NPR News

Among the foreign-born residents of Japan who headed north to volunteer after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami was Stu Levy, an L.A. pop-culture entrepreneur who lives part-time in Tokyo. When not ladling soup or toting rice sacks, the man who brought Sailor Moon to American girls videotaped the survivors and volunteers.

The student council at the University of California Irvine approved a resolution Thursday demanding that Dr. Hazem Chehabi, Syria's honorary consul in Southern California, be removed from the post of chair at the UC Irving Foundation, which supports the school and is trying to raise $1 billion for it.

Not many bands can boast two drummers and an uncluttered sound, but that's Polica, who somehow provided a seamless transition between rapper Sugar Tongue Slim and the atmospheric rock band Lower Dens at NPR Music's SXSW day party, held Thursday at The Parish in Austin, Texas.