details. we wrap it up here. "starting point." i'm going to hop on a plane and get to south carolina. we hand it over to "cnn newsroom." i'll see you back here tomorrow i'll see you back here tomorrow morning. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good morning, everyone. we start this hour with that doomed cruise ship off italy and fading hope to find anymore survivors. people are still missing in those frigid waters. two americans. at least 11 people have been killed. rescue operations are on hold again because it's too risky for divers as the cruise ship moves in the water. meanwhile, the ship's captain is under house arrest. he could be looking at man slaurt ter and abandoning ship charges after the cost at that c "costa concordia" hit a rock. barbie is joining us live from rome. barbie, any idea when the rescue operations might start up again? barbie, are you with us? >> reporter: oh, i can hear you now. yes. >> great. tell us, do you have any idea when these rescue crews could start working again? we understand that the water is cold, that bad weather is moving in causing that ship to shift and it has not been easy for divers to continue their operations. >> reporter: that's right. they're waiting right now for the conditions to stabilize a little bit. they're expecting some heavy seas in the next 24 hours, but the problem is the ship is really sitting on a sort of sea bed. they're worried that it could be pushed off and fall even deeper into the water. so they've got to make sure that those divers are safe. they've got to make sure that their rescue people are not put at risk, which could potentially add to the human toll of this if these rescue workers are put at risk as well. >> meanwhile, we saw this morning, "early morning" the video of the ship's captain being released from jail. now under house arrest. what can you tell us about him and why that decision was made? >> reporter: well, it was a really strange decision. it happened very late last night. this captain was basically whisked out of prison. he arrived at his home south of naples around 2:00 a.m. local time here. the italians are livid about this. there is a lot of anger. there were 1,000 italians on that ship. they believe he should be in jail right now. and the prosecutor who is trying to build a case in which he can charge him with manslaughter, abandoning ship, and causing the ship wreck is also very angry. he's intending to go back to the judge and get the captain back in jail. yesterday, of course, he was in court, captain schettino was in court, and the judge made a decision in which she would defer her decision, basically. in italy you can keep a suspect in jail for up to a year without formally charging them. she decided she needed to make sure the rescue efforts were finished before she made a decision whether or not he should stay in jail. it's really too early on, she thought. she didn't consider him a risk of flight, but that decision has not been well received here in italy. people are very angry and upset about it. >> barbie nadeau there reporting for us out of rome. barbie, thanks. major protest is underway this hour and it's as close as your computer. several websites, including wikipedia, are blocking out their web pages for the entire day. it's all in protest of an anti-piracy bill in congress that website employees say could put them out of business. christine romans is in new york. christine, for the sake of full disclosure, of course, cnn's parent company time warner supports this bill. >> right. >> let's talk about the protests that are going on and those that see this pending legislation as a threat. >> so it's called sopa, the stop online piracy act and it's really pitting hollywood and silicon valley. hollywood wants to protect its creativit creativity, content, movies, songs, the things that people are paid to come up with and do that the rest of the world wants, right? those things are knocked off quite frequently overseas. they're put up on websites. pirated, make their way back here to this country where people can basically see them for free. this is american -- an international creative content that is, frankly, stolen, right? the people who don't want their stuff stolen support sopa. the people who don't want the intern internet, sense sort. the others don't. they have signed a ler saying, the way congress is going about this is wrong. they're talking about too draconian of a way to stop this. my colleague, jennifer westhoven at hln puts it well. the tech companies don't want to have the burden of every picture that you upload, every home video of your child crawling across the floor, every little thing that you put out there, tech companies having to verify whether it is pirated contempt. that is just too difficult to do. so you've got these two sides. look, everyone hates piracy. it's how do you fix it? tech companies say the way congress is doing it is wrong. the way the content providers say they're doing it, they want it done and they want it done now. >> so if enacted, how exactly would the bill work? how does the government shut down these websites? >> that's a good, important question because they're actually changing that conversation as we speak. because of all of this pressure from the tech companies, now and also the white house didn't like the way the direction this was going in as well, some of these early versions of this bill where it would actually be changing. it's very technical even for me. the technical architecture of the internet. they're backing away from that. i think what you're going to see now is you're going to see this process is going to slow down and these voices have been heard from the tech industry, especially blocking out wikipedia, google, a lot of very powerful people in tech land are saying, slow down and do this right. congress, you're not doing this right. again, everyone agrees that piracy costs jobs and costs money to the people who create content. the question is you don't want to end up with web sensorship in the name of trying to stop piracy. that's a delicate balance that congress is going to have to take zbll christine romans out of new york for us. thanks so much. not surprisingly the internet is abuzz with talk of these website protests. zain verjee has been looking on line joining us from london with reaction. zain? >> reporter: hey there. good morning, kyra. there's been a lot of reaction online as you can imagine. rupert murdock, chairman of the media giant news core, supports it. i was looking at his tweet. he said this. nonsense argument about danger to internet. how about google, others blocking porn, hate speech, etc.? internet hurt? the u.s. democratic weighed in backing the protests against the piracy laws. he tweeted this, sopa would harm internet innovation and jobs. better ways to fight piracy. a bunch of cnn viewers were critical. one of them had to say this. there are merits to both sides of this argument. a re-write of this bill in consultation with both sides is needed. and finally, kyra, this tweet from charlie beck ket, the director of a media think tank here in the u.k. who writes, remind me who i'm angry with? the hollywood millionaires or the silicon valley billionaires? a lot of chatter online. the majority of voices weighing in speaking out against this proposed legislation. >> all points well made. that's for sure. zain, thanks so much. back here in the states, three days to go until south carolina votes in the republican presidential primary. newt gingrich is working hard to sell himself as the anti-romney candidate, so he wants perry and santorum to drop out of the race. >> look at the polling, i'm the only conservative who realistically has a chance to be the nominee. any vote for santorum or perry, in effect, is a vote to allow romney to become the nominee. we've got to bring conservatives together in order to stop him. >> and sarah palin weighing in now. this is who she says she's voting for. >> if i had to vote in south carolina in order to keep this thing going, i'd vote for newt and i would want this to continue, more debates, more vetting of candidates. >> cnn political editor paul steinhauser live in charleston. gipg grish knows south carolina is a do or die state for his campaign. what do you think? how and can he mount an upset? >> reporter: kyra, he could because, listen, south carolina very different state than new hampshire. here southern social conservatives play a big jerl factor, so do tea party activists. so do retired and active military personnel. remember, gingrich is from neighboring georgia before you are, so i'm not saying he's got home field advantage here in south carolina, but it is a more favorable ground than it was in new hampshire for the former house speaker. you know that palin sound you saw played from an interview last night, the gingrich campaign definitely running with that this morning. they say it's a pretty clear call to arms. listen, palin still pretty important, pretty influential with a lot of conservative voters. as for gingrich's call for santorum to drop out, here's what santorum says about that. >> i think it's an enormous amount of hubris for someone who lost their first two races who thinks enough of themselves that they should now, because a couple of polls have him at this moment in time ahead of me, that everybody should step aside and let him, who hasn't defeated me in two of the elections so far, to let him have a wide berth. >> reporter: santorum, perry, paul, they're going to be behind me. that's the where we have our debate tomorrow night. >> just quickly. speaking of santorum, we all remember how close the eye bowa caucuses were. we were' talking eight votes separated him from romney, paul. >> reporter: eight votes out of over 120,000, so did santorum really lose to romney? we'll find out by later this week. 5:00 local time in iowa all the 99 counties have to get their certified votes back to the iowa gop in des moines. the chairman of the party out there says he'll get those results out by friday at the latest. stay tuned on that one, kyra. >> paul steinhauser in charleston for us, thanks. tomorrow just days before the south carolina primary election the gop contenders debate the issues. the southern republican presidential debate on cnn tomorrow night 8:00 eastern. the captain of the capsized italian cruise ship under house arrest this morning. we're talking to ashleigh banfield about why he's not behind bars. and shoveling in seattle. the pacific northwest getting hammered by another major snowstorm, the second one this week. we've got a live report just ahead. when i grow up, i want to fix up old houses. ♪ [ woman ] when i grow up, i want to take him on his first flight. i want to run a marathon. i'm going to own my own restaurant. when i grow up, i'm going to start a band. 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[whoosh, clang] you need lifelock-- the only identity protection company that now monitors bank accounts for takeover fraud. lifelock-- relentlessly protecting your identity. call 1-800-lifelock or go to lifelock.com today. all right. now rescue efforts at the capsized italian cruise ship are on hold because the ship has moved and it's too risky for divers to be near that wreckage. the captain far away from the scene now. he's under house arrest this morning and could face charges of manslaughter, ship wreck, and abandoning ship. just listen and follow along on the screen. our ashleigh banfield following all the legal angles for us now. ashleigh, around this time yesterday you and i were talking about that judge that ordered the captain to stay in jail. so what happened? he's under house arrest. >> well, the judge reconsidered and figured he's not a flight risk and there was no evidence from any of the transcriptions that you just showed that he was ever trying to really flee the scene. there is some speculation at this point that he certainly did abandon ship. i'll testimony you something, kyra. there's some very curious things that you can mine through those conversations that he was having with the port authority that can play perhaps for and against him in this matter. and i was very interested to see the accusations by the port authorities where they said, look, ske teen know, that's the captain, you may have saved yourself from the sea. this will put you through a lot of trouble. it will be very bad for you. get back on board for "f" sake. that sounds really damming, we have to remember. this was very dark. schettino was essentially in a life boat. who knows if it was possible to get back on board. so, listen, if anything is clear at this point, prosecutors are livid with the notion that he is on house arrest right now. they've already announced that they're going to appeal this and suggest that he be jailed instead awaiting the charges. >> is there a law in italy that a captain has to stay on that ship until he or she knows that every passenger is safe? >> that's an awesome question because we all sort of harken back to titanic where we saw the captain valiantly going down with the ship. it's a thing of legend. while there is that charge of abandoning ship, there is no law that you have to go down with the ship. to your point, and you make a good one, you can't just leave when all those other people were in need. so that's something they're going to have to really assess. he certainly did say multiple times on that tape with port authority that he had abandoned ship. but then, kyra, he also called it catapulted. if you saw the angle of the ship like i did, i could easily see people falling off as well. so that may be something that kind of mitigates in his favor there. >> real quickly before you go to the passengers and legal recourse that they might have, the survivors, there's this talk that the cruise line could actually be protected by ticket disclaimers. is there any validity to that? >> that seems so bizarre in american law, right? no way does the small print matter here, especially when it comes to civil action. you can bet your bottom dollar, kyra phillips, right now there are hundreds of lawyers absolutely mining through all of the different potential jurisdictional issues that they might be able to get their hands on. if there's a way, and there may be a different avenue, to get some jurisdiction in florida, somewhere in the united states, like if this series of companies does business with the u.s. and there are strict qualifications for what doing business actually means, then there may be some action that can actually be launched in this country. the protections for the companies involved are not quite as strident. if they have to stick with the conventions that guarantee the rights of the company in the maritime law of italy and the surrounding nations, it's so preclusion nar ri and so protective of the company that they really might not have much recourse other than i think somewhere upwards of $70,000 per passenger. >> i'll tell you what, a lot of americans, a lot of us love to take cruises. we'll keep this conversation going as we follow the investigation. ashleigh, thanks so much. >> sure. all right. news cross-country now. hundreds of occupy protesters are taking their cause to washington appearing outside the white house, capitol hill, and the supreme court. capitol police say at least two protesters were detained, including one charged with allegedly assaulting a police officer. now to bridgewater, mass. where a man pulled an 87-year-old woman out of a burning car within seconds to spare. these pictures are incredible. the man said that he saw the car actually careen into a neighbor's yard right here. it broke a window. opened the door. and he pulled her out. she is expected to be okay. and in parts of indiana and kentucky, cleanup begins after tornadoes struck yesterday. violent storms damaged roofs, flipped several cars and trucks. no deaths reported. well, the pacific northwest is bracing for the second winter storm this week and it could lead the region under record amounts of snow. cnn's them ma gutierrez, a true southern california gal, life in seattle for us to tell us how those conditions are at this moment. hi. >> reporter: hi there, kyra. i can start by telling you that it's very, very cold out here. again, not used to this kind of weather being from los angeles, but conditions out here actually not too bad, kyra. take a look right here. this is the famous pike street road. this one goes all the way down to that famous market. you can see that the snow is sticking right out here on the sidewalk, but if you look on the ground, snowplows have been out all morning making sure to keep all the roadways, highways clear and they were also putting out a mixture of salt and sand. so you can see that these roads at least the busy thoroughfares are being kept open and clean. there are many areas, though, in the -- around this downtown area, kyra, where it is much more problematic. as you well know being out here, it is very hilly terrain. so that can be very treacherous for commuters. what we're talking about is the brunt of this storm hitting around rush hour. and so people are going to have to try to navigate this kind of slippery weather this morning. and that's what the big concern has been all morning long. but further to the south in tacoma, that is where it has really been snowing, kyra. about an inch an hour. extreme avalanche danger southeast of here in the cascades. so we'll have to see what the storm brings, but the mayor is telling people to stay home. >> okay. we'll follow it. thanks so much. and did you know that the average car on the road is more than a decade old? in this brutal economy, folks just can't let go of that klunker. live to new york stock exchange next. and, mr. president, what color drone would you like from iran? that story right after the break. ♪ there's a place i dream about ♪ ♪ where the sun never goes out ♪ ♪ and the sky is deep and blue ♪ ♪ won't you take me american flight 280 to miami is now ready for boarding. ♪ there with you next. blue, pink, maybe green? if president obama can figure out his favorite color, he may get a very special gift from iran. zain verjee joining us in london and telling us what this is all about. pretty good marketing, i must say. they're getting attention this iranian firm. >> they are. they think that this is one big, fat joke. they are really mocking the united states and mocking president obama as well. just a little while ago iran claimed to have taken down a u.s. drone. the u.s. says that it was its drone but it came down because of a technical malfunction. well, the u.s. has been telling iran, give us back our drone. iran has said, if you want your drone, they're saying, we'll give you a drone. we'll give you a little toy replica of the drone. kyra, it's about 1/80 the size of the actual drone. they're saying they're going to send one to president obama sometime soon which is why he can pick the kind of color that he wants. so they're just having a jolly good ole laugh. they're also making more replicas of this drone that they want to sell to the iranian people for something like $4 in the stores. so this is -- they're taking a little jab here, but underscoring all of this are really serious issues between iran and the u.s. firstly, the weapons program and iran, because of sanctions the u.s. has whacked on it, is threatening to be difficult when it comes to t