NPR News

Inspectors have found small subsurface cracks in three Southwest Airlines planes, after another jet developed a hole in its fuselage while in flight Friday and made a safe emergency landing.

Over the weekend, the airline grounded 79 jets and canceled hundreds of flights to check for further problems.

Flight 812 took off from Phoenix, headed for Sacramento, Calif., on Friday afternoon. Shawna Malvini Redden says she had a window seat in row 8. Less than 20 minutes into the flight, she says, there was a very loud pop.

In an interconnected world, speaking more than one language is becoming increasingly common. Approximately one-fifth of Americans speak a non-English language at home, and globally, as many as two-thirds of children are brought up bilingual.

Research suggests that the growing numbers of bilingual speakers may have an advantage that goes beyond communication: It turns out that being bilingual is also good for your brain.

Part two of a two-part series.

One year after a West Virginia mine explosion took 29 lives, questions linger about the time it took to find and identify victims, and notify their families.

An NPR News investigation has discovered new details about the search and rescue effort, and problems that plagued mine rescuers.

The new details emerged from an analysis of command center notes and other documents obtained by NPR.

Spring seems far from Tokyo's Ueno Park on a chilly Sunday under steely gray skies. Signs put up by the municipal government are scattered around the park, advising visitors not to picnic under the cherry blossoms, as is the national custom at this time of year.

The idea is that people should be mourning the victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami, not celebrating the coming of spring.

The U.S. military was pulling its warplanes from front-line missions and shifting to a support role in the Libyan conflict, as rebels took back much of an oil town that has repeatedly changed hands in weeks of battles with Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

Britain, France and other NATO allies will provide the fighter jets for intercept and ground-attack missions that enforce a no-fly zone over this North African country. And U.S. Air Force and Marine attack planes struck targets near the cities of Sirte and Brega.