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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. Sicily has joined the space-age.

Amateur scientists have launched the Sicilian Space Program with a homemade spacecraft, a helium balloon, and at the tip of the tiny vessel: a cannollo put the cherry on top.

Well, given the extreme conditions, the clay cannollo, still, cameras filmed the classic cream filled pastry soaring into the stratosphere, capturing a sweet view of the sunrise. One small step for pastry.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm David Greene.

ArmaLite is a weapons manufacturer in Illinois and they're facing an unlikely opponent. His name is Dario Franceschini, he's Italy's culture minister and he's upset about an image from ArmLite's "Work of Art" ad campaign. It shows Michelangelo's David cradling an assault rifle. Franceschini says the ad "offends and infringes on the law."

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

From Syria to Afghanistan, to Russia and Ukraine, the United States finds itself confronting some major foreign policy challenges. There are old rivalries and new one testing the limits of the United States.

NPR social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam regularly joins us to talk about matters related to individual and organizational behavior, but today, he's found some new research that's relevant to the way we think about foreign conflicts and he's in our studios. Shankar, welcome back.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The National Football League has been confronting questions about head injuries and the danger of concussions among its players. But football is a contact sport beginning at a much younger age, and many states are implementing - or at least considering new policies - to protect student athletes from head injuries.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It was pretty clear that the recent bout of winter weather that many of us have seen was going to have an effect on job growth in February. The question was how much. And it turns out less than expected. That's the message from the government's monthly employment report that's out today. It found that U.S. employers added 175,000 jobs to their payrolls last month. As NPR's John Ydstie reports, it's more than expected.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm David Greene. A family business in Chicago folded this week because of the Fed. It was a mother father daughter shoplifting ring that went from Maryland to Texas. The family stole millions of dollars worth of retail - Legos, electronics, bags of coffee. They auctioned the items on eBay, making more than four million bucks over the past decade. The tool of their trade - clothing. The family's matriarch had a special black dress outfitted with compartments to stuff stolen goods.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Linda Wertheimer.

Spring has not yet sprung but high schoolers are thinking ahead to prom. A Florida teen enlisted the a cappella group Straight No Chaser for his video invite to Megan.

STRAIGHT NO CHASER: (Singing) Let it go. Let it go...

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Megan, will you go to prom with me?

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WERTHEIMER: He showed the video in class. It's on YouTube. Megan said yes. Heaven knows he tried.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Senior U.S. officials were warned of imminent Russian military action in Crimea about a week before the troop movements that have sparked a major international crisis over Ukraine, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency tells NPR.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The recent bout of winter weather that many of us have felt has hit the U.S. economy. Winter storms cooled job growth in February. The only question is by how much. Economists, investors and job seekers are looking to today's employment report from the government for an answer. NPR's John Ydstie says their predictions have been dampened by the weather too.

JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: John Sylvia is the top economist for Wells Fargo. His forecast for job growth in February has been pounded down by the weather.