NPR News

Today, the Japanese government launched it biggest search and recovery effort yet. Six weeks after an earthquake and a powerful tsunami struck the country's northeast coast, the death toll stands at 14,300 and 11,900 are still missing.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Japan deployed 25,000 troops and will be assisted by the U.S. Army. Navy divers are looking for bodies up to 12 miles off the coast:

Poly Styrene stood out in British punk. Female in a male world, heavy in a skinny world, half-African in a white world, flaunting braces that looked like they could dent a lorry, she's linked in history to a song as iconic as "Anarchy in the U.K." itself.

Saying that "medically, there is no reason she could not travel safely to Florida to participate in this incredible event with her husband," the director of the neuroscience institute at Houston's TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital confirmed today that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) has been given the OK by her doctors to be at Friday's scheduled last launch of the space shuttle Endeavour.

It seems like every week there's another scary-sounding chemical intruding into our lives: Bisphenol A in baby bottles, phthalates in plastic food containers, PBDE flame retardants in furniture and electronics, trclosan in soaps and shampoos

Holding a title as one of the best guitarists in Nashville has to mean that you've achieved something akin to legendary status in the music world — and that's exactly what Buddy Miller has done. Born in '50s Ohio, the singer-songwriter took the stage for the first time in the '60s as an upright bassist in high-school combos.