KVNF Mountain Grown Community Radio

The U.S. Navy is inaugurating its first squadron that mixes advanced unmanned drones with conventional aircraft.

The maritime strike squadron, nicknamed the "Magicians," will be officially launched at the Naval Air Station North Island on Coronado, near San Diego.

Saif Al-Islam Gadhafi, who before the revolution in Libya seemed poised to take his father's place as ruler, made a brief court appearance in Zintan today.

It may be time to change the benchmark for discussion of public health problems in the U.S.

For quite a while, the annual number of fatalities from auto accidents has been a kind of shorthand for health issues that are big and important.

Starting in 2009, though, suicides surpassed deaths from crashes. In 2010, there were about 38,000 suicides compared with about 35,000 deaths from motor vehicle crashes.

Construction workers applauded Thursday as a crane raised the flag-draped spire of One World Trade Center to the top of the skyscraper.

When they install the spire at a later date, it will cap the structure at a symbolic 1,776 feet. The Port Authority says the spire, which acts as a fixture for various antennas, will bump the 104-story building to be the tallest in the Western Hemisphere, reports New Jersey's The Star-Ledger.

However, as the newspaper reports:

Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor known as the "oracle of Omaha" and renowned for making lots of money for both himself and his Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, joined Twitter on Thursday.

In the aftermath of the Boston bombings, some critics said investigators should have used harsh interrogation techniques with the surviving suspect. Host Michel Martin speaks with counterterrorism expert and former FBI Agent Joe Navarro about how attitudes about torture have evolved, and what really are the most effective ways to interrogate.

The recent appointment of Italy's first black Cabinet minister was greeted with racist comments from a handful of political leaders. That has raised questions about whether the nation has a broader problem with bias. Host Michel Martin gets the latest from NPR's Sylvia Poggioli.

Arbor Day celebrations have come and gone, but winter weather is gripping the Plains and Upper Midwest. The storm that dumped snow in the Rockies a day earlier is threatening to blanket parts of the region with up to 8 inches of snow on Thursday.

The National Weather Service warns: "Significant accumulations of snow continue to be reported across portions of southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa, with over 15 inches already in Dodge Center, (Minn.)."

The heartbreaking death of a 2-year-old Kentucky girl who was shot and killed Tuesday by her 5-year-old brother with a rifle he had been given as a gift might lead to criminal charges.

The Lexington Herald-Leader writes that "Kentucky State Police said Wednesday it is too early to say whether charges will be filed in the case of a 5-year-old boy who accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister."