Following a factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,000 people, Wal-Mart has declined to join a multi-company factory safety accord to try to prevent future disasters. Instead, the world's largest retailer announced its own set of inspection and safety measures.

Three of the world's largest clothing chains, including H&M and the owner of the Zara chain, have agreed to pay for fire safety and building improvements in Bangladeshi factories. The announcement comes three weeks after a building collapse that killed more than 1,100 workers in Dhaka.

Giant financial data company Bloomberg is acknowledging that some of its subscribers were tracked by the company's reporters. The reporters were allowed to see what kind of information the subscribers were looking at and how long it had been since they logged on. The tracking came to light after Goldman Sachs Raised questions about the practice. Over the weekend, the Federal Reserve said it is looking into whether its employees were tracked as well.

The deaths of hundreds of workers in Bangladesh are taking place in a garment sector that has seen explosive growth over the past three decades. Amid market pressures to cut prices, the country has managed to lure clothing-makers through a combination of low wages and light regulation.

A report from the Federal Reserve says the number of U.S. dollars in circulation keeps rising. Most of it goes overseas, in the form of $100 bills. People in countries like Russia and Argentina use $100 bills as a safe haven because they don't trust their national currency or their own banks.

This is the time of year when corporations report how they did during the first three months of the year. The picture so far has been mixed. While a lot of companies are doing fairly well in the U.S., they are seeing business drop off in other places like Europe.

The Rockaways in Queens were one of the areas hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy last year. Much of the beach disappeared and the boardwalk was destroyed. A lot of houses and businesses were damaged and some were without power until February. Now life is beginning to return to normal, but as summer approaches a lot of people are worried about how much has been lost.

Some housing experts say the city's zoning code has discouraged the building of affordable housing by requiring that all apartments be at least 400 square feet. The city is interested in finding ways to rewrite the rules. An exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York looks at ways to fix the city's housing shortage.

The Dow Jones Average plunged Tuesday afternoon, but recovered quickly after it was revealed that an Associated Press tweet about explosions at the White House was fake. The AP acknowledged that its Twitter account had been hacked.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported some air traffic delays on Monday. The agency says the sequester has forced it to cut the work hours of air traffic controllers by 10 percent and it's warning air travelers to expect delays as a result.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reviews the week's dramatic in events in Boston, where a 22-hour manhunt kept the city in lockdown and residents on edge. A suspect in Monday's bombing at the Boston Marathon was taken into custody Friday night.

The grisly week that began at the Boston Marathon on Monday left a police officer dead. Sean Collier, an officer with the MIT campus police, was pronounced dead Thursday night. He's remembered as passionate and dedicated to his profession.

President Obama's pick to lead the Labor Department faced some tough questions at his confirmation hearing on Thursday. Thomas Perez gained a reputation as a tough workplace regulator during his tenure at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

At what point does debt start to drag down an economy? Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff have argued that a debt to GDP ratio of 90 percent is a red line of sorts. That idea is under attack with economists from the University of Massachusetts charging that Rogoff and Reinhart used selective data to make their case.

The price of gold has been going up for so long that some investors forgot that it can also move in the other direction. Now, some institutional investors are betting that gold will move lower still.

The price of gold has fallen more than 20 percent from its recent all-time high of $1,924 an ounce. Many analysts believe the bull market in gold may be over.

The only female prime minister Britain has ever had died Monday at age 87. When Margaret Thatcher took office, Great Britain was a county in trouble. Inflation was in double-digits and unemployment was on the rise. The top income tax rate stood at 83 percent and the country was being racked by one labor strike after another.

Almost 5 million Americans have been searching for work for at least six months. This week, their plight is getting a bit tougher as the government cuts their unemployment benefits — part of the automatic reductions in federal spending that took effect recently.

The federal government has been slowly building an insider-trading case against the hedge fund SAC Capital. Last week it arrested its biggest fish yet, portfolio manager Michael Steinberg. One of the trades outlined in the indictment against Steinberg involved shares of the computer maker Dell. It's a prime example of the kind of mutual back-scratching that prosecutors say took place a lot at SAC.

Since 2009, millions of struggling homeowners have been moved onto higher-premium homeowners insurance after missing mortgage payments. It's known as "force-placed insurance." On Tuesday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced new rules to crack down on the fees and commissions that insurers pay to lenders.