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Stock markets slumped amid worries about instability in China's financial system, creating uncertainty over one of the world's top economies.

The huge House GOP freshman class that swept into office in 2010 faces its first re-election challenge next year, one that at least some of them may not be able to meet. New fundraising figures show that many freshmen have relatively low campaign bank balances heading into the election year.

Companies are using algorithms to guess your favorite film, track the development of the Occupy movement and predict insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other things. But with great power also comes great responsibility.

With a raft of cybersecurity proposals under consideration in Congress, the U.S. business community is making increasingly clear that it opposes new regulations that would require private companies to adhere to minimum performance standards or report all cyber intrusions they experience to the government.

Through the Very Young Composers program, one fifth-grader gets his music played by one of the world's top orchestras. The central idea of the program is to tap into the kids' creative spirit without getting in the way.

Farm worker advocates and top Obama administration officials have been pushing hard for new regulations that would improve safety for teenagers working on farms. But facing fierce opposition from the agriculture industry and its allies in Congress, the Department of Labor abruptly withdrew a set of rules that advocates said could save dozens of lives every year.

But it said its failures did not directly contribute to the blast, which killed 29 coal miners in 2010.

The city's leaders agreed to a compromise with state officials this week, that may save Detroit from bankruptcy. But Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley tells host Michel Martin that a lot more work needs to be done to save the struggling city. They're also joined by NPR Senior Business Editor Marilyn Geewax.

A year after the Navy SEAL operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama bin Laden, the CIA is stepping up drone attacks in Yemen and has broadened its targeting of al-Qaida's arm there. It is clear that al-Qaida isn't dead yet, and counterterrorism officials say the group is diminished. But its ideology, a kind of al-Qaida-ism, will take longer to die.

A public-policy expert makes the point that the reaction to the GSA scandal could lead to a pernicious development, the government equivalent of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. In an attempt to prevent such future excesses, cuts could be made to federal agency budgets that actually decrease not improve government's ability to wisely manage its spending.