NPR News

Melissa Block talks to Zouheir Jabbour, Chief of Mission of the Syrian Embassy in Washington, DC, about the call for a ceasefire in Homs and the allegations of atrocities by the Syrian regime.

A new report by the United Nations' nuclear agency claims that Iran has ramped up production of a purer form of enriched uranium over the past few months. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency was obtained by The Associated Press and other news outlets and it's likely to further suspicions from Western countries that Iran might be working on a nuclear weapon.

The Obama administration is seeking to try a Lebanese man linked to Hezbollah in a military commission, expanding the reach of the military tribunal beyond al-Qaida and Taliban suspects for the first time.

The man at the center of the case is Ali Musa Daqduq. He was the last detainee held by American forces in Iraq and had been turned over to Iraqi custody when U.S. forces formally withdrew from Iraq in December.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said today that its crews had reached the restive city of Homs in Syria and they have begun evacuating some of those injured by the shelling.

The Telegraph reports that the Red Cross said two wounded Western journalists were were evacuated, as well as the body of two others. The Telegraph adds:

On Nada Surf's new album, The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy, the long-running band alternates between infectious optimism and sweet sadness. In spite of countless label changes, the group has remained remarkably consistent in its 20 years together: Blending good-natured affirmations with catchy pop-rock hooks, Nada Surf sounds like a bunch of fresh-faced kids, albeit unusually wise ones.

Filmmaker Woody Allen is notorious for not attending the Oscars each year, despite his numerous nominations.

In Syria, medics working with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent are evacuating the injured from a neighborhood of Homs. The area known as Baba Amr has been under a long and heavy bombardment from Syrian government forces. Melissa Block talks with Saleh Dabbakeh, a spokesman for the ICRC who is in Damascus.

Audie Cornish talks to our regular political commentators — E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution, and David Brooks of the New York Times — about the Republican candidate's taxes and next week's primaries in Michigan and Arizona.

We've all seen those bathtub refinishing ads that promise a glossy new surface on the dingy old tub.

But a solvent used to make that transformation has killed at least 13 people who used it to strip bathtubs from 2006 to 2011, according to a new study. The chemical, methylene chloride, is sold as a solvent and paint stripper both to professionals and in dozens of do-it-yourself products sold at home improvement stores.