That sigh of relief you heard coming from the direction of Boston was Mitt Romney's campaign operation, now that it no longer needs to expend any more resources trying to drive Rick Santorum from the contest for the Republican presidential nomination.

Aside from the money and brainpower that the Romney campaign can now target at President Obama as it rotates fully to general-election-campaign mode, the GOP front-runner has, even more important, finally freed himself from his last significant anyone-but-Romney challenger.

Audie Cornish talks to Chris Benson, associate professor of journalism and African American studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, about what constitutes a hate crime and what role it's playing in recent headlines.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Abdulhadi al-Khawaja is a human rights activist from Bahrain who's in prison there and has been on hunger strike for eight weeks. After taking part in last year's demonstrations urging a dialogue between Bahrain's Sunni Muslim ruling family and the country's Shiite majority, al-Khawaja was arrested. Last spring, he was charged with organizing and managing a terrorist organization.

Hearing loss is all too common.

Some 35 million people have trouble hearing. After high blood pressure and arthritis, it's third on the list of chronic health issues for seniors.

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.