Bangladesh collapse — As rescuers struggled on Thursday to reach survivors in one of the worst manufacturing disasters in history, pointed questions were being raised about why a Bangladesh factory building was not padlocked after terrified workers notified the police, government officials and a powerful garment industry group about cracks in the walls. As the death toll reached 256, the owner of the collapsed Ranza Plaza building was in hiding, and the police and industry leaders were blaming him for offering false assurances to factory bosses that the structure was sound. Pressure continued to build on Western companies that had promised after a deadly fire in November to take steps to ensure the safety of Bangladeshi factories that make the goods the companies sell.

Iraq attacks — Clashes spread to a key northern city and gunmen took over a town elsewhere in Iraq on Thursday, raising the death toll from three days of violence to more than 150 people as a wave of Sunni unrest intensified. The spreading violence came as Iraqi electoral officials announced preliminary results in local elections held Saturday — Iraq’s first since U.S. troops left in December 2011. With 87 percent of the ballots counted, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc was on track to win the most votes in eight of the 12 provinces participating.

Texas explosion — President Barack Obama on Thursday consoled a rural Texas community rocked by a deadly fertilizer plant explosion, telling mourners they are not alone in their grief and they will have the nation’s support to rebuild from the devastation. “This small town’s family is bigger now,” Obama said during a memorial service at Baylor University for victims of last week’s explosion in nearby West, Texas, that killed 14 and injured 200. Nearly 10,000 gathered to remember the first responders killed in the blast, a crowd more than triple the size of West’s entire population of 2,700.

Israel drone — Israel shot down a drone Thursday as it approached its northern coast from neighboring Lebanon, raising suspicions that the Hezbollah militant group was behind the infiltration attempt. Hezbollah denied involvement, but the incident was likely to heighten Israeli concerns that the Shiite militant group is trying to take advantage of the unrest in neighboring Syria to strengthen its capabilities. Israeli naval forces were searching for the remains of the aircraft.

Job cuts — Banks aren’t the big jobs machines they used to be. One after another, major financial firms are trimming their payrolls. In first-quarter earnings announcements this month, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley revealed that they have slashed more than 31,000 jobs, or 3.5 percent of their combined workforce, in the past year. For three of those banks, it was the second straight year of cutbacks. And the pattern is being repeated at banks around the world. Layoffs in the depths of the financial crisis were to be expected. But four years later, and at a time when many banks are reporting higher or even record earnings, the cuts are unsettling to an entire industry.

Russian hospital fire — At least 38 people died in a fire in a psychiatric hospital outside Moscow late Thursday night. Police said the fire, which broke out at about 2 a.m. local time in the one-story hospital in the Ramenskoye settlement, was caused by a short circuit, the RIA Novosti reported on Friday. Officials from the Russian Investigative Committee later said they are looking at poor fire regulations and short circuit as possible causes. By early Friday morning, investigators listed 38 people — 36 patients and two doctors — as dead. Only three nurses managed to escape.