National News from NPR

There was a 1.1 percent increase in retail sales in February from January, the Census Bureau says. It was the largest rise in five months, Reuters reports.

And the gain didn't come just become rising gas prices led to a 3.3 percent increase in the value of gasoline sales. According to The Associated Press, retail sales rose 0.8 percent excluding gasoline.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. You too could be the proud new owner of an entire town. Buford, Wyoming goes up for sale next month. It's at 8,000 feet, the highest town on the coast-to-coast Interstate 80. It's an old railroad town, once home to thousands, but now with a population of one. That person, Don Sammons, plans to retire from managing his businesses and move. So an auction comes in April - one gas station, one convenience store, a garage and a home. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Pizza chefs from around the world are gathered to compete in events like: largest dough stretch, fastest pizza-box folding and freestyle acrobatic dough-tossing.

(As news comes in from Afghanistan about the killings of 16 civilians, allegedly by a U.S. soldier, we'll update this post.)

There are fears that the killing of 16 Afghan civilians on Sunday, reportedly by a U.S. Army staff sergeant who gunned down the men, women and children in cold blood, will inflame the people of that nation.

Alabama and Mississippi will play an unaccustomed high profile role Tuesday as each candidate for the Republican presidential nomination looks to voters in those states to give his candidacy a boost towards inevitability, if you're Mitt Romney, or just keep their candidacies alive if you're Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with trade moves against China.

What is remarkable is that those who bought bonds will get a tiny rate of return. Renee Montagne talks to David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal, about what the results mean, who's buying Treasuries and how the borrowed funds are being spent.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

When an American soldier reportedly walked through two villages in southern Afghanistan and methodically killed 16 civilians, including children, it caused an uproar from Kabul to Washington, D.C. Now, let's get a view from where the killings happened - Kandahar. I first met Ehsan Ullah two years ago when I reported on a Canadian-funded girls' school that he runs in that city.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

One analyst calls last weekend's massacre in Afghanistan an enormous gift to the Taliban. It is the latest of several incidents that amount to lost battles in a political war.