NPR News

We're a day or two late on this news, but it's got that heart-warming element that makes it worth passing along (especially when there are so many other stories of death and destruction; we can all probably use a little lift).

TechCrunch was among the first to note that:

There's a new prescription for what's ailing the health care system, including one of the most intractable problems: hospital readmissions.

(Since we first posted this news, the deaths of four Americans has been confirmed. Scroll down to see our original post and later updates.)

"The four Americans aboard a yacht hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia are dead," CBS News' national security correspondent David Martin reports.

CNN is also saying it has been told by Defense Department officials that the Americans have been killed.

Rebels in Libya said Tuesday they have wrested control of the country's east from leader Moammar Gadhafi after a bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters that brought condemnation from the regime's own diplomats abroad. Several nations were organizing evacuations of their citizens as the chaos spread in the North African nation.

At least 65 people are reported to have died in the powerful earthquake that rocked Christchurch, New Zealand, earlier today.