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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is in Afghanistan on a long-planned trip that has turned into something of a fence-mending mission. A U.S. soldier is accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians. That attack is the latest in a series of negative events involving U.S. forces.

At 351,000, they remain near a four-year low. The day's other economic news: wholesale prices rose 0.4 percent in February.

Recent scandals have apparently cost Bo Xilai his job as Communist Party chief in the southwestern city of Chongqing. Bo had once seemed headed straight for China's top leadership body, but corruption allegations and an imbroglio involving his former right-hand man helped drive him from power.

In a blistering 500-page report released today a special prosecutor concludes that Justice Department lawyers "intentionally withheld" information that could have bolstered the Alaska Republican's defense during his 2008 trial on corruption charges.

For five seasons, actress Sonja Sohn played Detective Shakima "Kima" Greggs on the critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire, which chronicled life and death on Baltimore's toughest streets. When the series ended, Sohn stayed in Baltimore — to help young people straighten out their lives.

Historian Andrew Preston says questions in an undergraduate class he was teaching at the start of the 2003 invasion of Iraq spurred the research for his new book, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith. "Once I started looking for religion [in U.S. foreign policy], it was everywhere," he says.

In its first verdict, the International Criminal Court convicted former Congolese rebel fighter Thomas Lubanga of recruiting and enlisting child soldiers. Children were forced to fight under his command, in a brutal civil war. Host Michel Martin talks with Shelly Whitman of the Child Soldiers Initiative about the case and its effect on the region.

These aren't the usual public service announcements. The $54 million "Tips from Smokers" campaign marks the first time the federal government plans to pay to run anti-smoking ads nationwide,

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai said he wanted U.S. troops confined to major bases by next year, a plan at odds with the United States' exit strategy.

Robert Malley and Aaron David Miller believe the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was largely absent from public talks between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu because there's not much incentive to negotiate, but steps could be taken toward peace even without a breakthrough.