Angelo Young

The nation's largest public-sector employee union this week selects its first new leader in a generation, and its more than 3,500 delegates, representing about 1.4 million members, must decide which of two candidates is most likely to halt declining membership and shrinking benefits: the one focused on national politics or the one focused on localized activism?

Here's what a nursing home in Mobile, Ala., has in common with the regal Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan: They're both facing micro-unions, groups of employees who organize apart from the rest of a company's workforce.

Investors rushed on Monday to buy bonds in Mexico City-based retailer Controladora Comercial Mexicana SAB (Mexico: COMERUBC) after Costco announced it was buying back the 50 percent stake of its local unit held by Comerci.

Once reserved for boutique funds catering to religious investors opposed to profiting from weapons, gambling, tobacco or alcoholic beverages, socially responsible investing today has a larger presence, with more assets under management than ever before.

As the U.S. Senate grapples with how to allocate about $100 billion a year for the next decade on food policy, one subsection of the farm bill is under attack, namely, the $200 million U.S. taxpayers spend every year to subsidize the marketing of well-established brands found in virtually every American pantry.

A week before a court was to rule on a challenge to the Department of Labor's reforms to the way low-skilled foreign seasonal workers are brought into the country on the H-2B non-agricultural work visa, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to hobble the department's efforts.

It might be time to tell your computer-feeble grandma or your hippie uncle Ned to update their copies of Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer browser from that ancient version they downloaded way back in 1999 and never bothered to update. (Update? What's that?)

Something strange is going to take place next week at the G-20 summit: Europe, long accustomed to sending aid through the International Monetary Fund to developing nations, will pass a collection plate to many of those same countries. But to get such help, which could be as much as $105 billion from four major emerging economies, European nations will have to surrender some control of the IMF.

The debate over minimum wages -- does raising the minimum wage put more money in workers' pockets or just leave more of them jobless? -- is heating up at the state and federal level.

Felda Global Ventures Holdings, Malaysia's state-owned palm oil producer, will likely exceed its IPO target of $3.2 billion when it goes public on June 29.

Here's a window into how low the bad guys will stoop to steal retail inventory: Last week in California, 1,600 pounds of premium dog food, a $10,000 cargo on its way to feed animals at a local pet rescue facility, was stolen.

Within a week of Facebook Inc.'s (Nasdaq: FB) $16 billion initial public offering, at least six lawsuits were filed against its top officials, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, as well as six investment banks involved in the deal. That in itself is not surprising, considering the IPO flopped. What would be surprising is if the shareholders actually get anything near what they feel they deserve.

As a weakening economic recovery and cheap gas lead Americans to curtail international vacations, domestic tourism is poised for a solid summer.

Fitch Ratings on Friday downgraded Spain's long-term sovereign credit rating from A to BBB, just one notch from junk grade because of the increasing estimated cost of fixing the country's banking system from 3 percent of GDP to as much as 9 percent, or ?100 billion ($126 billion).

Mexican guest workers filed Wednesday a U.S. Department of Labor complaint against CJ's Seafood, a Wal-Mart Stores supplier, alleging the company didn't pay overtime for long shifts, locked them in and made physical threats for not working fast enough.

Airline stocks were recovering on Tuesday from a battering the previous day after Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) showed a 6 percent increase in per-seat passenger revenue in May compared to last year, one percentage point lower than it had expected.

Stocks have wiped out their year-to-date gains. US payrolls are down while unemployment is up. Yields on high-demand government bonds are at record lows. Speculation abounds the US Fed might even print more money. Is it any wonder some are talking about gold?s rebound?

The number of people in Spain claiming jobless benefits declined slightly in May by 30,113, the country's Labor Ministry announced on Monday. The drop was small compared to the decline in claims of 80,000 in May of last year.

Eurozone producer price inflation was flat in April and gained 2.6 percent on the year, Eurostat reported on Monday. Economists had expected a 0.2 percent increase and an increase of 2.7 percent on the year.

Enrique Peña Nieto has enjoyed a comfortable lead against his rivals for much of the Mexican presidential campaign season. But recent polling suggests his victory isn't as certain as it has appeared, leaving analysts pondering the future of Petroleos Mexicanos, the country's creaky state-owned oil company, should the candidate's main leftist rival win on July 1.

The number of Americans filing for first-time jobless benefits rose by 10,000 last week, the Department of Labor announced Thursday, bringing the number of people filing for unemployment benefits to a one-month high and exceeding analysts' expectations.

Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp. (Tokyo: 8002), which has been on a global shopping spree in recent years so it can become a dominant grain supplier to China, just took a strategic step toward that goal.

The cost of natural gas, which has languished for two years and last month hit lows not seen in a decade, is rebounding despite a 5.5 percent price drop earlier this week.

Japan Tobacco Inc. (Tokyo: JT) is buying all outstanding shares in Belgian tobacco company Gryson NV from its parent GT&Co BVBA for ?475 million ($596.3 million), the company announced Thursday.

The World Bank lowered on Wednesday its 2012 China growth forecast to 8.2 percent from 8.4 percent on faltering demand for exports in the U.S. and Europe and a slowdown in the Chinese real estate market. The bank urged the entire region to focus on spurring domestic demand and reduce its dependence on exports.

Investors on Wednesday eagerly snatched up a new two-year German bond with a zero-percent coupon, meaning investors were willing to pay to loan money to Europe's strongest economy when expected inflation is factored in. The yield ended at 0.07 percent.

Comments regarding a rebound in the Chinese economy from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development lifted stocks earlier Tuesday and kept Asian and European bourses in the green. The comments came after Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said last weekend his government would focus more on growth than inflation.

Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) reported a 26 percent drop in its fiscal first-quarter profit due largely to higher restructuring costs compared to last year, but the earnings topped Wall Street's expectations.

The strain in this relationship between Germany and France was apparent Monday as finance ministers from both countries failed to resolve the question whether the euro zone would benefit from issuing joint European bonds. Berlin rejects the idea, stipulating that struggling economies need to clean up their messes before being given a reason not to.