Business Top Stories from Associated Press (AP)

Archer Daniels Midland Co. is closer to making a huge expansion into Australia with a possible deal for a grain handler there called GrainCorp. Decatur, Ill.-based ADM has offered 12.20 Australian dollars ($12.54) to buy GrainCorp. That values GrainCorp at about $3.1 billion, including the portion of GrainCorp that ADM already owns.

NEW YORK (AP) , Avon said Friday that Fred Hassan, its non-executive chairman, has resigned from the board, the company's latest management change. Hassan had just become chairman at the start of the year, replacing the direct seller of beauty product's longtime leader, Andrea Jung.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) , South Korea says Pyongyang has ignored Seoul's deadline for responding to a demand for talks on a shuttered inter-Korean factory park. Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said Friday that Seoul is considering countermeasures but refused to discuss what they might be.

Cost of amputating a leg? At least $20,000. Cost of an artificial leg? More than $50,000 for the most high-tech models. Cost of an amputee's rehab? Often tens of thousands of dollars more. These are just a fraction of the medical expenses victims of the Boston Marathon bombing will face.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) , North Korea's military, founded 81 years ago Thursday, is older than the country itself. It began as an anti-Japanese militia and is now the heart of the nation's "military first" policy. Late leader Kim Jong Il elevated the military's role during his 17-year rule; South Korea estimates he boosted troop levels to 1.2 million soldiers.

The collapse of a building housing garment factories near Bangladesh's capital is renewing attention on the unsafe conditions in the country's $20 billion clothing industry that supplies retailers around the world. Here's a look at the factories in the Rana Plaza building and the global retailers they say they were working for. THE FACTORIES

DENVER (AP) , Medical and recreational marijuana may be legal in Colorado, but employers in the state can lawfully fire workers who test positive for the drug, even if it was used off duty, according to a court ruling Thursday.

WACO, Texas (AP) , On April 17, an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, leveled part of the small town located some 20 miles north of Waco. Most of the victims were first responders from fire departments in West and other nearby towns that were on the scene trying to control the fire that preceded the blast.

WASHINGTON (AP) , The Senate moved closer Thursday to passing a bill to tax purchases made over the Internet. But a final vote in the Senate was delayed until senators return from a weeklong vacation. Although opponents hope senators will hear from angry constituents over the next week, they have a steep hill to climb to defeat the bill in the Senate.

WASHINGTON (AP) , More than 100 crucial gauges that warn of imminent flooding or lack of needed water will be shut down starting next month as part of the federal government's automatic budget cuts. Some are in the nine states threatened with spring flooding, U.S. Geological Survey officials said in interviews with The Associated Press.

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) , The grandest stage in sports was too much for the guys who are putting together the College Football Playoff to pass up. The BCS conference commissioners announced Wednesday that Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, edged Tampa, Fla., in the bidding to be the site of the first title championship in the new playoff system.

WASHINGTON (AP) , The federal government added the name of the dead Boston Marathon bombing suspect to a terrorist database 18 months before the deadly explosions, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Coming soon to a theater near you: China's Communist Party. From demanding changes in plot lines that denigrate the Chinese leadership, to dampening lurid depictions of sex and violence, Beijing is having increasing success in pressuring Hollywood into deleting movie content Beijing finds objectionable.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) , South Korea's economy expanded at the fastest level in two years in the first quarter as capital expenditure and exports turned higher, the central bank said Thursday. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) , Google CEO Larry Page and his longtime partner Sergey Brin limited their salaries to $1 apiece last year, while four other top executives received combined compensation packages totaling more than $124 million.