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A beachgoer has died in a shark attack off the Central California coast and three beaches are closed.

"She was simply the center of my life," says Joan Didion, whose daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, died at age 39. Her death came just two years after the death of Didion's husband, John Gregory Dunne.

Just underneath China's modern, shiny surface, many aspects of life are still very traditional. Marriage is one of those areas. And women, in particular, and their parents fret about not finding a suitable partner before they grow too old and become a "leftover woman."

Nearly three weeks after the tsunami, the search continues for the thousands still missing. Work crews cannot begin to remove the mountains of debris strewn along hundreds of miles of coastline until they find all the bodies buried underneath.

Rain-soaked rescue crews worked through lightning and strong winds to dig through splintered homes, crumpled businesses and crushed cars in the Missouri town. And fresh tornadoes struck Tuesday afternoon in Oklahoma.

Two weeks of flooding in Australia have covered an area the size of France and Germany combined. A flash flood sent a wall of water through a town Monday near Brisbane -- the country's third-largest city. Neale Maynard, an editor of Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper, talks about the disaster with Steve Inskeep.

A Sweet Transvestite, Sparkling Vampires, and Yes More Zombies

More and more school districts in California are turning to a parcel tax -- a flat fee for every parcel of land owned by a resident regardless of worth -- which would go directly to the school district, not to Sacramento. San Francisco is the largest school district to have passed one so far. Would San Diegans support such a tax?

A verdict was reached in only one of the 24 charges against the former Illinois governor, and several jurors said the reason was simple: A lone holdout voted for acquittal for all of the most serious charges.

Many scientists expressed outrage after an Italian court convicted six earthquake experts of manslaughter for not doing enough to warn the public before a 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people. NPR foreign correspondent Sylvia Poggioli talks about the trial and other recent events in Italy.