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lent progress and was in good spirits.
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• NEW YORK (AP) -- As the world rang in 2013 with spectacular fireworks displays and showers of confetti, the specter of economic uncertainty and searing violence dimmed some festivities and weighed on the minds of revelers hoping for a better year.
• "With all the sadness in the country, we're looking for some good changes in 2013," Laura Concannon, of Hingham, Mass., said as she, her husband, Kevin, and his parents joined hundreds of thousands of people who celebrated the new year in Times Square on Monday.
• Matias Dellanno, 37, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, stood in the middle of the square with his wife and 3-year-old son. His eyes caught the multicolored lighting illuminating the square just before midnight.
• "I feel a completely new hope for 2013," he said. "It can't be any worse than last year, when my business lost clients. It was a rough year for everyone. The new year has to be better!"
• Revelers with New Year's hats and sunglasses boasting "2013" packed the streets in the 35-degree cold to count down the first ball drop in decades without Dick Clark, who died in April and was honored with his name printed on confetti and on one of the crystal panels on the Times Square ball.
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• BALTIMORE (AP) -- Same-sex couples in Maryland were greeted with cheers and noisemakers held over from New Year's Eve parties, as gay marriage became legal in the first state south of the Mason-Dixon Line on New Year's Day.
• James Scales, 68, was married to William Tasker, 60, on Tuesday shortly after midnight by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake inside City Hall.
• "It's just so hard to believe it's happening," Scales said shortly before marrying his partner of 35 years.
• Six other same-sex couples also were being married at City Hall. Ceremonies were taking place in other parts of the state as well.

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