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Stay calm Twinkie fans. A court-ordered Hostess mediation with union reps may save the company after all, Reuters reports. News that the bankrupt iconic bakery company was planning to liquidate spread quickly on Friday. But on Monday, a judge ordered Hostess and its bakers’ union into private mediation to try to avoid a complete shutdown. The talks are set to begin Tuesday, and while there is hope for the junk-food giant, mediation doesn’t necessarily mean the issues will be resolved....

Airline food is nothing to write home about. In fact, it’s so bad, one woman even accused it of contributing to her husband’s death. Well, Victoria Cleven is here to sully the food’s reputation even more. She allegedly found maggots in her airline food last week when on a Qantas flight between Los Angeles and Melbourne. They were in her son’s food, too. The offending edibles were actually packages of trail mix provided by flight attendants, explains The Herald Sun....

A newly discovered security flaw called “Heartbleed” has many businesses scrambling to beef up their online security. The Heartbleed flaw affects websites that use a security software called OpenSSL to protect users’ data and passwords. As The Washington Post explains, sites vulnerable to the flaw are like doors with defective locks. No matter how much consumers change their passwords, if the “lock” is broken, user data is vulnerable. So what does your business need to know about the Heartbleed flaw?...

Police misconduct and harassment is unfortunately still an evil that comes with the broad, discretionary powers that officers are granted. In some areas, it has become so commonplace that many don’t even realize it is illegal, and actionable. Here are three common examples of police misconduct. One of the most common ways police abuse their power is through false arrest. This is linked to unlawful search and seizures under the Fourth Amendment....

“You Don’t Get to 500 Million Friends Without Making a Few Enemies.” So goes the tagline to the social network, a highly anticipated movie coming out this fall about the founding of Facebook. The movie was adapted into a motion picture from the book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, by Ben Mezrich. A recent case in Colombia further illustrates that Facebook is not just a place for friends, but also one for enemies....

A Cleveland woman’s rejection email went viral and sparked a firestorm of rage against Kelly Blazek, the head of a popular local job bank listserv who sent the job seeker a scathing rejection letter. Blazek – an HR executive, no less – learned the hard way that writing an ill-begotten rejection letter or rejection email can come back to haunt you, especially when the spurned recipient turns to social media (in this case, Reddit, Imgur, and Facebook) to call you out....

Bank of America’s Board of Directors approved what is perhaps the largest settlement in the history of banking on Wednesday, agreeing to pay a group of 22 investors, mostly made up of financial firms, $8.5 billion. Along with news of the BofA settlement, the bank also announced that it plans to set aside another $12.1 billion to settle similar claims, which stem from the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. How will this affect you, the ordinary investor?...

President Obama signed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 or “CARD Act” on May 22, 2009. The legislation aims, “…to establish fair and transparent practices relating to the extension of credit under an open end consumer credit plan…” After the passage of the CARD Act, consumers gained a number of protections regarding how the credit card companies operate. Gone are the days of two-cycle billing and APR increases for being one day late on a payment....

With so many people working in offices and industries that require repetitive manual labor, the phrase carpal tunnel syndrome has almost become shorthand for work-related hand injuries. And data from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health seems to show a correlation between jobs that involve repetitive manual activity and/or certain wrist postures and incidents carpal tunnel. Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) can be painful and even lead to atrophied muscles in the hand....

Taco Bell had itself a little problem. Apparently, employees were taking their discounted meals and complimentary drinks home to family and friends. So, the Bell instituted a rule requiring discounted meals be consumed on the premises. Because the meals were also consumed during employees’ lunch breaks, this effectively meant that if employees were on their lunch break, and utilizing their discount for a meal, they were required to remain on-site during their lunch breaks....

Former truck driver Holly Averyt has earned herself $10 million in a Walmart slip and fall lawsuit. The Colorado Supreme Court confirmed the jury award earlier this week, which originally came in at $15 million. It was reduced as the result of a state-imposed cap on non-economic damages. Averyt suffered from debilitating back injuries as a result of a grease spill in the Greeley Walmart’s loading dock. Though permanent and painful, it was ultimately Walmart’s courtroom behavior that led to such a large award....

Kickstarter.com is an innovative way to find funding for small business. The site, created to aid artists, has been pegged by emerging, expanding, and struggling small businesses as a creative way to communicate project ideas to potential investors. The concept is easy. Small businesses create an online profile explaining their project and setting a minimum total needed to fund the project. Then, it is open to the web-surfing public to “pledge” for the project....

Hot on the heels of John Oliver’s evisceration of America’s abysmal family leave benefits for new parents, Congress is trying to strengthen employment protections for some soon-to-be parents. A new, bipartisan bill would require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant employees. The new legislation comes in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling which said that employment policies that provide accommodations for disabled workers must do the same for pregnant workers....

It’s one of those years again, when the El Nino weather system begins dumping buckets of rain on our nation’s roadways and drivers begin to “lose all common sense.” We’ve all driven in rainy conditions before, but multiple inches of rain in a single day conditions? That’s something else. With parts of the country gearing up for historic rainfalls in the next few months, here’s how to stay safe on the streets:...

The FDA is cracking down on the marketing of unapproved drugs that may be unsafe or ineffective for patients. On Tuesday, the agency ordered nine drug companies to stop selling 14 potent narcotic painkillers that have not received a green light from the FDA. The nine drug companies that received notice from the FDA must stop the manufacture of unapproved narcotic painkillers within 60 days, and all shipments must end within 90 days....

So, you and your last employer have split ways. You’re absolutely over. Except for one little thing. He won’t give you your final paycheck! Sadly, this is not that uncommon. Employment situations can end badly - it happens. Employers are often unaware of laws that govern final pay. If you find yourself waiting payment on hours you’ve worked, consider utilizing the following information. Whether you quit or are fired, you must be paid for all hours worked....

Last week, Devin Kelley gunned down 26 people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. As it turns out, due to an Air Force court-martial for domestic violence, Kelley should never have been allowed to purchase the AR-15 military-style rifle he used in the shooting. The problem was that the Air Force never reported his conviction to the National Criminal Information Center database used for gun-buying background checks. According to the New York Times, the Air Force admitted that Kelley’s domestic violence conviction should have been entered into the database and promised to conduct a review of similar cases to determine if others had been properly reported....

If you could “fix” America, what laws would you pass? Retired Justice John Paul Stevens has a few ideas, and he’s currently making the rounds promoting his new book, Six Amendments. In the book, he proposes six “fixes” to the Constitution including campaign finance reform and ending the death penalty, but one of his reforms in particular is likely to stir up the most controversy: disarmament of civilians. And his ideas for fixing America don’t stop with his book....

Service animals are becoming more common in many states which leaves small business owners wondering about how that affects their pet policies. Service animals aren’t considered pets under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) so they technically aren’t supposed to be excluded as part of a no-pets policy. But they are still animals that can potentially make a mess, bother other customers, and generally cause a problem. So what’s a small business owner to do?...

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has created a new Crime Strategies Unit that will rely on a new computer database to spot crime trends. The new computerized crime-tracking system is designed to help prosecutors unearth crimes, spot broader crime trends and make better decisions when handling defendants, the New York Times reports. It database was created to more closely align prosecution strategies and modern technology, officials said. The database has been compared to the CompStat system used by law enforcement to detect, analyze and spot crime trends....