Sen. Barack Obama won the North Carolina primary by 14 percentage points. Sen. Hillary Clinton won the Indiana primary by a narrower margin of 2 percent. Neither candidate scored a knockout punch, but Obama came out ahead.

In Indiana, a primarily white state, we will know whether white voters, who are close to 75 percent of the population of the U.S., accept Obama's explanation of why, after first stating, "I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother," he now rejects Wright after Wright's appearance before the NAACP and the National Press Club.

Those officers — two black and one white — had been charged in the killing of Sean Bell, a young black man celebrating his forthcoming marriage. According to the judge, the three undercover officers who fired 50 shots at Bell's car committed no criminal act. The judge noted in his verdict that "questions of carelessness and incompetence must be left to other forums."