In April, Wal-Mart was the subject of a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after Wal-Mart closed five stores, including one where workers had been fighting for higher wages and benefits and working with a union. Last Week, Wal-Mart announced plans to reopen the stores in late October or early November, but former workers will be forced to reapply.

The 1996 welfare reform law championed by the Clinton Administration known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was supposed to bring in a new era and “end welfare as we know it.” In some sense it did, as the consequence of the law has been a considerable increase in extreme poverty in America.

Welcome to the age of the social media credit check. On July 22nd, Facebook filed a new patent for a product the company could sell to creditors to analyze someone’s creditworthiness based on their social network.

In August, the US Treasury Department responded to a 2013 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s communications during the 2008 bailout of American International Group (AIG) by claiming that the agency could not find any records. Here’s how you can help us respond.

On August 18, the SEC announced that the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon) agreed to pay $14.8 million to settle charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), when the bank gave out highly sought-after student internships to the relatives of foreign government officials in

Late last year, in response to a series of strikes by workers and protests by activists, Walmart agreed to raise wages so that many of the company’s workers received at least a meager $9 an hour in 2015. Unfortunately, Walmart’s entire business model is based on severely exploiting workers in the US, so the order has now come down from Walmart executives to cut workers’ hours to lower company costs.

The pay for CEOs of public companies continued its upward climb in 2014 according to a report by The Conference Board, a business research organization. The report, published in August, claims that total compensation for chief executive officers of US public companies in the Russell 3000 Index rose up 11.9 % from 2013 and as much as 34.7 % from 2010.

Documents related to discussions between US, British and European officials and multinational tobacco corporations concerning the regulation of tobacco under a new trade agreement were censored by the European Commission. Activists with Corporate Europe Observatory revealed the meetings through a Freedom of Information request, but the documents were heavily edited.

As compromised as Congress is when it comes to dealing with their Wall Street donors, they have nothing on financial regulators who often end up later working for the people and companies they are supposed to be regulating. Now regulators are allowing Wall Street to hide derivatives trades overseas to circumvent Dodd-Frank.

A study by a consultant hired by GM has led to a nearly ten fold increase in the number of deaths linked to the faulty switches. The new estimate, released on August 21 by a consulting group led by famed attorney Kenneth Feinberg, puts the number of deaths from the defected ignition switches at 124. Previously, GM said it only knew of 13 deaths.