The U.S. is preparing to close its embassy in Damascus, Syria by the end of the month, a senior White House official said on Friday, due to the country’s rapidly deteriorating security situation. The Obama administration said the embassy will shut its doors unless President Assad agrees to provide greater protection—a concession he has so far been unwilling to make. The announcement comes on the heels of a slew of car bombings, with officials saying they have reason to believe Syrian and Iraqi militants associated with al-Qaeda are behind the attacks. Though the U.S. has not directly blamed the Syrian government for the bombings, a White House official said shuttering the embassy “reinforces our point that Assad has lost all legitimacy.”

Want eggs with that? Both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are planning to appear at a Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville on Saturday at exactly the same time: 10:45 in the morning on primary day, just hours before the voting begins. The two have been neck and neck going into the primary, with Gingrich pulling ahead at the last minute. A new Clemson poll shows that he now has a six-point lead over Romney. Though that’s within the statistical margin of error, the dynamic of the race appears to have shifted in Gingrich’s favor. The former speaker of the House had a strong debate showing earlier in the week, and Romney’s campaign now seems apprehensive.

Let the conservative backlash begin. The Obama administration ruled on Friday that religiously affiliated organizations will have to offer female employees birth control coverage, rejecting the Roman Catholic Church’s exemption request for its hospitals, colleges and charities. The administration will, however, give some employers an extra year to comply with the law, which means coverage for their employees won’t begin until after the 2012 elections. All other insurers will have to comply by August 1. The federal legislation does not apply to churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and religious elementary and secondary schools. Despite this concession, some church groups have complained that the exemption is too narrow.

Legendary R&B singer Etta James died Friday after a long battle with leukemia. She was 73. Known as “Miss Peaches,” James’s career began in the 1950s and defied all genres with hits including “The Wallflower” and “At Last.” The winner of six Grammys and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, James debuted the voice that would send her to stardom in Los Angeles church choirs. Though she never achieved the degree of popular success enjoyed by other R&B and soul stars, James’s impact on pop, rock, and rhythm and blues continues to be felt—she has been cited as an influence by Adele and was portrayed by Beyoncé in 2008’s Cadillac Records. In recent years, James had been diagnosed with leukemia, dementia, and hepatitis C while her family battled over her estate.

It must have been really tough around the Senate without Wikipedia. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Friday that the vote on a controversial—and highly unpopular—online piracy bill had been delayed indefinitely. The House later announced a similar measure for its equivalent bill, known as the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. The bills had caused Wikipedia and several other websites to go dark Wednesday in protest. While a number of high-profile senators had pulled back their support of the bills in recent days, it placed Democrats between two powerful interest groups: Hollywood, which supports a crackdown on online piracy, and Silicon Valley, which believes the bills in their current form would hinder the Internet’s business model. One of the Senate bill's sponsors, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, said delaying the bill is a victory for "overseas criminals" who would "drain our economy."

Reno, Nev., officials are blaming discarded ashes for a brush fire that destroyed 29 homes and forced 10,000 people to evacuate the area. An elderly man was cleaning his fireplace and dumped the ashes improperly. Fire Chief Michael Hernandez said the man was extremely remorseful. The fire, which started in a nearby valley, has been about 50 percent contained, but is still covering close to 4,000 acres of land. Roughly 2,000 people remain evacuated. A near-record drought and high-gusting winds contributed to the fire's rapid spread.

Newt Gingrich's gain is Mitt Romney's loss, Frank Newport explained on MSNBC Friday. The editor in chief of the Gallup polling organization predicts that new data set to come out this afternoon will show Romney's support "clearly collapsing." Talking Points Memo confirms that its poll average also shows Romney slipping. "We have seen more movement, more roller-coaster kind of effect this year than any other Republican primary in our history of tracking," said Newport, adding, "It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility if Romney recovers. We'll wait and see."

Two U.S. law firms and Italy’s consumer association said Friday they plan on suing Costa Cruises on behalf of the 4,200 passengers aboard the wrecked Costa Concordia. They are seeking $160,000 in damages for each passenger. An attorney representing one of the firms said the case would seek compensation from Costa Cruises for medical care and psychological suffering that resulted from the accident and subsequent evacuation.  Costa Cruises, which is owned by Carnival Group, a U.S. company, has criticized the ship’s captain for what it called “grave errors of judgment” leading up to the accident.

Scientists who created a more deadly and highly contagious strain of bird flu are pausing their research for 60 days, handing over their reports to be reviewed by other researchers around the world before they proceed. The scientists who purposely engineered genetic changes to the H5N1 virus to make it more contagious among lab animals have penned a letter explaining why they’re halting research, which will be published with reports on their work in the journals of Science and Nature. They say that though the scientists' work has public health benefits, the National Institutes of Health expressed concern about the virus escaping laboratories and potentially infecting humans, which has prompted a major public debate over whether the research is safe.

Is it getting hot in here? The sun unleashed a solar flare aimed at the Earth on Thursday. The explosion of charged particles, also known as a plasma wave, will likely create a beautiful Northern light display, otherwise known as an aurora. The flare has been classified as an M2-class storm, meaning it was considered powerful but moderate. According to astronomers, the sun is near the middle of its 11-year weather cycle, which is expected to peak in 2013.

The Supreme Court rejected electoral maps in Texas on Friday, claiming they favored minorities and Democrats, and sent them back to federal judges in San Antonio to be redrawn. The maps apparently redrew political boundaries based on the results of a 2010 census that found the state’s population had increased by 4 million since 2000, and that the majority of the new residents are Latinos and African-Americans. The minority groups then complained that Republican lawmakers were denying them voting power and violating the Voting Rights Act, leading the legislature to draw up a new map. For now, the fate of Texas’s April primary is unclear.

On top of dealing with the tragedy of Sarah Burke’s death, the trailblazing skier’s family has to pay off a $550,000 medical bill for her care in the hospital. Her family has set up a fundraising website to help with the huge costs, and by noon ET had received roughly $90,000 in donations—16 percent of the total money needed. The 29-year-old freestyle pioneer and Winter X Games gold medalist died Thursday after an accident at the Park City Mountain Resort in Utah sent her into cardiac arrest for a week. It’s unclear whether Burke’s health insurance covered extreme sports.

The Los Angeles coroner’s office announced Friday that it has matched a name to the head, hands, and feet found near the Hollywood sign. Though city police are declining to release other details, saying they’ve placed the case on a security hold, sources say one person was questioned in connection with the case Thursday. The police have reportedly ceased their search of the Bronson Canyon area for other body parts.

Ken, they're coming for you next. Iranian police have confiscated Barbie dolls and shut down dozens of toy stores for selling them, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported Friday. Mehr quoted an unnamed police official who said this marks a "new phase" in the country's crackdown against "manifestations of Western culture." Iran has banned the sale of Barbie dolls since the mid-1990s, but the last campaign to stamp them out was in 2002. In 2008, the government again warned against the "destructive" consequences of Barbie dolls.

Author Salman Rushdie said Friday he won't be attending the Jaipur literary festival in India after authorities warned him that "paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to eliminate me," Rushdie said in an announcement. The author of The Satanic Verses has been viewed as an enemy by fundamentalist Muslims ever since the 1988 publication of that book, which prompted a fatwa against him. A row broke out about Rushdie's planned appearance and protest marches were scheduled during the festival.

Even the European Union's Internet czar is adding to the growing opposition against the U.S. Congress' proposed Stop Online Piracy Act. EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes sent out this tweet Friday: "Glad tide is turning on SOPA: don't need bad legislation when should be safeguarding benefits of open net." This after outrage over the law, which would let U.S. authorities shut down sites where users shared pirated content, prompted Wikipedia and other organizations to go dark on Wednesday in protest. Kroes also tweeted: "Speeding is illegal too: but you don't put speed bumps on the motorway."

Rick Santorum would not be pleased about this man-to-man singing. President Obama was at Harlem's Apollo Theater Thursday night for a fundraising event, and when he was on stage giving a speech, he started singing. "I ... I'm ... soooo in love with you," Obama crooned a bit of the Al Green hit "Let's Stay Together," to, well, Al Green, who was in the audience. "I just wanted to show my appreciation," the POTUS said.

France on Friday threatened to pull all of its troops out of Afghanistan early after an Afghan soldier killed four French NATO personnel on the same day. France had been conducting training operations for Afghan troops, but they have now been suspended. President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed the deaths, which brings to 82 the number of French troops killed in the war in Afghanistan. “The French army is not in Afghanistan so that Afghan soldiers can shoot at them," Sarkozy said. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to meet with Sarkozy in Paris next week. Six NATO soldiers were killed in a separate helicopter crash early Friday, with early signs indicating all six were Americans.

Freezing rain and a layer of ice added to the weather woes of the Pacific Northwest on Thursday night after this week's record snowfall. Washington state was in a deep freeze as slippery roads made for a treacherous commute, although temperatures are expected to rise Friday—although the predictions of more rain won't help. The storm, which pelted the region starting Tuesday, was blamed for at least two deaths.

We knew this was coming. CNN’s John King gave Newt Gingrich the first question of the night, asking about his wife’s interview in which she says he requested an open marriage, among other things. When asked whether he would like to respond to the allegations, Gingrich responded, “No, but I will.” He continued, “I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that.” He called the question “as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.”

New Zealand police seized a pink Cadillac, a sawed-off shotgun, and froze millions of dollars in cash after raiding on Friday a fortified mansion occupied by the Internet guru known as "Kim Dotcom," the head of the website Megaupload now accused of online piracy. Armed officers arrested Kim Schmitz, a 37-year-old German citizen with New Zealand and Hong Kong residency, and he was denied bail with three other men on Friday in a court appearance. Megaupload, one of the world’s largest file-sharing sites, was shut down by U.S. authorities Thursday in one of the largest cases of copyright theft ever.

The Obama administration’s eight-week hiatus from unmanned drone strikes is definitely over. U.S. officials said Thursday that a “senior operations organizer” for al Qaeda was targeted and eliminated by a drone strike in Pakistan last week. Aslam Awan was killed near the border of North Waziristan. He is believed to be the last member of a Pakistan-based al Qaeda cell that Pakistani police have been trying to eliminate since 2008.

There are still 21 people missing from the sunken cruise ship Costa Concordia in Italy, but hopes of finding them alive are fading fast after rescue operations were suspended Friday for the third time. Rescuers fear that the ship could slip into deeper water amid choppy waters and worsening weather conditions. At least 11 people have been confirmed dead after the ocean liner ran aground off Italy's coast a week ago with about 4,200 people on board.

Newt Gingrich may be at a debate, but that doesn’t mean he can’t multitask. He kept at least one vow, and released his tax return for 2010 during the debate. Gingrich paid federal taxes of $994,708 on an adjusted gross income of $3,142,066. On Wednesday, Gingrich said he paid an effective tax rate of 31 percent in 2010. Mitt Romney admitted earlier this week that he pays “closer to the 15 percent rate.” Newt also said that if he were to debate Obama, it would be a battle between knowledge and a teleprompter. Romney, despite boos, said he'll release his tax returns all at once if he's the nominee. Ron Paul's too embarassed to show his numbers next to Mitt and Newt. Santorum's taxes, by the way, are on his computer at home. Right.

Newt Gingrich's two daughters (from his first marriage) are defending their father from charges that he asked his second wife for an open marriage. "He said it's simply not true," Kathy Lubbers told ABC News, which aired Marianne Gingrich's interview on its Nightline program Thursday night, where she also revealed that the former speaker of the House started divorce proceedings shortly after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. "Dad tried very hard to make their marriage work, and unfortunately it didn't," Gingrich's other daughter, Jackie Cushman, said.

The young Moldovan woman who supposedly fell into a lifeboat with the Costa Concordia’s captain wants the world to know there were no inappropriate interactions between her and Schettino prior to the cruise ship disaster. Domnica Cemortan, 25, told the Italian press on Friday that she’s “not the captain’s lover.” The reason we should believe her? According to Cemortan, Schettino often showed her pictures of his daughter when she was young. “A man who wants a lover doesn’t behave like that,” she said. Cemortan has worked as a dancer on cruise ships in the past and was reportedly seen drinking with the captain an hour before the Costa Concordia crashed. She insists this never occurred and that she was in fact having dinner with some of the ship’s officers, despite the fact that passenger photos appear to show her dining with Schettino. She does, however, admit that she was “close to Capt. Schettino” because she was translating the captain’s Italian orders to Russian passengers aboard the ship.

So much for staying Anonymous. The hacking group has admitted to crashing the Justice Department and FBI websites, after federal officials took down the popular file-sharing site Megaupload. Seven executives from Megaupload were indicted Thursday for disobeying copyright laws and protection, though the site’s attorney denied the charges. Hours later, the websites of the Justice Department and Universal Music and the FBI’s homepage all malfunctioned. Anonymous didn’t steal any information from the sites—the attacks were meant to flood the pages with more traffic than they could handle and were targeted at the Stop Online Piracy Act. The founder of an online think tank that works in tandem with the hacking site said Anonymous might also attempt to try to leak names of Congress members supporting SOPA.

Stephen Colbert and former presidential hopeful Herman Cain kicked off their "Rock Me Like a Herman Cain: South Cain-olina Primary Rally" Friday. Colbert is encouraging his supporters in South Carolina to vote for Herman Cain, since Colbert didn't qualify for the primary and, while Cain dropped out of the race in December, his name is still on the ballot. "Herman is the only former candidate who truly shares my values. It's like our values were separated at birth. And our ethics are at least first cousins," said Colbert in a press release. MSNBC is streaming live coverage of the event.

Greek media reported Friday that the government has hashed out a deal to help relieve the country of some of its long-term debt problems—a key step in avoiding an economically catastrophic default. The deal would allow private creditors to swap bonds that would exchange credit for debt. Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance, will reportedly announce the deal in Athens on Friday. In a less wonky way to deal, Greece has fielded less-sophisticated debt-reduction schemes recently, announcing it would allow film crews to rent out ready-for-prime-time scenery from the age of Pericles.

It’s been nearly 10 years since she was kidnapped, but Elizabeth Smart is still making headlines. A spokesman confirmed Friday that Smart, 24, is engaged to be married later this year, though no details about the groom have been revealed. After her rescue in 2003, Smart displayed little psychological trauma and was quick to restore her life to normalcy. She has served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France, formed a foundation dedicated to child advocacy, and worked as a commentator for ABC News. She is nonetheless wary of her personal life being too exposed to the public, which explains the mystery of the groom. “She has planned to be very public in her child advocacy work, but wants to keep the details of her personal life private,” her spokesman said.

In the past week, Newt Gingrich has been in the spotlight, both for his arguably racist rhetoric (his janitorial jobs for urban kids plan and his insistence on calling Obama "the food-stamp president") and for his ex-wife's revelation that Newt proposed an open marriage while already in the middle of an affair with a young House staffer, which reinvigorated the stories of Gingrich's philandering and cruelly timed divorces from two separate women with life-threatening illnesses. He also snapped at Thursday night's debate when asked about his ex-wife's interview. This is the type of attention that could kill a campaign, and yet the people of South Carolina are loving it! Polls show Gingrich's support surging so high that he may even be on track to beat Mitt Romney in Saturday's primary. Even Romney strategist Stuart Stevens has confirmed this idea. "Do I think we could lose South Carolina? Sure. Of course," he told CNN, insisting the question shouldn't be whether Romney could lose in South Carolina, it should be "Does he have a chance in South Carolina?"