March 13, 2019 - PBS NewsHour full episode

Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort was sentenced Wednesday to three-and-a-half more years in prison for federal crimes related to foreign lobbying and witness tampering. After the hearing, a New York prosecutor revealed new state-level charges for Manafort, too. William Brangham, who was in the courthouse, reports, and Amna Nawaz talks to former federal prosecutor Jessica Roth for analysis.

In our Wednesday news wrap, a lawyer for Michael Cohen defended Cohen’s denials that he had sought a presidential pardon. A letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chair of the House Oversight Committee, stated that Cohen hadn’t “personally” asked President Trump for a pardon. Also, Trump warned Republican senators not to oppose his national emergency over immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The highest level of talks yet between the U.S. and the Taliban concluded Tuesday in Qatar. With videographer Sebastian Rich's exclusive footage of American and Afghan operations in southern Afghanistan, Nick Schifrin reports on how both sides are trying to use battlefield gains to force peacemaking concessions, and gets insight from Nader Nadery, a senior adviser to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Asbestos is no longer ubiquitous in building materials, and since it's proven to cause cancer, many Americans likely assumed the substance had been banned entirely. But not only is asbestos a naturally occurring mineral, it is also still used to make some household products. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports on "broken" U.S. regulation and why we continue to import the carcinogen.

Boeing’s 737 MAX jetliners are grounded across much of the globe -- including the U.S. Days after other nations banned the plane from flying in their airspace, the FAA, which had as recently as Tuesday night insisted the plane was safe, said new information about Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines crash led it to change course. John Yang reports, and Judy Woodruff talks to Miles O’Brien for analysis.