Talk of the Nation

Rick Santorum ended his presidential campaign Tuesday. It clears the way for Mitt Romney to capture the nomination, though many conservatives have yet to rally around the former Massachusetts governor. The Romney campaign now shifts into the general campaign, with a focus on President Obama.

It's time to kill the penny. That's what Daniel Akst argues in a recent op-ed on Newsday.com. "Pennies," he writes, "are a pain in the neck, only more so because they're worthless." While the penny isn't quite worthless, it does cost more than two cents to create each one.

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener comments on past Talk of the Nation shows, including the emergence of robots across the country, the racial history of Sanford, Florida, and the new balance of power in retail.

Rick Santorum, Republican candidate for president, has suspended his campaign. From his home state of Pennsylvania and surrounded by his family, Santorum told the assembled crowd that though his race was over, the fight to defeat President Obama would continue.

Dan Savage has made a career offering advice on relationships and sex in his nationally-syndicated column, "Savage Love." Now he's taking his act on the road for his new show, Savage U, in which he travels to college campuses across the country giving students advice on sex and relationships.

The White House announced Tuesday that there are "no signs yet" that President Assad has pulled back troops and stopped attacks on civilians. Monday, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said violence spilled across the border when Syrian forces fired shots into a refugee camp in Turkey.

On April 10, 1912, the Titanic set sail for New York City from Southampton in England. Four days later, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the frigid waters of the Atlantic.

The rest of the story has been the subject of countless books, shows and films about the thousands of people who traveled on the ship's maiden voyage, the dramatic events of the final few hours, and the legend of the "unsinkable" Titanic.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Over the past few years, several teachers have been disciplined and even fired for comments or photos posted online. A Philadelphia high school teacher was suspended in February after posting on her blog that students acted like rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. A Georgia teacher was forced to resign in 2009 after a complaint over a Facebook photo that showed her drinking alcohol.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Ozzie Guillen's interview with Time magazine begins with the quote, "I love Fidel Castro" - controversial for any Major League Baseball manager, a flash point for the new manager of a team that just opened a new stadium in Miami's Little Havana. Earlier today, the Miami Marlins suspended Guillen for five games, and he appeared at a news conference to repeat apologies for what he called the biggest mistake I've made so far in my life.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

The New York Yankees may be the most polarizing team in the U.S. In a new collection, Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World's Most Loved (and Hated) Team, writers share the stories behind their passions.