Joe Corcoran

Hoping to avoid a life sentence in prison, one of two Bowling Green Iraqi refugees set to be sentenced Tuesday for attempting to send weapons and cash to al-Qaeda in Iraq is alleging he was entrapped in a U.S. government scheme.

The Louisville Courier-Journal is reporting a lawyer for Mohanad Shareef Hammadi cites a study of more than 500 terrorism prosecutions since 9/11 that found an FBI informant led more than one-third of the plots and provided all the necessary weapons, money and transportation.

In a sentencing memorandum, Hammadi's court appointed lawyer James Earhart says his client was unemployed and had no money, weapons of means of transporting them when he was recruited by a confidential government informant.

This audio is an entry in the category of Best Radio Anchor in the 2013 Kentucky Associated Press Broadcasters awards.

This compilation features three live in-studio interviews conducted by WKYU-FM's Joe Corcoran, our local Morning Edition anchor.

The first part of our compilation features an interview with Lauren Moore, a Bowling Green woman who was aboard the cruise ship Costa Concordia when it slammed into the reef off the island of Giglio in January.

Kentucky's automotive industry had more than a million vehicles roll off their lines in 2012 for the first time since 2007.

Kentucky ranks fourth in the nation for total light vehicle production, third in the production of cars and fourth for light trucks. One out of every ten light vehicles produced in the United States in 2012 was made in Kentucky. Kentucky is home to nearly 450 motor vehicle related facilities employing almost 75,000 people. In the last two years, 135 auto industry location or expansion announcements were made representing 7,200 new jobs and nearly $1.8 billion in new capital investments.

Governor Steve Beshear attended the Detroit Auto Show earlier this month for the unveiling of the 2014 Corvette Stingray which is made in Bowling Green. General Motors is in the process of a $131 million plant transformation to the Bowling Green plant.

During Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Congressional testimony Wednesday about the attack on an American consulate in Benghazi last year, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul questioned what he described as Clinton's negligence in the months preceding the attack.

The web site Mediaite quotes Paul as thanking Clinton for taking culpability for "the worst tragedy since 9/11" but noted that, if he had been President at the time and had learned that Clinton failed to read some key diplomatic cables before the attack, he would have "relieved her of her post."

Paul's opening statement prior to his questioning laid out his argument.

"One of the things that disappointed me most about the original 9/11 is that no one was fired. We spent trillions of dollars, but there were a lot of human errors. These are judgment errors and the people who make judgment errors need to be replaced, fired, and no longer in the position of making these judgment calls," said Paul, a first term Senator from Bowling Green, Ky.

During her testimony, Clinton pointed out that Congress has failed to act on several State Department requests for increased funding for consulate and embassy security.

Unique Granite and Marble Inc. plans to expand their manufacturing operations in Owensboro, creating 25 new full-time jobs and investing $400,000 in the project.

Unique Granite and Marble has been manufacturing custom granite and quartz countertops in Owensboro since 2004 after transitioning from home building and remodeling. The company currently employs 28. With the expansion, the company plans to establish a new division to produce countertops for large commercial and multi-family units throughout a six state region.

The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority preliminarily approved the company for tax incentives up to $250,000 through the Kentucky Business Investment program. The performance based incentive allows a company to keep a portion of its investment over the term of the agreement through corporate income tax credits and wage assessments by meeting job and investment targets.