Once strict laws about when shops can open and close are starting to be relaxed, much to the chagrin of labor unions and regulators

President Obama is considering an executive order to force contractors to disclose their political spending.

Joplin tornado, as Sunday's twister has come to be called, is blamed for more than 100 fatalities in the southwest Missouri community. It's the latest in a string of tornadoes this spring. Though hurricanes and earthquakes tend to do more financial damage per event, tornadoes and related events have been responsible for an average 57 percent of all insured catastrophe losses in the United States since 1953, according to a 2009 study by insurance credit-rating service A.M. Best. Not counting the Joplin tornado, where damage assessments have only begun, here’s a look at the five most financially devastating tornadoes in the US, according to the A.M. Best study and federal estimates (reported in 2011 dollars):

AP - Rescue crews dug through piles of splintered houses and crushed cars Monday in a search for victims of a half-mile-wide tornado that killed at least 116 people when it blasted much of this Missouri town off the map and slammed straight into its hospital.

AP - NATO warplanes bombarded targets in Tripoli with more than 20 airstrikes early Tuesday, striking around Moammar Gadhafi's residential compound in what appeared to be the heaviest night of bombing of the Libyan capital since the Western alliance launched its air campaign against his forces.

AP - Israel's prime minister promised to present his vision for an Israeli-Palestinian peace in a speech before U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday, but vowed his country would not return to mid-1967 borders that he termed "indefensible."