Huge solar storm to shower Earth with radioactive particles

The largest solar storm for seven years is expected to send a shower of radioactive solar particles racing towards Earth at almost 1,400 miles a second this week, according to NASA.

The flare, caused by a huge eruption on the sun's surface on Sunday, is expected to affect GPS systems and other communications when it reaches the Earth's magnetic field on Tuesday..

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Solar flares are our solar system's largest explosive events and can last from minutes to hours, according to NASA, releasing up to a billion tons of matter in the process.

NASA says the flare may also spark an unusually large display of auroras, which may be visible at lower latitudes than normal.

The dazzling array of brightly colored lights, known as the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights, can frequently be seen in northern Canada, and the far north of Europe, from Greenland to Iceland and Norway.

This week's powerful solar storm has already seen the lights visible as far south as Scotland, Northern Ireland and Yorkshire, in northern England.

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Costa Concordia rescuers find 16th body

Rescuers searching the stricken Costa Concordia found a body on bridge 3 Tuesday, bringing the number of confirmed dead from the wreck to 16, civil protection officials said.

The discovery leaves about 16 people still missing from among the roughly 4,200 aboard the cruise liner -- about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members -- at the time of the collision with rocks off the island of Giglio.

The vast majority fled the ship safely, if under chaotic and frightening conditions, according to survivors.

Undersea salvage experts will not start siphoning fuel off the partially sunken liner before Saturday, the man in charge of the operation said Tuesday.

Teams of divers have begun to set up the operation, Franco Gabrielli said in remarks televised from Giglio.

His comments appear to contradict a timetable laid out Monday by an Italian admiral, who said that salvage workers were to begin pumping fuel out of the liner that day.

Adm. Ilarione Dell'Anna said it would take 28 working days to remove all the fuel from the ship.

Gabrielli did not explain the discrepancy.

He has asked the company that owns the ship to come up with a plan to clean up pollution from the vessel, such as garbage, by Wednesday, he said.

The search for survivors and victims will continue alongside the salvage, said Gabrielli.

The man in charge of the rescue operation said the divers faced a grim task.

"Imagine that you left for holidays and that the power went off in your house. What would you find in your fridge? The divers are in there," Ennio Aquilino said.

Two bodies were found on Monday, and two more over the weekend -- one woman on Saturday and one on Sunday, both wearing life jackets.

Divers used explosives Monday morning to blow more holes in the side of the ship to allow easier access.

The parties involved in the rescue told reporters and residents on the island Sunday that search and rescue efforts will continue -- but that the environmental risk is also becoming urgent.

Officials said they cannot predict how long it will take to clear the wreckage, since that depends on maritime conditions and technical difficulties, but all legal, environmental and human factors will be taken into account.

"It's time for Italy to show it can do something right and do it well," said Gabrielli.

He warned that the task ahead was complicated and daunting, not least because it takes about 45 minutes to search each cabin, using special cameras and divers.

The giant Costa Concordia had 1,500 cabins on board.

A class-action lawsuit will be filed in Miami against Costa and its parent company, Carnival Corp., the Italian consumer group Codacons said Saturday. The suit, in collaboration with two U.S. law firms, is "aimed specifically at getting compensation for all damages to the boat passengers," Codacons said in a statement. The class-action suit is open to passengers of any nationality, it said.

"We've been contacted by hundreds of victims and the numbers are growing moment by moment," said Mitchell Proner, senior partner at Proner & Proner, one of two firms involved. He said crew members have also contacted the firm, "and their stories that are coming in are horrific -- from lifeboats that were stuck halfway, passengers debating whether to jump or not. This was not an orderly evacuation."

The suit, he said, will request at least 125,000 euros (about $160,000) per passenger.

The suit has not yet been filed, said Marc Bern, senior partner at the other firm, Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik, but "it will probably be in the billions of euros and dollars."

"The sheer terror of being on a ship of that magnitude going down, you can imagine the psychological damage," Bern said.

Meanwhile, Gabrielli said no fuel oil had yet leaked from the ship -- only kitchen and engine oil -- and that he did not see an immediate risk of the 2,400 tons on board escaping.

Booms have been put in place around the ship to stop the spread of oil and other pollutants such as detergents and sewage chemicals. With more than 4,000 people aboard, the ship was the size of a small town, Gabrielli said.

Fuel will be replaced with water as it is removed from the ship's tanks, keeping the ship balanced, said Dell'Anna, head of coastal authorities for the port city of Livorno.

Gabrielli said Costa Cruises, the company that owns the cruise ship, is cooperative and was proving responsible, despite past errors.

Both Costa Cruises and authorities have criticized Capt. Francesco Schettino, who is under house arrest and faces possible charges of manslaughter, shipwreck and abandoning ship.

Prosecutors have accused the captain of piloting the ship too fast to allow him to react to dangers, causing the shipwreck, according to legal papers. Schettino maintains his innocence.

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New reports claim Khloe Kardashian's father is Kris Jenner's hairdresser

The internet gossip mill continues to churn with speculation as to the identity of Khloe Kardashian’s biological father.

The latest development comes from a number of gossip blogs, including Zap 2 it and Necole Bitchie, latching on to a report from Hollywoodite.com, which claims that Khloe’s real dad is none other than Kris Jenner’s hairdresser, Alex Roldan.

The news follows a bombshell claim made a few weeks ago that the youngest Kardashian sister wasn’t actually a Kardashian. The announcement was made by Robert Kardashian’s ex wife and his widow, who both told Star magazine that it was no secret that Robert wasn’t Khloe’s real father.

Khloe and the Kardashians have shot down the claims, but it hasn’t slowed down the speculation.

Adding fuel to the fire, Khloe and Roldan  seem to bear some physical resemblance. Khloe’s middle name also happens to be Alexandra.

Roldan, who is now a hairdresser in West Hollywood, is taller at 6’ than Robert Kardashian, who stood at 5’7,’’ Hollywoodite reports. Khloe is the tallest of her sisters, standing at 5’10’’.

Earlier reports this week from the National Enquirer also reported that Khloe was actually the daughter of O.J. Simpson.  Robert Kardashian famously represented O.J. Simpson at his murder trial for the death of his wife, Nicole Brown. Brown and Kris Jenner were close friends.

Hollywoodite also reports that the Kardashian clan is well aware of the news and that Kris Jenner was actually planning an episode of their show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" around the revelation.

Earlier this week, Dallas' MIX 102.9 KDMX-FM announced that Khloe, whose husband Lamar Odom was just transferred to the Dallas Mavericks from the L.A. Lakers, will be hosting a daytime radio show.

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Demi Moore hospitalized for substance abuse, report says

Demi Moore was hospitalized Monday night, with sources telling TMZ the actress was suffering from substance abuse.

Paramedics responded to a 911 call placed at 10:45pm PT and after assessing Moore's condition, transported her from her home in Los Angeles to a local hospital.

She has reportedly been moved to a facility to seek treatment for substance abuse, sources told the entertainment website.

"Because of the stresses in her life right now, Demi has chosen to seek professional assistance to treat her exhaustion and improve her overall health," a rep for the actress said.

"She looks forward to getting well and is grateful for the support of her family and friends," her rep added.

In November, Moore, 49, announced she was ending her marriage to Ashton Kutcher after six years -- amid reports Kutcher, 33, had engaged in multiple extramarital affairs.

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Convicted terrorist accused of plotting to kill witnesses

A North Carolina man sentenced to prison recently as part of a homegrown terrorist ring has been accused in a federal court document of plotting to kill witnesses who testified against him at trial.

An affidavit unsealed in federal court Monday accuses Hysen Sherifi of plotting against the witnesses from his jail cell. Authorities say an FBI informant posing as a hit man met with Sherifi's brother and a female friend and accepted $5,000 and a photo of an intended victim.

FBI agents have arrested the brother, Shkumbin Sherifi, and Nevine Aly Elshiekh, a school teacher. Now in federal custody at the New Hanover County Jail, each is charged with a felony count of use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.

Hysen Sherifi, 27, was sentenced to 45 years in prison earlier this month in what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to attack the Marine base at Quantico, Va., and targets abroad. Five others, including construction contractor Daniel Patrick Boyd, have been sentenced to federal prison terms for terrorism charges related to raising money, stockpiling weapons and training in preparation for jihadist attacks.

No charges have been filed at this time against Hysen Sherifi related to the new plot, according to a search of a federal court database.

Shkumbin Sherifi and Elshiekh await a scheduled first appearance Friday in federal court in Wilmington. The two have applied for court appointed lawyers, who have not yet been assigned.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh has released no information about those arrested.

In a 10-page affidavit filed under seal Friday, FBI Special Agent James Langtry writes that he developed a source as a confidential informant inside the New Hanover County Jail near Wilmington, where Hysen Sherifi was sent after a jury convicted him in October.

The informant soon befriended Sherifi, who requested help in hiring someone to kill three people who had testified against him at his trial, according to the affidavit. Sherifi specified that he wanted the witnesses beheaded and that he would be provided photos of the severed heads as confirmation of the deaths, according to the document.

FBI agents said in the document that they arranged for a second informant to pose as a hit man and monitored Sherifi during a series of jailhouse visits with Elshiekh.

Following a Dec. 21 visit at the jail, Elshiekh left a voicemail on the fake hit man's cell phone, identifying herself as "Hysen Sherifi's friend," according to the affidavit. It added that the FBI observed and recorded subsequent meetings between Elshiekh and the fake hit man, during which she provided names, addresses and photos of those targeted and $750 in cash toward the first murder.

Agents also observed Elshiekh meeting with Shkumbin Sherifi, who met with the FBI's fake hitman on Jan. 8, the court document said. According to the affidavit, the brother traveled from Raleigh to Wilmington to provide the hit man another $4,250 in cash.

The affidavit provides no information about the nature of the relationship between Hysen Sherifi and Elshiekh, but a woman with that same name was quoted in media reports from last year's terrorism trial in New Bern. The names of the witnesses allegedly targeted were redacted from the affidavit.

Nevine Elshiekh is listed as a special education teacher on the website for Sterling Montessori Academy, a charter school in Mooresville. Bill Zajic, the school's executive director, did not return a message from the Associated Press on Tuesday.

No one answered the phone at Elshiekh's Raleigh home Tuesday.

The Sherifi brothers and other family members emigrated from Kosovo following the wars that ravaged the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. A call to the Sherifi family home in Raleigh on Tuesday was not returned.

Hysen Sherifi and others arrested in the terrorism conspiracy were members of the Islamic Association of Raleigh, the largest Muslim congregation in the Triangle. Several members of the mosque also routinely made the 4-hour round trip for the trial in New Bern to support the accused, who they described as innocent men being railroaded by overzealous federal authorities.

Messages to the media contact listed for the mosque were not returned.

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Obama outlines 'mission' of rebuilding American dream, as hurdles await his election-year agenda

President Obama suggested Tuesday that Americans try to follow the lead of U.S. military forces and get past personal ambition and partisan obsession to "focus on the mission at hand" -- keeping alive the American dream by restoring a U.S. economy.

In his annual State of the Union address, Obama said that the "defining issue of our time" is finding the means to uphold the promise that if people work hard, they will succeed.

"No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules," he said.

But the devil is in the details, and Republicans are unlikely to agree to many of the proposals the president laid out. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who delivered the GOP response, said that the president's rigid adherence to ideology was suffocating innovation.

"The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy," Daniels said.

"We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves," Daniels said.

In a speech heavy in focus on manufacturing, job training and tax reform, Obama said Tuesday that the most immediate priority for a divided Congress is to stop a tax hike on 160 million working Americans and prolong a payroll tax cut set to expire next month. 

At the same time, Obama proposed raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. He said anyone who makes more than $1 million a year should not pay less than 30 percent in federal taxes and should get no special subsidies or deductions.

"Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else? ... Because if we're serious about paying down our debt, we can't do both," he said.

Saying that the country can get its mojo back, the president said the "house of cards" collapsed in 2008 as a result of mortgages being sold to people "who couldn't afford or understand them," banks that bet using other people's money and profited either way and regulators who looked the other way or didn't have the authority to stop the bad behavior. 

Since then, he said, American manufacturers are hiring again and new rules have been put in place to hold Wall Street accountable. 

"The state of our union is getting stronger, and we've come too far to turn back now" Obama said.

While the president wants to look at the "sunny side," Daniels said the president was elected to fix problems he did not cause, but "he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse."

"When President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true," Daniels said.

Daniels also focused heavily on the entitlement system that is paying out far beyond what it can afford.

"It's absolutely so that everyone should contribute to our national recovery, including of course the most affluent among us. There are smart ways and dumb ways to do this: the dumb way is to raise rates in a broken, grossly complex tax system, choking off growth without bringing in the revenues we need to meet our debts. The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth," he said.

The president said a new American economy must be "built to last" through government and financial systems that play by the rules and give everyone a fair shot. Borrowing the slogan from General Motors, the president called for restoring the economy and ending favoritism. 

"What's at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them," he said.

Offering an array of suggestions for getting businesses to start hiring in the U.S. again, the president suggested incentivizing in-sourcing by doubling tax deductions for high-tech manufacturers that make products in the U.S., and extra help with financing for relocating in hard-hit communities. 

"Ask yourselves what you can do to bring back jobs to your country and your country will do everything it can to help you succeed," he said.

The president added that companies that outsource jobs should not get a tax break while every "multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax." 

"And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here," he said.

The president challenged lawmakers to pass several proposals that are unlikely to get any pick-up this election year. Obama called for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration laws, make college education cheaper and "double down" on clean energy.

Recognizing that differences in Congress are too deep to pass climate change legislation, Obama said he is directing the development of clean energy on public land and announced that the Navy will purchase enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes each year..

He called on Congress to fund "great projects" using half the money "we're no longer spending at war" and use the other half to pay down the debt. 

Though he requested Congress grant him authority to take several action, the president, who rehearsed his presentation with a weekend video to supporters that was prepared by his re-election team, acknowledged that the cynicism for action is great.  

He said while he's willing to cooperate with Congress, he will not let Republicans hold up his plans.

"I intend to fight obstruction with action," he said. "With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow. But I can do a whole lot more with your help."

Obama will follow up Tuesday night's address with a three-day tour of five states key to his re-election bid. On Wednesday he'll visit Iowa and Arizona to promote ideas to boost American manufacturing; on Thursday in Nevada and Colorado he'll discuss energy, and in Michigan on Friday he'll talk about college affordability, education and training.

In a flag-waving defense of American power and influence abroad, Obama said the U.S. will safeguard its own security "against those who threaten our citizens, our friends and our interests." On Iran, he said that while all options are on the table to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon -- an implied threat to use military force -- "a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible."

Adding that the flag that the Navy SEALs team took with it on the mission to get bin Laden is his proudest possession, the president said inevitably it falls on everyone to help lift the country.

"This nation is great because we get each other's backs," he said. 

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On-duty NYPD police officer commits suicide after arguing with his girlfriend on the phone

An on-duty New York City police officer committed suicide Thursday night by shooting himself in the face on a Queens street after arguing with his girlfriend on the phone, police sources said.

Neighbors saw the unnamed officer lying in the street after hearing a single shot in front of 85-22 211th St. in Hollis Hills around 10:40 p.m.

The officer 28, was taken to Long Island Jewish Medical Center where he died, according to police.

The cop was responding with his partner to a call about a series of car break-ins at the scene when the officer ended his life, a source said.

“He got out of his [patrol] car and he’s on the phone with somebody,” a police source said. “He puts the gun in his mouth and fires.”

“He was lying [on the street] bleeding,” neighbor Gerry Namti, 44, said of the uniformed cop.

“He was on his stomach,” said another neighbor who declined to be named. “They put him in the back of a [police] car because there wasn’t an ambulance.”

“They sped off and there was another [police car] following it,” she said.”

Namti said the cop’s partner was frantically calling for help over his police radio.

“I heard one shot - it was really loud,” the woman resident said. “Within the next few minutes, all I saw was flashing lights and police cars came speeding through.”

The block was cordoned off while dozens of investigators scoured the scene, neighbors said.

“It’s such a beautiful block,” one resident said. “It’s probably the prettiest block in Hollis Hills. This is the first time in 20 years I’ve ever seen something like this happen. It’s awful.”

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Italian man with two hearts suffers a double heart attack - and lives!

A 71-year-old man arrived at an Italian hospital two years ago with symptoms typical of someone experiencing heart trouble.

He was short of breath. He was sweating profusely. And his blood pressure was low.

But when doctors took a closer look, they noticed immediately that this was not the typical patient.

The man had two hearts.

He had undergone a rare heart transplant years ago in which a new organ was paired with the diseased one, according to a report in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

The hospital doctors noticed that the two hearts had developed independent rhythms and attempted drug therapy to correct the problem.

Suddenly, both of the patient’s hearts stopped beating and he lost consciousness.

But one jolt with a heart defibrillator miraculously brought the man back to life.

Doctors then replaced his pacemaker but left both hearts intact, capping one of the most bizarre medical cases in recent memory.

“We haven’t ever seen anything similar to this case before,” Dr. Giacomo Mugnai said in an email to MSNBC.com.

Local doctors were similarly awed by the case.

“I’ve never seen a double heart,” said Dr. David Friedman, chief of heart failure services at North Shore University Hospital in Plainview, L.I. “It’s amazing.”

The extraordinary ordeal happened in 2010, but it was described for the first time in the latest issue of the “Annals of Emergency Medicine.”

“To date, he is in good clinical condition, with no further arrhythmias,” the report says.

Seven years before the man showed up at the hospital, he had undergone a procedure known as a heterotopic heart transplant, in which a new heart is implanted into a patient’s body to support the malfunctioning one.

“The patients’ orginal heart has a chance to improve and recover,” said Friedman. “If the donor heart fails, it can be removed, leaving the patient’s original heart in place.”

At the time, the man was experiencing end-stage heart disease, according to the report.

But a common complication of the outdated procedure is for the hearts to develop independent rhythms, which is precisely what happened in the case of the Italian man.

Heterotopic heart transplants are almost unheard of these days because of the development of small, portable devices that do the job of the second heart.

Ten years ago, these machines, called ventricular assist devices, were extremely large and expensive.

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Sarah Burke’s family reaches out for help covering beloved skier’s medical bills

As the skiing community continues to mourn Sarah Burke's death, more than $185,000 had been raised by Friday evening on a fundraising website set up to help her family cover hospital costs.

Burke, the Canadian freestyle skier who was instrumental in bringing the women's skiing halfpipe event to the Olympics, died Thursday morning at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City. Burke died of cardiac arrest and lack of oxygen to her brain, complications that followed a traumatic brain injury she suffered during a training run on the Park City superpipe course Jan. 10. She was 29.

"Please consider helping them cover the enormous cost of Sarah's recent medical care and to provide for other arrangements by donating," read a letter on the fundraising site. "Your support in their greatest time of need will be gratefully appreciated and forever remembered."

The site was organized by her agent, Michael Spencer, and her husband, Rory Bushfield, is listed as the beneficiary.

Although the original cost of her medical treatment was reported to be over $500,000, the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association announced Friday that the final figure was expected to be approximately $200,000.

"Because of the donations in the last day, it is now clear that Sarah's family will not have any financial burden related to her care," the CFSA said in a statement. "Once charges are finalized, the University will work with Health Canada to determine what type of coverage may be available and what their contribution will be, as Sarah is a Canadian citizen."

The site listed a goal of $550,000.

"Sarah you were and always will be an inspiration to many," wrote one supporter on the site's message board. "Thank you for being a wonderful role model and someone girls can look up to in the skiing world. Your beautiful smile and soul will be forever with us. Thoughts and prayers go to your family and close friends."

The Vancouver Sun reported the CFSA has insurance to cover its athletes, but only in events sanctioned by the association. Burke was injured while on a training run at an event sponsored by Monster Energy Drink.

Monster Energy Drink's website featured a "We Love You Sarah!" tribute photo Friday which redirected fans to the fundraising site.

Burke had just completed a 540-degree "flat spin" trick, landing on her feet on the floor of the U-shaped superpipe. But what appeared to be a routine landing turned tragic in the few split seconds after Burke's skis made impact. According to a spokeswoman for her Canadian National Halfpipe Team, Burke bounced and fell on her head, suffering a torn vertebral artery.

CFSA CEO Peter Judge said in a conference call Thursday that Burke had completed the 540 flat spin "many, many times," and that the maneuver "was certainly in the realm of her skill capabilities.

"This injury was one - it was more of a freak accident than one caused by anything in specific terms," Judge said. "It was more of a fluke outcome. Safety was paramount to her."

IOC president Jacques Rogge expressed sadness over Burke's death, but said freestyle skiing is no more dangerous than other winter sports.

"It was with enormous sadness that I learned of the death of Sarah Burke," Rogge said. "She was a fine athlete doing the sport she loved. Our thoughts are with her family and friends at this time."

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Officials identify man whose dismembered body was found near iconic Hollywood sign

Coroner's officials on Friday identified a man whose dismembered head, hands and feet were found in a Hollywood park as a 66-year-old from Los Angeles, and police continued to hunt for his killer.

The victim's name is Hervey Medellin, coroner's Lt. David Smith said. Public directories show Medellin lived in a Hollywood apartment near the rugged, hillside park where his remains were found.

Investigators served a search warrant Thursday night on a Hollywood apartment in the area, but it wasn't immediately clear if it was Medellin's apartment.

Police investigate gruesome discovery in Los Angeles

"They did serve a search warrant last night. They are following clues, and the case is progressing. Guys are working around the clock to find out who did it and find the rest of the body," police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said Friday.

He did not elaborate on why the warrant was served or what, if anything, detectives found.

"We don't want to give out too much information because the investigation is ongoing," Smith said.

Medellin's head was found Tuesday by a dog walker at Bronson Canyon Park, and police searchers discovered the hands and feet during a two-day search that ended Thursday. The park, a brushy, wooded expanse of rolling hills just below the Hollywood sign, reopened Friday.

Although police have concluded no other body parts were dumped in the park, visitors who find anything they believe are related to the victim's death should contact authorities, Smith said.

More than 120 police officers, firefighters and Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies searched 7 acres of the park after the head was discovered in a plastic grocery bag. The hands and feet were found nearby.

Police have said they believe the victim was killed elsewhere and his remains dumped just inside the park, which attracts hundreds of hikers and dog walkers on most days.

Although rustic, it is located just a short distance from film studios and other Hollywood attractions.

Police believe the body parts were left there no more than a day or two before the head was found because they had barely decomposed and had not been attacked by coyotes that roam through the park at night.

Authorities don't believe the Los Angeles case is connected to a case in Tucson, Ariz., where police found a torso on Jan. 6. They say if the two were related, the remains would have been more badly decomposed.

Medellin's head was found after the dog walker let one of the animals she was shepherding through the park off its leash and it began playing with a plastic bag. When it shook the bag, the head fell out.

Smith said whoever dumped the head had gone to some effort to conceal it.

"If it had not been for the dog walker, we might never have found it," he said.

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Massive solar flare headed toward Earth, may spark celestial light show

A powerful flare erupted from the sun Thursday, Jan. 19, unleashing a plasma wave that may supercharge the northern lights for skywatchers in high latitudes this weekend.

The solar flare occurred at about 11:30 am EST (1600 GMT) and touched off a massive solar explosion — known as a coronal mass ejection — aimed at Earth, space weather experts and officials said. The charged particles from the sun explosion should reach Earth by Saturday night (Jan. 21), and could amp up northern lights displays when they hit the upper atmosphere.

"Forecasters say strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives during the late hours of Jan. 21st. High-latitude (and possibly middle-latitude) sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend," the skywatching website Spaceweather.com announced in an alert.

Several space telescopes recorded photos and video of the solar flare, including NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). [Photo and video of the solar flare]

According to the Space Weather Prediction Center maintained by NOAA, Thursday's solar flare erupted from an active sunspot group called Region 1401. Another solar hotspot, called Region 1402, is also fired off a flare, the center reported. 

Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun interact with Earth's upper atmosphere, releasing visible light in the process. The particles are funneled toward Earth's polar regions by the planet's magnetic field, with the northern auroral displays known as the aurora borealis, or northern lights. The southern counterpart is called the aurora australis, or southern lights. 

Thursday's solar flare rated as a powerful M2-class sun storm on the scale used by astronomers to measure flare strength. M-class storms are powerful, but mid-range, types of solar flares. They fall between the weaker C-class flares and the most powerful X-class solar storms, which can pose a threat to satellites and astronauts in orbit, cause widespread communications interference and damage infrastructure on Earth when aimed directly at the planet.

SDO mission scientists have said that sunspot group 1401 has been unleashing solar flares almost daily as the sun's rotation slowly turned the solar hotspot toward Earth in recent days. On Wednesday (Jan. 18), the region unleashed an M1.7-class solar flare, they said in a Twitter post.

The sun is currently in the middle of an active phase of its 11-year solar weather cycle. The current sun storm cycle, called Solar Cycle 24, is expected to peak in 2013, NASA scientists have said.

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Congress puts anti-piracy bill on backburner amid uproar

Congressional leaders announced Friday that they are putting controversial anti-online piracy legislation on the backburner, amid widespread objections from the tech community and others. 

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said he will postpone an upcoming vote on his chamber's proposal. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, quickly followed suit, saying consideration of a similar House bill would be postponed "until there is wider agreement on a solution." 

Earlier in the week, major websites and Internet companies protested the proposal. Wikipedia blacked out its site for a day, while Google circulated a petition that generated more than seven million signatures. The White House also raised concerns about the proposal over the weekend, though later claimed the president was not taking sides. 

Reid said in a statement that "in light of recent events," he would postpone a test vote that had been set for Tuesday. He said he's "optimistic" lawmakers can reach a compromise in the coming weeks. 

"There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved," he said. "Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day's work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio." 

As Smith pulled his bill, House Speaker John Boehner acknowledged Friday that he had asked the committee chairman to work to build more "consensus" on the proposal. 

At least a half-dozen senators who sponsored the measure now say they oppose it. All GOP presidential candidates also expressed opposition to the proposal in Thursday night's debate. 

The proposal would give the Justice Department new authority to seek court orders against foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. The Senate's version is called the Protect IP Act; the House's version is called the Stop Online Piracy Act. 

The Protect Intellectual Property Act has strong support from the entertainment industry and other businesses that lose billions of dollars annually to intellectual property theft and online sales of counterfeit products. But it also has strong opposition from Internet-related companies that argue the bill would lead to over-regulation and censorship of the Internet. 

The Tuesday vote was on whether to move the legislation to the Senate floor for debate. With the recent desertions and a statement Thursday by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell that it is too early to consider the bill, it appeared supporters lacked the 60 votes needed to advance the measure in the100-member chamber. 

President Obama over the weekend appeared to share those concerns, but White House Press Secretary Jay Carney later said the administration is not taking sides and is just trying to find the right balance. 

"Our firm belief is that we need to do something about online piracy by foreign websites, but we need to do it in a way that does not impinge upon a free and open Internet," he said. 

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Rescuers resume partial search on doomed Italian cruise ship

Rescue workers -- who had suspended their underwater search of the Costa Concordia after the cruise ship moved, making it too risky for divers to operate -- resumed searching Friday night on the upper part of the ship, the Italian coast guard said.

Rescue workers previously suspended their search when sensors on board the vessel measured movement, Massimo Maccheroni, of the Coast Guard general command, told CNN.

"When this happens all rescue forces have to leave the ship, (so as) not to put their lives in danger," he said.

Underwater searches will not resume until Saturday, the Italian coast guard said.

The authorities are now assessing their options. One possibility being considered is an attempt to anchor the vessel to the rocks off Giglio island using chains.

But, warned Maccheroni, "It's very difficult. The Concordia weighs 110,000 tons and it's like a 300 meter-high skyscraper in an horizontal position."

Italian authorities are considering when to call off the search for survivors and start the recovery operation, which would mean salvage workers can start emptying the ship's huge fuel tanks.

Coast Guard Captain Cosimo Nicastro said that preparation for the fuel removal operation is underway, though it has not started yet. A vessel with a huge tank still needs to come to the island to store the fuel. This will happen in the coming days, he said.

At least 11 people are known to have died in the disaster, and 21 are still missing, according to the Italian Crisis Unit.

A week after the ship ran aground off the Tuscan coast, it appeared increasingly unlikely that any survivors will still be found aboard the ship.

On Friday, more relatives of the missing passengers arrived on the island.

"It's terrible, we spend all day with relatives of those that have someone still missing and of those that have been identified," Giglio Vice Mayor Marco Pellegrini said.

A little bar located on the harbor was drawing a bit of business selling hot drinks and coffee.

A private boat carrying French, Italian and Peruvian relatives of the dead and missing, chartered by the Italian authorities, sailed from Porto Santo Stefano on the mainland Friday lunchtime, to Giglio.

Cook: Captain ordered dinner after crash

A spokesman for the mayor of Giglio said the families had scattered flowers on the water by the wreck site.

Also on the boat was Susy Albertini, the mother of a missing 5-year-old Italian girl, Dayana Arlotti. The girl's father, Albertini's ex-husband, William Arlotti, is also unaccounted for.

"Dayana was very happy and excited for this trip," said Davide Veschi, lawyer for Susy Albertini. "She packed all her nicest clothes last Thursday. We know from other passengers that she was wearing a life vest but her father no. They are not experienced swimmers. Susy tried to reach the father's mobile many times that night, but nobody answered."

Eight of the dead have so far been named -- four French passengers, a Spanish passenger, and Italian and one crew member each from Hungary and Peru.

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Criticism from both Costa Cruises and the authorities has focused so far on Capt. Francesco Schettino, who is under house arrest and facing possible charges of manslaughter, shipwreck and abandoning ship.

His lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, spoke to Sky Tg24 on Friday, urging people to reserve judgment on the captain until they have all the facts.

"Obviously, before we can talk about responsibilities, we need to make sure that there is a series of facts that are corroborated. Until now we only have one fact: the fact that the ship Concordia hit a rock. What were the causes of the collision: a wrong maneuver? A missing sign on the sea maps? High speed? A sudden change of route? Improvised route? I am not able to determine this," Leporatti told the Italian news channel.

"It will be the technical examinations that will in their entirety clarify the dynamic of the events," Leporatti reportedly said.

Further doubt was cast on Schettino's leadership late Thursday when a cook from the ship told a Filipino television station that the captain ordered dinner for himself and a woman at about 10:30 p.m., less than an hour after the collision.

"We wondered what was going on," cook Rogelio Barista told GMA Network. "At that time, we really felt something was wrong. ... The stuff in the kitchen was falling off shelves and we realized how grave the situation was."

However, a Moldovan woman Domnica Cemortan, 25, who also works for the Costa cruise line but said she was on the Concordia as a passenger, defended the captain in a TV interview.

"I've heard in Russian media that the captain left the ship first, or among the first. But this is not true," she said.

"I'm a witness -- I don't know if I'm invited to testify in the court or not, but as a witness I can say that I left the deck at 11:50 p.m. following an order from the captain who told me to go to the third deck to get into a lifeboat that could take more people."

Cemortan said she had gone to the deck to help translate the captain's orders after hearing a coded announcement that raised the alarm for crew members.

Coast guard records published Thursday by an Italian newspaper added to the pressure on Schettino and his officers, suggesting authorities first became aware of the crash from a friend of the mother of a passenger about 15 minutes after the ship hit rocks.

The Coast Guard identified the ship in trouble and contacted it, asking if there were problems on board, at 10:14 p.m. -- more than half an hour after the 9:41 p.m. collision -- according to a Coast Guard log published in the newspaper La Repubblica.

The ship responded that it was experiencing a "black out," according to the log and said the crew believed it could solve the problem in a short time. The log does not indicate which crew member was speaking.

What appears to be the audio of that first radio call between the Costa Concordia and the Coast Guard was broadcast on Italian media Thursday.

A Coast Guard official is heard to ask: "What kind of a problem is it? Just something with the generator? The police of Prato have received a phone call from the relatives of a sailor who said that during the dinner everything was falling on his head."

The unidentified crew member responds: "We have a black out and we are checking the conditions on board."

"The passengers say they have been told to put on the life vests, is this correct?" the Coast Guard then asks, to which the crew member repeats the same answer, before promising to keep the Coast Guard updated.

In Schettino's hometown of Meta di Sorrento, residents were standing by the cruise ship captain.

A spray-painted sheet left hanging outside the home where Schettino is under house arrest says, "Captain, don't give up."

"It looks like the only one responsible is the captain. That's what everyone on the outside think," Mayor Paolo Trapani said. "But in this village, people know he cannot be responsible for everything. It's not like journalists want to portray it."

The decision to give up the search for survivors is expected to come by the weekend, when the weather is forecast to deteriorate.

Declaring the operation to be recovery rather than rescue would allow salvage experts to start pumping fuel out of the ship, potentially averting an environmental catastrophe. The ship was carrying about 2,300 tons of fuel when it hit rocks.

Prosecutors have accused the captain of piloting the ship to fast to allow him to react to dangers, causing the shipwreck, according to legal papers.

Judge Valeria Montesarchio's initial ruling found Schettino changed the ship's course, steering too close to shore and causing the ship to hit a rock.

Costa Cruises chairman Pier Luigi Foschi earlier this week placed the blame for the wreck squarely on the captain, saying it was his choice to deviate from frequently traveled routes.

There were roughly 4,200 people on the Costa Concordia when it ran aground -- about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members, the vast majority of whom made it off the ship safely.

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Friend charged in Arkansas bank attempt involving elderly couple

A friend of an elderly Arkansas couple has been charged with forcing the wife to try to rob a bank with a fake explosive device, police said Thursday.

Authorities in Fayetteville arrested 60-year-old Paul Bradley on Thursday, three days after 73-year-old Betty Davis walked into a bank there and told a teller she had a bomb fastened to her ankle.

Her husband, Dean Davis, said he has known Bradley for some time.

"I had coffee with him all last week," said Davis, whom police said had been tied up in the couple's home while his wife was forced to go to the bank by a masked assailant. "One morning he paid for my coffee, and I'd like to see him and pay him that back."

Bradley has been charged with aggravated burglary, theft of property, aggravated robbery and kidnapping, Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder told reporters. He said Bradley strapped the phony bomb onto Betty Davis and took her to the bank to force her to withdraw money from her account. Once inside, she told a teller about the plot and that she had been followed to the Arvest Bank branch.

"I felt like I needed to get out of that bank and get everyone out of danger," Betty Davis said. "If he did what he said he was going to do, he would blow it up and hurt all those people."

After Betty Davis talked to police, they went to the couple's home and found Dean Davis tied up, police said.

The assailant wore a mask and said little, so the couple was unable to identify their attacker at first.

"I would have never imagined that of him and never thought he would do something like that," Dean Davis said.

Helder said that authorities "couldn't have had better victims than the Davises."

"They were very calm and collected, and she helped us identify the vehicle," he said.

The FBI assisted in the investigation, Fayetteville police spokesman Sgt. Craig Stout said. Police expect to bring additional charges against Bradley, including extortion, he said.

In March 2011 Bradley received a suspended sentence for his involvement in a scheme to defraud local residents of thousands of dollars, Helder said.

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Crime scene cleanup business 'is not a job for everyone'

Ron Gospodarski remembered the gory details: The victim was beaten to death, perhaps with a baseball bat. There was blood spatter everywhere. "A very bloody scene," he recalled.

Gospodarski wasn't the lead detective trying to solve a homicide, nor was he a forensic investigator looking for scientific evidence.

He was there to clean it up.

By his count, Gospodarski has handled thousands of crime scene cleanups across the New York City area over the past 15 years. "Probably six to 10 jobs a week," he said. From stabbings and suicides to freak accidents and multiple murders, he has seen it all.

Gospodarski's line of work is unique and not for the faint of heart. His company, Bio-Recovery Corp., specializes in crime-scene and biohazard clean-ups, a cottage industry that goes to work after the body is gone. "You see the blood stains, the gloves that the EMS threw on the floor," he told CNN, "the police put up this crime scene tape, nobody can come in here. And then they just walk away from it."

As private enterprises go, crime scene cleanup businesses were virtually nonexistent a couple of decades ago. Today, there are hundreds of companies around the country that employ trained technicians to sanitize and decontaminate locations where a violent crime or trauma has occurred. Many of the companies also provide cleanup assistance with hoarders and decomposing bodies.

The work is macabre, but it also carries an element of fascination. "We are like voyeurs," Gospodarski said. "We look into people's lives and see what people on the outside want to see. We see the good things and the bad things, and that's the way life is."

Still, there are certain aspects of the job that continue to sicken him, and they don't come from the dead.

"I've stopped being amazed by people," Gospodarski said. "We've been in places where we're cleaning up deaths and there are people sticking their heads in the door asking if they can rent the apartment. It's bizarre."

Cory Chalmers was a young firefighter in southern California when he entered the crime-scene cleanup business. "I came up with this idea just from responding to calls and from seeing some of the horrific scenes we'd be leaving behind for families to deal with," he said.

One incident, the suicide of a man who had shot himself in the bathroom of his home, stood out for Chalmers. "The wife was just screaming hysterically," he said. "As we walked out, we passed the woman. Just the look in her eyes, I couldn't stand it anymore. That was the one that pushed me over the edge and made me want to do this."

Chalmers started his company, Steri-Clean Inc., out of his garage. Seventeen years later, he has a staff of 22 people, is contracted by more than 48 cities and will soon be franchised to other states.

"This is not a job for everyone," he told CNN. "I don't care how big, strong and tough you are. It's really a mental thing."

Fees for cleanups range anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000, Chalmers said. Who ends up paying the bill depends on a variety of factors. In some instances, homeowner's insurance will cover the costs. There are also administrative codes and statutes in certain states and cities that mandate local police and fire departments provide the clean-up services.

When his crew enters a crime scene, "The first thing we do is make contact with whomever is meeting us," he said. "We talk to them and see how they are doing. We make our way inside wearing full protective clothing, disposable Tyvek coveralls, respirators, eye protection, thick gloves, and we set up a 'cold zone' outside the protected area."

"We have bio-hazard bins, lots of rags, disinfectant, we have our laminator that we spray on surfaces that turn white if blood is detected. We have an ozone machine that gets rid of any odor in the air."

An ozone system is a key component for most cleanup crews. For $3,125 you can have one shipped to your home.

"Deodorize human decomposition jobs with zero call-backs," reads a caption next to an image of the product. It's being sold by Amdecon, a school based in Florida that offers crime- and trauma-scene cleaning courses to students around the world.

The school's founder, Michael J. Tillman, said he has helped teach cleanup techniques to more than 1,500 people in 16 countries.

"It's been very successful," he said of the business. "It's not for everybody, but for those that it's appropriate for, it's a great way to get into the industry."

I wanted to be able to say that I left the world in a little better condition and that I helped a lot of people, and that I made good money doing it
Michael J. Tillman, founder of Amdecon, school that offers crime-and-trauma scene cleaning courses

Tillman's foray into the trade began after reading an article about how a couple of detectives were providing after-hours cleanup services to families with loved ones who were killed.

"I wanted to be able to say that I left the world in a little better condition and that I helped a lot of people, and that I made good money doing it," he said.

"It's a very emotionally rewarding business and a very financially rewarding business," he said. "It's just extremely hard work and if you don't have that switch where you can turn off your emotions, you can't do it. It's not for everybody."

Chalmers said he offers counseling to his employees if he detects changes in behavior or attitude.

While it is a business, Gospadarski said there are some cases he'll do for free. "If the people don't have money, they can still call us," he said. "We will still do the job, we would never turn a family away, ever." Compassion is essential for the cleanup crews, whose peculiar profession has also provided them with an unusual perspective on life and death.

"You never know when your time is going to come," said Chalmers. "It doesn't matter if you are a gang member getting shot or someone walking to the dinner table. Everything can be dangerous

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