Morning Edition

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

In Britain today, parliament continues its hearing on the interest rate scandal at Barclays Bank. This week, several of the bank's top executives resigned, including the chief executive, Bob Diamond. Yesterday, parliamentarians quizzed Diamond for three hours.

NPR's Philip Reeves is in London, where he says outrage is growing.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with the back story on VIP loans.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WERTHEIMER: A former mortgage company, Countrywide, used a VIP loan program to buy influence with members of Congress, staffers and other officials, including a number at Fannie Mae, the government backed mortgage giant central to Countrywide's business. That the bottom line of a new report out today from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

In the 1960s, Al Black could be found cruising up and down Route 1 in his blue-and-white Ford Galaxy — with a trunk full of wet landscape paintings.

At the time, he was a salesman who could snatch your breath away and sell it back to you. As artist Mary Ann Carroll puts it, he could "sell a jacket to a mosquito in summer."

"A salesman is a con-man," Black readily admits himself today. He's a storyteller. And does he have stories to tell.

In a stretch of sandy wasteland, Hisham Sadowi, 12, smacks a tee shot across a makeshift golf course in Benghazi, Libya.

On this course with no grass, local rules allowed him to place the ball on a little square of artificial turf he carries around.

Hisham dreams of becoming a professional golfer, and he stops briefly to speak to us. We asked him who his favorite golfer is.

"Tiger Woods," he exclaims.

There's so much water in, around and underneath New Orleans, that the dead spend eternity in tombs above ground.

Most of the tombs now have a similar design: On top, there's space for a wooden coffin or two, and at the bottom lies a potpourri of decanted family remains. Sooner or later, whoever is up high must vacate and settle lower, making room for the newly dead. That's how families stay together — in a desiccated jumble of grandpas, grandmas, siblings and cousins.

New Orleans now has the highest per capita murder rate in the country. Most of the killings are concentrated in the city's poorest neighborhoods — places like Central City, just a few blocks north of the stately mansions that line St. Charles Avenue.

The city's mayor is launching a new program aimed at cracking what he describes as a deeply rooted culture of violence. But victims complain that a failed criminal justice system has left the streets to vigilante justice, with innocent residents caught in the crossfire.

A Wounded Neighborhood

In 1835, Washington, D.C., was a city in transition: Newly freed African-Americans were coming north and for the first time beginning to outnumber the city's slaves. That demographic shift led to a violent upheaval — all but forgotten today.

Few of the city's buildings from that time remain, but you can still sense what it was like, if you sit in a park by the White House, as NPR's Steve Inskeep did with writer Jefferson Morley.

Sometimes history is made in the most unlikely of places.

This summer, the community of Idlewild, Mich., once known as America's "Black Eden," is celebrating its centennial — and its place in American history.

Located about 30 miles east of the larger resort city of Ludington, tucked away in the woods of the Huron-Manistee National Forests, the town was once a go-to spot for summer vacations. It was a resort unlike any other in the United States, however, and was, in essence, the town that segregation built.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

An Arkansas woman high-tailed it home after she rear-ended another car. It didn't take long for police to find her, and when they did, they slapped her with a citation for following too closely and leaving the scene of an accident. Her excuse: She didn't think there was enough damage to call police, and her ice cream was melting.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

A bit of good news for Colorado. Yesterday, firefighters battling wildfires there got a boost from some much-needed rain.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

The fires and drought conditions in the state prompted a firework ban for this 4th of July holiday. But an exception was made last night in Denver, where a giant crowd gathered to watch fireworks and applaud the efforts of those fighting to contain the fires.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Pakistan and the United States have reached agreement to reopen the strategic land supply routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan. Pakistan closed those routes last November after a U.S. attack left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead. Pakistan had wanted a formal apology from the U.S. but the administration refused because it believed American troops had come under fire first from the Pakistani side. But yesterday, Secretary of State Clinton made comments that finally broke the logjam.

NPR's Mike Shuster has more from Islamabad.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with a U.K. interest rate probe.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WERTHEIMER: The former chief executive of Barclays is testifying before a parliamentary committee in Britain. Bob Diamond, who resigned yesterday, is being asked about the rate-setting scandal at the bank. He told lawmakers in the hearing today that it was an unfortunate series of events. Yesterday, Barclays released documents suggesting a Bank of England official may have pressured Barclays to lower its rates. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

Scientists in Switzerland unveiled the results in their search for a subatomic particle that is believed to be key to the formation of stars, planets and eventually life after the Big Bang. Many questions remain about the exact nature of this particle.

Maybe you won't pay several hundred dollars for a pair of sneakers, but there are a lot of people who will — providing they are the right sneakers. The demand for certain models has spawned a robust market for re-sellers — people who buy up the available supply and re-sell them for a profit.