NPR People: John Burnett

Violence has exploded in Mexico's northeastern border cities, just across the Rio Grande from South Texas, as two drug mafias engage in a vicious new fight for turf. Gunfights have killed dozens of people, and communities up and down the river fear it's just the beginning.

There's been much talk among anti-Obama, Tea Party activists of a legal concept called nullification. The belief is that if the citizens of a state decide they don't like a federal law passed, the 10th Amendment gives them the power to simply ignore it. The idea has caught fire among some Texans.

There's a showdown brewing in Texas: between the neighboring cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. They're not fighting over land, or water, or oil or gas rights; they're fighting for cultural supremacy. Who's got the best art museum? Who's bigger in the music world?

On Tuesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials announced a lawsuit challenging the EPA in federal court for its recent finding that CO2 is a pollutant. The state is a major contributor of the gas, and Perry says the EPA's ruling threatens Texas businesses, farms and even churches.

Authorities in Austin, Texas, say they have "accounted for everybody" after a man furious with the Internal Revenue Service crashed his small plane into a building with an IRS office. Two bodies have been recovered. The pilot was presumed dead and one worker had been missing.

In Austin, Texas, a small private plane crashed into a federal office building that housed Internal Revenue Service workers. Initial reports indicate the pilot hated the IRS and may have crashed the plane intentionally.

After years of polluting and contaminating the environment, the American Smelting and Refining Company's notorious copper-smelting plant in El Paso, Texas, will be cleaned up this year. Asarco will also pay $1.79 billion to settle claims for pollution at more than 80 sites throughout the country.

With an estimated death toll as high as 200,000 in Haiti from the Jan. 12 quake, mass burials have replaced the traditional rituals for honoring the dead. In a land where funeral rites and the spiritual afterlife are central tenets, many Haitians are upset that so many bodies have been buried without ceremony.

Beaubrun, one of Haiti's most popular and recognizable musicians, leads the 12-person band Boukman Eksperyans. Now more than ever, he's singing in an effort to transform his home country.

Despite the outpouring of international aid, there are still severe problems with food distribution to tens of thousands of homeless Haitians. NPR visited seven of the largest tent cities in three different areas of Port-au-Prince. Victims said food distribution is irregular, inadequate and often violent.

Two weeks after the Haiti earthquake, the rescue phase is over and the humanitarian crisis is evolving. Officials on the ground say with more than one million internally displaced persons, medical treatment and shelter have become greater needs than food. Looming over the humanitarian crisis is the arrival of the Caribbean rainy season in April.

Signal FM 90.5 has been on the air around the clock since the earthquake struck Jan. 12. The station has become a community bulletin board for missing person reports, rescues, body collection, survival tips and solace.

One of the challenges in Haiti is what to do with the heaps of pulverized concrete rubble lying everywhere. Before the rebuilding can begin, areas have to be cleared of debris. The pieces of concrete and other material can be recycled and used for other things.

Haiti's medical needs were dire before the earthquake devastated what little infrastructure was available. Among those providing free medical were nearly 400 Cuban health workers. The day after the earthquake struck the Cuban doctors reopened two hospitals. Since the Cubans live in the poorest neighborhoods amongst the most disadvantaged Haitians they were actually the first responders.

In sections of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, people are camping out. Their houses have been destroyed, or they are afraid of aftershocks. Neighborhood watch communities have been formed. They guard their belongings from looters, help each other with material needs and keep each others' spirits up.