More than ten thousand Shiites take to the streets in Basra to protest the government crackdown on militias. Shiites there, loyal to Muktada al-Sadr are calling for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step down. The uprisings are a test for the Iraqi security forces, who are securing the area without international help. Tina Susman of the Los Angeles Times joins us.

Dith Pran, the Cambodian journalist whose story was made into the movie, "The Killing Fields," is deathly ill with cancer. We speak with Sydney Schanberg, formerly of the New York Times, about his friend and colleague.

How can you tell if recession has hit your town? Here and Now producer Barbara Howard visited one Massachusetts town where the number of foreclosures has tripled over the last year. Instead of finding a boarded-up downtown, she discovered that the signs of an economic downturn are not always that easy to see.

The host of NPR's Only a Game joins us to talk about March Madness, the start of the Major League Baseball season and the rest of the week in sports.

The new film dramatizes the effect of the Stop Loss policy, which involuntarily extends soldiers' tours of duty if needed by the military.