U.S. Supreme Court

January 12: A day after the Supreme Court of the United States reconvenes from its winter break, the justices will hear arguments in United States v. Comstock. Justices must decide whether Congress overstretched its authority in passing the Adam Walsh Protection and Safety Act, signed into law in 2006, to create a national sex offender registry.

Solar eclipse

January 15: What the first solar eclipse of 2010 gives up in its non-totality, it makes up for in length. The partial, or annular, eclipse will start its path in eastern Africa today and blaze across the Indian Ocean, finally ending in India. At its climax over the ocean, the eclipse will last 11 minutes and 8 seconds-a time not to be exceeded for a millennia.

Ukraine elections

January 17: Ukrainians will head to the polls for the first round of the nation's first presidential election since the Orange Revolution ushered Viktor Yushchenko into office in 2004. Yushchenko, who was poisoned during the heated 2004 campaign, trails badly in the polls, drawing even with the Communist Party favorite Viktor Yanukovych, who seems likely to benefit from voter frustration with Ukraine's economic woes.

Special election

January 19: Massachusetts voters will almost certainly send the state attorney general, Martha Coakley, to Washington after a special election to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Coakley, a Democrat, holds a commanding lead over Republican challenger Scott Brown in public opinion polls leading up to the election.

Sundance Film Festival

January 21: Film critics and movie stars will flood Park City, Utah, for the opening of this year's Sundance Film Festival. But the tone at this year's festival might be a bit more low key: Apparently the nation's economic problems make no exception for glitzy film festivals. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the keeper of the list of top-secret celebrity parties for Sundance reports his list is only seven pages long-four pages shorter than last year.

Guantanamo

January 22: President Barack Obama will likely miss his self-imposed deadline for closing the detention facility for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Though up to 100 will be transported to an Illinois prison, the Obama administration has not fully decided what to do with the nearly 100 that would remain.