Talk of the Nation

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.

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.