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Mitt Romney is disavowing a plan by some wealthy Republicans to attack President Obama for ties to his controversial former pastor. Even the people behind that proposal said they are abandoning it after their idea was plastered on the front page of The New York Times.

The proposal centered on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was a mentor to Obama before the two parted ways during the last presidential campaign.

Republicans unaffiliated with Romney were considering spending $10 million on a racially tinged advertising campaign tying Wright to the president.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

There you have it, the sound of money. Mark Zuckerberg rang the opening bell for the NASDAQ stock exchange this morning. Facebook, his company, is going public today. The company's shares start trading under the ticker symbol FB. And we talked about one of the largest IPOs, initial public offerings, in history with NPR's Steve Henn.

OK. When we say one of the largest in history, how big is it here?

Valerie Trierweiler is a journalist and a twice-divorced mother of three teenage boys. She never thought she'd also end up as the first lady of France.

Americans will get their first close-up look at the woman who now calls France's Elysee Palace home when she and her partner, President Francois Hollande, visit the White House this afternoon.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Let's get a sneak preview, now, of a coming attraction.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BELOVED OTTER-COLORED HORSE")

INSKEEP: Mongolia is the land of Genghis Khan and nomadic herders.

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INSKEEP: And it's also now riding a mining boom.

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INSKEEP: All next week, NPR's Frank Langfitt takes us to Mongolia where the rush to extract mineral resources is transforming a nomadic culture.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with layoffs at HP.

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INSKEEP: Technology giant Hewlett-Packard is poised to eliminate as many as 30,000 jobs worldwide. These cuts, though, will reportedly spare China - the company's largest source of growth, as well as its research and development divisions.

NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The head of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, has gotten an invitation to testify in front of the Senate Banking Committee about his bank's recent trading loss of at least $2 billion.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Dimon is very much the public face of his firm. In a Wall Street culture where banks are defined as much by the executives who run them is by the assets they hold. So, what kind of culture led to the multibillion dollar losses at JPMorgan Chase?

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

Americans now have a little more information on which to base their debate about Trayvon Martin. The teenager's killing in Florida - where he was shot by a man named George Zimmerman - prompted an intense and politically charged national discussion about violence, about gun laws and about race.

Would that big, bad JPMorgan Chase trade have violated the Volcker Rule?

It's too soon to say, despite the fact that the rule is part of a two-year-old law.

The Volcker Rule bans deposit-taking banks from making speculative bets. But it allows banks to make investments to hedge risks.

An Oklahoma teacher asked her fifth graders to each bring in a rock. One student brought in a stone that looked like a tooth. It turns out it was a tooth, according to the Muskogee Daily Phoenix. The tooth may up to 40 million years old.

The Baltimore legend is known for his pencil-thin mustache, and for movies like Hairspray. He's said in interviews he enjoys hitchhiking. Recently, the band Here We Go Magic tweeted photos of him in their van.