever. But then the end closes in, and you’re rushing to get everything done.

For President Obama, that meant a hectic Saturday — and no golf.

In the span of several hours, he managed to squeeze in visits to the beach, his grandfather’s grave, his half sister’s house and a local restaurant. Plus there was a little time to drop in on a rock star.

It became frenetic at 3 p.m. when Mr. Obama took his daughters, Malia and Sasha, to the cemetery where his maternal grandfather is buried. Less than 10 minutes later, they were back in the motorcade to visit the president’s half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. Along the way, they passed the Punahou School, which Mr. Obama attended from the 5th through the 12th grades.

Twenty minutes later, the president was on the road again, headed to the home of the Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder.

The White House would initially only say that “the president and Sasha and Malia Obama are visiting friend Eddie Vedder and family,” but did not clarify whether it was the rock star or just some guy who happened to have the same name. But after a little prodding, the White House clarified.

On the way to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for the flight to Washington, the first family stopped at Buzz’s Lanikai, a steak restaurant that serves lamb, ribs and crab legs and features a salad bar loaded with avocados and pineapples.

By 9:30 p.m., they were making their way down the receiving line at the base. A woman in the crowd shouted, “Selfie! Selfie!” while Mr. Obama shook hands and exchanged fist bumps with onlookers.

Eleven hours later, they were back at the White House.

— Michael S. Schmidt

Some New York officers again turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio during a police funeral.

Republicans are planning to act swiftly to advance their plans on energy and health care when they take control of Congress on Tuesday.

Representative Steve Scalise‘s penchant for talking to everyone may be what led the Louisiana Republican to address a group of white supremacists in 2002.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida is on the presidential fund-raising trail, heading to Greenwich, Conn., this week to sound out donors, according to the Hearst Connecticut Media Group.

Deval Patrick, the first black governor in Massachusetts, leaves office with a substantial list of accomplishments offset by his failure to bring the bureaucracy in line, The Boston Globe says.

The Washington Post examines the post-conviction life of former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia.

The director and stars of the movie “Selma” tell Ebony magazine that the events it depicts were a forerunner to the #BlackLivesMatter movement.