Media

Regulators in the United Kingdom are looking into allegations that traders from some of the world's largest banks have been manipulating benchmark foreign-exchange rates to make profits on the backs of clients.

Bloomberg News broke the story earlier this week, citing interviews with several anonymous traders who claim the practice has been occurring for at least 10 years. [...]

We have learned, painfully, of the damage derivatives can do to an economy in a financial crisis. But derivatives are hurting the economy even on its best days, according to a new study.

Kathleen Turner tells New York state legislators not to come home without Fair Elections for New York.

First, the American Pediatrics Association noted that poverty was the number one danger facing children today. If that wasn’t bad enough, it seems the elderly are just as vulnerable, especially in the light of potential entitlement cuts.

In the wake of the National Security Agency scandal, the mainstream media is obsessing over Edward Snowden’s security clearance. It is asking, along with Senators from the Intelligence Committee, why a systems administrator at Booz Allen Hamilton had access to troves of top-secret documents and whether or not the vetting process for the other 1.4 million people with top-secret clearances is rigorous enough. The fear, the mainstream seems to be pushing on Americans, is that other leaks are in store.

Last month Nevada joined a growing number of states and cities that are forbidding companies from using credit checks to make employment decisions. But the practice is still legal under federal law. [...]

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo spent his career cultivating the image of a man who gets what he wants. In 2011, he rammed same-sex marriage legislation through the legislature, even with a Republican-controlled Senate. In 2012, when he wanted New York to be the first state to pass gun-control laws after the Newtown shooting, he was similarly productive. This year, Cuomo has said he wants to make state elections fairer, by lowering contribution limits and supplementing small donations with public dollars to give them more weight.

The retail sector has been a star of recent jobs reports. May's numbers from the Department of Labor say it was responsible for adding 28,000 positions to the overall economy. It's on an upward trend – the monthly retail employment number has averaged 20,000 for the past year.

Considering one in nine Americans work in, for or in stores ranging from the corner grocery to big box behemoths, this should be great news. And it would be – if these jobs paid anything resembling a living wage. But all too many of them don't. [...]