Morning Edition

The biggest solar storm in years has lit up the skies with the spectacular show known as the Northern Lights. The Aurora Borealis offers a spectacle of green and blue over Canada and Northern Europe. The big storm is treating stargazers as far south as England — and may well make up for the disruptions it could bring to the electrical grid and GPS signals.

In New York City, the street in front of a high school was painted with big white letters that were supposed to read "school." But the word painted read "shcool." The city says a contractor made the mistake after some street repairs.

British adventurer Felicity Aston this week became the first woman to ski solo across Antarctica, from one coast to another. It took her 59 days to cover more than 1,000 miles, dragging her supplies behind her on sleds. She talked to Steve Inskeep from the Union Glacier base camp in Antarctica while waiting to go home.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney earned more than $42 million over the past two years — the bulk of it from an array of stocks and investment funds. And he paid about 15 percent of what he made in taxes. The release of some 500 pages of tax returns give a much fuller picture of how he made his money and what he did with it.

In an article in The New Yorker, author Ryan Lizza describes President Obama as someone who spoke of a post-partisan world but also made calculated political moves. The article is called "The Obama Memos." Steve Inskeep talks to Lizza about the president's State of the Union address.