U.S. out, Taliban in? A NATO classified report says the Taliban is confident it will regain control of Afghanistan once foreign forces leave the country. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday that combat operations will end in the nation in 2013. The Taliban believes it has the strength, motivation, and efficiency to retake power—though it has faced heavy losses since 2011. NATO officials said the document exists but downplayed its importance. The report also says the Taliban has not split from extremist groups. Afghan Taliban say they have not started peace negotiations with the international community—specifically the Americans.

Just a few weeks after the Costa Concordia accident claimed close to 20 lives, there’s another story of tragedy on the high seas coming out of the Pacific. Roughly 350 people were on board the MV Rabaul Queen ferry when it sank off the coast of Papua New Guinea on Wednesday. The boat was traveling between Kimbe and Lae when it encountered bad weather. Australian rescuers have made it to the scene and say that so far 28 have been rescued. No fatalities have been reported.

There may be a lot more Facebook millionaires soon. The social-media company submitted paperwork to regulators for a $5 billion initial public offering, one of the largest U.S. market debuts in history. (Google’s IPO was $2 billion.) Facebook said in the filing that it made $3.71 billion in 2011. The IPO haul could raise founder Mark Zuckerberg's net worth from $21 billion to $28 billion. The filing also said Zuckerberg will sell shares in the IPO, though it didn't specify how many, and use the proceeds to pay taxes.

A reported 70 people were killed and dozens more injured Wednesday during riots following an Egyptian soccer match in Port Said. A security official said fans of the winning side rushed the field, chased the losing squad's players, and cornered their supporters, throwing stones and bottles at them. Most of the victims reportedly died from suffocation or head injuries. Al-Ahly, Egypt’s top team, had a rare defeat handed to it by al-Masry, and the two teams have a bitter rivalry that has resulted in violence over the past couple of years. According to Al Jazeera, there has been a security vacuum in Egypt since last year’s revolution.

U.S. officials have hinted at being near a close of the American engagement in Afghanistan, but Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced Wednesday in Brussels that combat operations will end in 2013. “Hopefully by mid to the latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise-and-assist role,” Panetta said. U.S. and NATO forces will remain for the foreseeable future, and the transfer is in keeping with a previously established timetable. The announcement, however, signaled that the U.S. and its allies are determined to hasten the process.

Arriving in Nevada on Wednesday, Newt Gingrich seemed not to stand a chance against Mitt Romney, but a celebrity endorsement could shake things up. A Gingrich campaign adviser told The New York Times that Donald Trump will announce his endorsement of the former House speaker in Las Vegas on Thursday. Trump’s camp hasn’t confirmed the endorsement but teased the news that he would be making a major announcement with regards to the presidential race. Gingrich told CNN that he and Trump have had little contact since their high-profile New York City gathering in December, shortly before Trump announced he was disassociating himself from the Republican Party, “disgusted” with the GOP’s handling of the payroll-tax-cut extension. Meanwhile, the National Review reports that Sharron Angle will throw her support behind Rick Santorum tomorrow.

Mitt just can’t stop sounding like a heartless rich guy. “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Romney said on CNN Wednesday morning. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.” Host Soledad O’Brien pointed out the obvious—that if it’s bad for the middle class, it’s probably even worse for the very poor. But Romney’s clarification didn’t help him much. “We will hear from the Democrat Party, the plight of the poor,” he added. “My focus is on middle-income Americans.”

President Obama on Wednesday touted his mortgage-relief plan, and while he did not mention Mitt Romney by name, his comments referenced Romney’s statement a day earlier that the housing market had to bottom out before it got any better. “It is wrong for anybody to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom,” Obama said in a speech at a community center in Virginia. The housing plan, parts of which require congressional legislation, is aimed at making it easier for homeowners to refinance. Romney has stated his opposition to this plan, saying he instead believes the answer to fixing the housing market is not in government intervention but in rolling back regulations and allowing the market to fix itself.

The Port Nicholson, a British merchant ship, has been stuck on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for 70 years. But now treasure hunter Greg Brooks says he’s found not only the vessel but also the roughly $3 billion worth of platinum that sank with it when a German U-boat attacked it, killing six people on board. The British government says Brooks is overhyping the find, because its initial research is showing that the ship was carrying mostly machinery, but Brooks counters that a U.S. Treasury Department document shows the platinum was on board and on its way to pay the Soviet Union for war supplies. If the wreckage proves lucrative, the treasure hunter will have a fight on his hands. The British government may file a claim on the cargo.

Los Angeles–based artist Mike Kelley, a punk-rock pioneer and lauded contemporary artist, was found dead in his home Tuesday. The cause of his death is under investigation, but a South Pasadena police sergeant said it appeared he had committed suicide. The 57-year-old Kelley, a California Institute of the Arts graduate and recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and other prizes, made waves with shows in Los Angeles and New York in the early 1990s. His work, which included large-scale mixed-media works and other genre-bending pieces, was the subject of a 1993 retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York City. Kelley will also be featured in this year’s Whitney Biennial.

The file on singer Amy Winehouse’s July death may be reopened after a probe revealed that the coroner who handed down a verdict of accidental alcohol poisoning was not qualified for her job. Suzanne Greenaway, who ruled on Winehouse’s death as well as on about 30 other inquests, did not have the legal experience necessary to practice as a coroner in Britain. Greenaway held positions as a solicitor and barrister in Australia, and was appointed to the job of assistant deputy coroner in London by her husband. Winehouse’s family, who said they are seeking legal advice, would have to challenge the inquest in court to get it overturned.

Don Cornelius, the creator of television’s Soul Train, was found dead Wednesday morning in an apparent suicide, police said. Police discovered his body around 4 a.m. with a gunshot wound to the head, which they believe was self-inflicted. He was 75. Cornelius hosted Soul Train from when it debuted in 1971 until 1993; the show ceased running in 2006. During Cornelius’s divorce proceedings in 2009, he told a judge he was suffering from significant health issues and wanted to “finalize this divorce before I die.”

A Syrian who was deployed to be a foot soldier for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime said the military’s brutal practices forced him to defect. Ammar Cheikh Omar, 29, told The New York Times he felt proud to be serving the government when he was first deployed, claiming he and other soldiers were initially told their duty was to defend the country against Israel. As soon as the revolution erupted, they were told protesters were “terrorists” and were forced to shoot and torture innocent people. The soldiers were denied access to cellphones, nonstate TV, and the Internet, and breaking the rules resulted in up to two months in jail. Human-rights groups estimate that he is one of 5,000 defectors, though it remains difficult to confirm exact numbers as many of them remain in hiding, fearing for their safety.

In a move decried by women’s health advocates, the cancer group Susan G. Komen for the Cure is cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings and other educational programs. Komen, which gave Planned Parenthood around $700,000 last year, will halt financing for 19 of the women’s health organization’s affiliates. The Komen foundation said the move is in response to an internal rule prohibiting giving to organizations under investigation. (Planned Parenthood is being investigated by conservative activists in several states, most notably Florida.) Critics, including Planned Parenthood leadership, said the group was caving in to long-standing pressure from right-wing activists to break ties with Planned Parenthood over its support for abortion.

Prince William shouldn’t expect a royal welcome when he arrives in the Falklands. The Duke of Cambridge is on his way to the islands, where he’ll serve for six weeks as a helicopter pilot. But Argentina is not pleased, especially as the deployment comes on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the war over the islands. The country’s foreign ministry said it was saddened that the prince “will arrive on our soil in the uniform of a conquistador,” and accused Britain of pumping up the debate over the islands to distract its people from its struggling economy.

As expected, debate in the United Nations over how to stop the bloodshed in Syria is running into a Russian wall. Moscow’s envoy to the European Union says his country will veto the current resolution unless it explicitly rules out a military intervention. The British foreign secretary and his French counterpart said the resolution as is could not be used to justify military intervention. Russia, a close ally and important arms dealer to Bashar al-Assad’s regime, has proposed an alternate resolution that assigns equal blame to the Assad regime and its opposition.

Talk about a rude awakening. Early last Thursday morning, a woman in Fitchburg, Mass., discovered that the FBI was sawing through her front door with a chainsaw. Judy Sanchez told local reporters that a team of FBI agents had swarmed her apartment building, broke down her door, and held her at gunpoint for at least 30 minutes while her 3-year-old daughter cried in the background—until they realized they were at the wrong apartment. Police had intended to saw down the door of another apartment on the same floor as part of a drug and weapons raid tied to a gang in the city. The FBI has apologized to Sanchez and is paying for her damaged door.

Indiana’s state Senate passed a “right-to-work” bill Wednesday that will allow workers at unionized businesses to opt out of paying dues. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, who has championed the bill, is expected to sign it Wednesday. The bill’s supporters claim that the law will draw jobs to the state and will not discourage workers who want to join unions from doing so. But the bill’s opponents say it will lead only to “lower wages and fewer benefits.” There are currently 22 other states with right-to-work legislation on the books. Indiana’s actions have gained particular attention in an election year when organized labor could prove a critical voting bloc.

The GOP presidential race is headed to Nevada, where the facts on the ground may be troubling for candidates like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum hoping to capitalize on Tea Party support. Since the 2010 midterm elections, Nevada’s Tea Party has all but fallen apart, demoralized and scattered by the loss of its champion, Sharron Angle, to embattled Democratic Sen. Harry Reid. Tea Party activists say their movement has been undone by internal squabbles, and they’ve all but given up on impacting the primary. "They don't even make an effort to coordinate with us anymore," one activist said. A pro-Gingrich super-PAC operative added, “Conservatives in this state just can't figure out how to row in the same direction.”

Newt Gingrich is vowing to continue his campaign despite his double-digit loss in Florida. Rather than congratulate Mitt Romney on his victory, Gingrich used his non-concession speech last night to attack the media and say he would “contest every place.” To stay alive, the Gingrich campaign will have to pick up delegates where it can in the string of primary states coming up—which allocate their delegates proportionally—and then bank on a strong showing in the Southern states on Super Tuesday, March 6. But the campaign’s immediate future looks bleak. Romney won 51 percent of Nevada’s vote in 2008, and Ron Paul supporters have been campaigning there since September. Avoiding a third-place finish behind Ron Paul is likely to be his top goal.

Scientists at University of California, Berkeley, have found a way to reconstruct words someone hears based on their brain waves, a breakthrough that could someday help patients stuck in a coma. By mapping brain activity when a patient heard a certain word, the Berkeley team was able to later determine what word a patient was thinking of. They were even able to reconstruct some of the words using a computer model that suggested what the brain waves meant. “From a prosthetic view, people who have speech disorders ... could possibly have a prosthetic device when they can’t speak but they can imagine what they want to say,” said one of the researchers, though such a tool is a long way off.

The Romney campaign will proceed through the rest of the primary process with a rather large amount of loot in hand. According to a campaign finance report, the frontrunner raised about $24.3 million between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31. That's almost 10 times what Newt Gingrich reportedly raised, and it doesn't even include the $24 million his super PAC, 'Restore Our Future' has raised. Barack Obama finished last year having raised $82 million in available cash, but with $3 million in debt. The Romney camp, on the other hand, is currently debt-free. Among the other super PACs reporting their fundraising and expenses today is the Republican 'American Crossroads' which, along with its sister corporation, raised over $51 million last year in it's mission to remove Barack Obama from the White House. 

The momentum is definitely back with Mitt Romney's campaign after it cruised to a decisive victory over Newt Gingrich in the Florida primary. Romney took 46.4 percent of the vote, while Gingrich took 31.9 percent. In true frontrunner fashion, Romney used his victory speech to take aim at President Obama, saying, “Mr. President, you were elected to lead. You chose to follow. Now it’s time for you to get out of the way.” Romney also defended the tone of the Florida primary, which was so overwhelmingly negative it has some party leaders worried. “A competitive primary does not divide us,” said Romney. “It prepares us.”

Federal election filings released Wednesday show that more than 60 corporations and wealthy individuals gave checks of more than $100,000 to Mitt Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future, which took in about $18 million in the second half of 2011. The haul underwrote Romney’s multimillion-dollar advertising blitz that has buried his rivals in early primary states. Most of the donors are from the finance industry, including Goldman Sachs executives and hedge-fund managers. Texas construction magnate Harlan Crowe gave $300,000, and the Koch brothers gave $1 million. Without giving through the super PAC, each of the donors would legally be allowed to contribute only $2,500 to the campaign.

Call it the Secret Service popularity test. Romney’s presidential campaign will reportedly be assigned a Secret Service security detail starting Thursday because of increased turnout at campaign events as the primary season continues. The decision was not made due to a threat directed at the Romney campaign, which has brought its own private security detail along on the trail, sources said. The campaign said it was first approached by the Secret Service after the New Hampshire primary. Though former candidate Herman Cain received a detail in November, no Republican candidate currently running has Secret Service protection. Unlike Cain, Romney reportedly did not request the extra protection.

A former Credit Suisse trader pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to charges connected to allegations of fraud in 2008. David Higgs, a British citizen, surrendered to the FBI in Manhattan on Wednesday morning. Before a U.S. district judge a few hours later, he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to falsify books and to commit fraud. Switzerland’s second-largest bank wrote down $2.65 billion on bonds and CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) after an internal review found that “a small number” of its traders had “mismarked” them. Prosecutions of several more Credit Suisse employees are rumored to be in the works. 

It looks like The New York Stock Exchange won't be joining forces with Deutsche Borse after all. The two exchanges are in talks to call off their merger after European antitrust regulators said the deal would result in a monopoly in the European financial derivatives. The regulator said the exchanges would have to sell off major parts of their business if they wanted to merge, which the companies refused to do. The combined exchange would have been the world’s biggest market operator.

Birth-control users, beware:  Pfizer, the world’s leading drug company, recalled 1 million packs of birth-control pills in the U.S. after discovering that they might not prevent pregnancy. The company recalled 14 lots of three different generic brands—Lo/Ovral-28, Norgestrel, and Ethinyl Estradiol—after an investigation found some packs might contain incorrect daily dosages. In a statement on Thursday, the company said that the pills posed no health risks to women but nonetheless urged consumers to “begin using a non-hormonal form of contraception immediately.”

The death toll from the Florida Interstate I-95 string of crashes rose on Wednesday when police found another body among the wreckage. This brings the number of victims to 11 in the deadly crashes, which occurred Sunday after a mix of smoke and fog caused poor visibility. The National Weather Service warned there could be smoke and fog in the area on Wednesday.

The tragedy of the Costa Concordia shipwreck on the coast of Giglio, Italy, just keeps getting bleaker. On Tuesday, authorities called off the search for survivors after raising the body count to 17. On Wednesday, they announced that oil is now leaking from the wreck, spreading out into a thin film on the region’s pristine and sensitive waters. The ship holds 500,000 gallons of fuel and other pollutants that authorities fear could wreak ecological havoc on an area that is the home of dolphins, whales, and other animals. Salvage workers are hoping to pump the remaining fuel from the ship, but suspended the effort Wednesday on account of bad weather.

Mitt Romney was showered in glitter before getting onstage at a rally in Minnesota. The GOP frontrunner laughed about the glitter bombing and his own coif. "Ah, I've got glitter in my hair," he said. "That's not all that's in my hair, I tell you that. I glue it on every day whether I need to or not." The glitter was thrown to highlight Romney's stance against gay marriage, one member of the group explained. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann have all previously been glitter-bombed for similar reasons. Romney wasn't so smooth earlier today when he told CNN he's "not concerned about the very poor."

A classified NATO report obtained by the BBC, based on thousands of interrogations, concludes that the Taliban has widespread support among the Afghan people and is being directly assisted by Pakistan’s intelligence service. Pakistan's foreign minister strongly rejected the report, while a senior security official in Islamabad said the report was the result of Western troops losing ground in Afghanistan. The NATO report is based on 27,000 interrogations of more than 4,000 captured Taliban and al Qaeda members as well as civilians. One senior al Qaeda detainee says, “The Taliban are not Islam. The Taliban are Islamabad.” The report also says that the Taliban are increasingly popular in Afghanistan.