PBS NewsHour

In a closely watched special election, Florida’s right-leaning 13th congressional district voted in Republican David Jolly by a narrow margin over the Democratic candidate. Judy Woodruff asks Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report and Susan MacManus from the University of South Florida about how the results could sway the forecast for upcoming midterm elections in November.

Days before Crimea’s planned referendum on whether to split from Ukraine, the White House made a symbolic gesture by hosting that country’s interim leader. How far should the U.S. go in supporting Ukraine’s new government? Hari Sreenivasan gets two views from Adrian Karatnycky of the Atlantic Council and Stephen Walt of Harvard University.

In a public show of solidarity, the White House hosted a visit by interim Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who used the opportunity to ask for U.S. and Western backing. President Obama said the U.S. is ready to aid Ukraine with loan guarantees and will not accept Russia's takeover of Crimea. Hari Sreenivasan reports.

In our news wrap Wednesday, China reported it had images of possible debris in the South China Sea near where a Malaysian Airlines jet disappeared. Also, President Obama announced a plan to expand overtime pay to millions of salaried American workers.

A brutally cold winter has covered the Great Lakes with more ice than they have seen since 1979. Special correspondent Elizabeth Bracket of WTTW reports on the struggle to keep shipping lanes open to Chicago’s ice-clogged harbor to Lake Michigan.

Author Chang-rae Lee had set out to write a contemporary novel about the lives of Chinese workers. Instead, for his new book “On Such a Full Sea,” he created a dystopian America of the future, divided into labor settlements, where a teenage girl named Fan searches for love. Jeffrey Brown talks to Lee about how he came to write his main character and his experience working on Wall Street for a year.

The Obama administration is getting creative in an intense push to accelerate enrollment in health care, especially among younger adults and Latinos, who trail almost every other demographic group in signing up. Judy Woodruff talks to Politico's Joanne Kenen and Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation about the “hard sell” ahead of the March 31 deadline.

What are the boundaries of Vladimir Putin’s ambitions? Gwen Ifill talks to Janusz Bugajski of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Nadia Diuk of the National Endowment for Democracy about the historical precedent for Russia trying to destabilize or partition countries that have ethnic Russian populations.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin recently suggested that he could intervene in places, like Eastern Ukraine, where ethnic Russians live and are perceived to need help. Nations like Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania and others are also home to Russian-speaking populations, raising concern about whether Russia might attempt to annex more regions beyond its borders. Gwen Ifill reports.

In our news wrap Tuesday, the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 may have flown hundreds of miles off-course. Meanwhile, authorities discounted the possibility that two passengers with stolen passports were involved in a terror plot. Also, Sen. Dianne Feinstein accused the CIA of violating federal law by searching a computer network set up for senators to review classified material.

After three years of war, the more than 4 million refugees who are displaced within Syria face a health care disaster. Save the Children estimates 60 percent of that country's hospitals have been damaged or destroyed and nearly half of its doctors have fled, among other dire statistics. Michael Klosson of Save the Children joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss the crisis and how aid groups are trying to help.

Pregnant women who skip meals or don't eat nutritious foods may be at greater risk for health problems. Under the Affordable Care Act, home visiting projects have received more funding for preventative care work like teaching new moms and mothers-to-be about eating well. Hari Sreenivasan reports on how health professionals in Arkansas are working to prevent the domino effect of malnutrition.

Ten years ago, drivers of some older General Motors models began complaining of ignition problems, including stalling, that have been linked to 13 deaths and 31 crashes. But it wasn’t until January 2014 that GM decided to recall 1.6 million cars. Gwen Ifill talks to David Shepardson of The Detroit News about new scrutiny for the company and government regulators on why it took so long.

There are still many more questions than answers in the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Judy Woodruff asks former NTSB investigator Alan Diehl and former NTSB board member John Goglia to speculate on different known factors and possible theories.

An extensive search by air and sea has so far failed to find trace of the jet that vanished somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam with 239 people aboard. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a new plea for assistance from ships able to join the effort. Judy Woodruff reports on the investigation of two men who used stolen passports to board the aircraft.