Today President Obama is set to officially announce Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as his choice to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. Secretary of State Clinton is on her way to the Middle East, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will visit Washington. The Daily Beast's Ana Marie Cox and Jonathan Marcus of the BBC join John with a look at these and other events of the week ahead.

It's the one year anniversary of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's rise to power, but many Russia watchers feel that Vladimir Putin still holds the reins. While most world leaders would envy their approval ratings, since the global financial crisis hit the country, Medvedev's and Putin's ratings have fallen. For a look back at Medvedev's first year and a glimpse of the future, we are joined by the BBC's Olexiy Solohubenko.

A recent British study suggests that babies who face forward in their stroller are much less likely to talk, laugh, and interact with their parents. It’s just that kind of interaction that stimulates brain development. Liz Attenborough, who manages the Talk to Your Baby campaign at Britain’s National Literacy Trust, joins John to explain.

Read the New York Times op-ed piece on this discussion, One Ride Forward, Two Steps Back by M. Suzanne Zeedyk.

The federal government is stepping in to bailout AIG one more time. Just as the ailing insurance giant announced a massive $62 billion loss this morning, the biggest quarterly loss in history, the government stepped in to provide an additional $30 billion in taxpayer money. This is the fourth time the government has stepped in with money for AIG. This is the front page story from our partner the New York Times and it's reported by Andrew Ross Sorkin, who joins us now.

For more, read Andrew Ross Sorkin's article, U.S. Is Said to Offer $30 Billion More to Help A.I.G., in today's New York Times.

When most lawyers debate the death penalty, they do it in a court room. Robert Blecker may be the only lawyer who goes into prisons and debates the death penalty with the residents of death row. As one of the few academics who makes a passionate argument in favor of capitol punishment, he’s spent the last 20 years speaking to those who face the ultimate punishment — and recording his visits on videotape. His relationship with one of those inmates, Daryl Holton, who admitted to killing his four children in 1997, is the subject of a new documentary, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead. It just opened here in New York.

In recent weeks, much of northern Mexico has been gripped by anarchic violence as President Felipe Calderon takes on powerful drug cartels. The cartels' tactics are simple: use brute force to get what you want. The problem is—it's working. And increasingly, that violence is spilling across Mexico’s border into U.S. cities like El Paso and Phoenix. The Takeaway is joined by Sam Quinones, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and Tracy Wilkinson, Mexico Bureau Chief for the same paper. Both have been providing coverage for the paper’s series: “Mexico Under Siege.”

For more, follow the series, Mexico Under Siege, in the Los Angeles Times.

The collapse of Citibank is now the stuff of financial legend. As Citi group lays off employees and sells off its assets, what of the man at the helm? Citibank CEO Vikram Pandit took charge of the megabank just as things started to fall apart and he has barely held onto his job. As the meltdown took hold, Citigroup’s board offered the government his head in exchange for the billions in bailout money. Then, President Obama himself publicly rebuked him for ordering a new $50 million jet. New York Magazine's Joe Hagan joins John with a look at what it's like to be a bank CEO as the banking system collapses.

For more, read Joe Hagan's fascinating portrait of Mr. Pandit, The Most Powerless Powerful Man on Wall Street in New York Magazine.

In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Vikram Pandit discussed the impossibility of failure:

In a press conference at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, President Obama announced his plan for troop withdrawal from Iraq. The plan calls for removing American combat troops by Aug. 31, 2010, and the rest by the end of 2011 and the announcement caught some by surprise. While some Democrats say it’s slower than promised, military leaders seem satisfied. The New York Times’ Peter Baker joins John with an analysis.

Here is the Pentagon Channel's broadcast on the announcement:

Print journalism is struggling to stay afloat and some outlets will soon ask readers to pay for content. Hearst Corporation has announced it will launch a wireless e-reader this year that will allow its owners to read magazines and newspapers electronically—for a fee. But with so many options out there, are readers willing to pay? To help answer that, we’re here with Jeff Jarvis, author of the book, What Would Google Do, and a professor of journalism at the City University of New York.

Congress took a potentially transformative step when it devoted $100 billion in the stimulus package to education—the money could revive the reform efforts that began promisingly with President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education, joins John with details on how the dollars will be spent.

Click through for the transcript.

Markets opened lower this morning after news that the federal government is bailing out insurance giant AIG for the fourth time. The announcement came on the heels of AIG posting a $62 billion loss, the biggest quarterly loss in history. Our friend Dan Gross from Newsweek joins us to discuss the implications of this new $30 million taxpayer-funded bailout. He just wrote Dumb Money: How our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation.