LATEST FROM NPR

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.

The manager of the Miami Marlins, Ozzie Guillen, apologized for comments praising Fidel Castro on Tuesday. Guillen has been suspended for five games because of the remarks. He now says he'll do whatever he can to repair relations with angry Cuban-Americans.

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.

Three people were killed in last week's shootings in Tulsa, Okla.: Dannaer Fields, 49; William Allen, 31; and Bobby Clark, 54. Two others were wounded in the shootings. All of them were shot — apparently at random — in the predominantly black neighborhood of Northgate in northern Tulsa.

It was Bobby Clark's brother, Donny, who first found him after the fatal shooting.

"I came through there and I realized it was my brother laying in the street," Clark says. "They shot him under the armpit, and I think it hit his heart."

Despite falling short in the quest for the Republican presidential nomination, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has established himself as one of the dominant conservative voices in America, particularly when it comes to social issues such as abortion and birth control.

Santorum announced Tuesday that he is suspending his quest for the presidency.

Santorum ultimately chose to suspend his campaign ahead of the April 24 primary in Pennsylvania. A loss on his political home turf would have done serious damage to his future electoral prospects.

Born in Nashville and more recently a resident of New York, Justin Townes Earle is no stranger to the road, and his latest album, Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, takes us down I-40 to Memphis, Tenn. On songs like "Memphis in the Rain," "Baby's Got A Bad Idea" and "Maria," Earle's past becomes an open book and makes for arguably his strongest album yet.

America's reliance on coal to produce electricity has declined by more than 20 percent in recent years — but in 2011, the U.S. exported coal at a rate not seen in 20 years, according to the AP. And much of the new surge in coal exports comes from Asia and Europe.

Here's a rough guide to who's buying America's coal, based on the AP story:

• South Korea: Up 81 percent to more than 10 million tons.
• India: Up 65 percent, to 4.5 million tons.

The Philadelphia Police Department is adding a new tool to its crime-fighting arsenal — Twitter. Supporters say the real-time information-sharing could help police build a stronger rapport with residents and better protect them.

West Philadelphia resident Mike Van Helder remembers when police knocked down his neighbor's door at 6 a.m. "There was shouting and loud noises and of course I didn't know what it was about," Van Helder recalls. "And them being my next door neighbors, I was understandably concerned."

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian man who confessed to killing 77 people last July, was not criminally insane when he bombed a government building and gunned unarmed people down at a youth conference, according to two psychiatrists appointed by a court in Norway.

The new development comes days before Behring Breivik's trial is set to begin, on April 16.

The warmth and vigor of Bonnie Raitt's voice throughout her new album Slipstream, even when she's covering an oldie such as Gerry Rafferty's "Right Down the Line," is vital and fresh — urgent, even. Raitt has always possessed a gift for taking a familiar phrase and rendering it in a manner that compels a listener to think anew about what the words really mean.

At the end of most previous recessions, hiring has increased among state and local governments, helping the broader economy to recover.

That's not happening this time around.

Layoffs have started to taper off, and tax receipts are starting to improve. But states are still a long way from bringing their workforces back up to pre-recession levels. And cities and counties remain in greater fiscal peril.

A shooting spree that left three African-Americans dead in Oklahoma and the death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin have renewed public debate about hate crime laws. Host Michel Martin speaks with law professor and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler about hate crime statutes and whether they're necessary.

As he's been reporting for NPR.org in recent months, Alan Greenblatt has noticed something unusual: he's increasingly being asked to prove who he is and that he is, in fact, a journalist. Here's what he found when he started to ask why that's happening:

How many people would bother to impersonate a reporter? Enough, apparently, to cause some government officials to do preliminary background checks on people to whom they grant interviews.

Most pitchers in the majors stick to fastballs, curveballs, sliders and change-ups when facing batters at the plate.

But not New York Mets right-hander R.A. Dickey. Dickey is currently the only knuckleball pitcher in a current rotation. At 37, he's also one of the older pitchers in the league and has seen his career — and life — mimic the erratic trajectory of the difficult pitch he throws game after game.

Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen has been suspended without pay for five games, effective immediately, as the firestorm continues over his comment to Time magazine last week that "I love Fidel Castro."