NPR News

As we reported here Friday, the release of 1,700 pages of interviews about the Upper Big Branch mine disaster search and rescue effort revealed undue risk to the rescuers.

Thousands of Italians are fleeing Rome, believing that on May 11 an enormous earthquake is going to shatter the Eternal city. The panic comes from a prophecy Raffaele Bendandi supposedly made before his death in 1979. Reuters reports that Bendandi believed earthquakes were caused by movements of the planets, moon and sun and were predictable.

The website CoalCares.org is about as slick as they come.

But did you really think, even for a second, that Peabody Energy, a big-time producer of coal, would really provide kid-friendly asthma inhalers to children who live within 200 miles of a coal-fired power plant?

Across the country, recently elected GOP lawmakers are pushing hard to get new abortion restrictions on the books. About 570 bills have been introduced in 48 states this year to restrict abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks the laws.

In Texas, the legislature passed a bill that requires women have an ultrasound before an abortion and requires doctors to provide a verbal description of the fetus.

The Mississippi River has reached 48 feet near Memphis, Tenn., flooding low-lying areas but sparing major parts of the city. Host Michel Martin speaks with Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, Jr. about how residents are coping with the flood and why the city is moving forward with the annual World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.