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The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Bargain hunters heading to Walmart, in addition to looking for holiday deals, may find workers participating in Black Friday Strikes.

Since 2012, Our Walmart, which is an employee labor group, has been staging strikes on the day after Thanksgiving.

Employees at stores in six states and Washington, D.C., plan to participate and more locations are expected to join in.

Our Walmart says it is standing up for better jobs. Members of the group would like to see more full-time work and an hourly wage of $15.

Its website BlackFridayprotests.org is trying to gather momentum for the movement. It also encourages people to participate in the strikes and has information where they can find a protest near them.

The AFL-CIO Tweeted: "Skip shopping and join a #BlackFriday protest in solidarity w/ #WalmartStrikers.

In a statement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, "The entire labor movement will proudly stand with the brave workers at Walmart as they lead the largest mobilization to date for better wages and schedules."

Walmart employs 1.3 million people in the United States. A statement on its website reads: "About 75% of our store management teams started as hourly associates, and they earn between $50,000 and $170,000 a year — similar to what firefighters, accountants, and even doctors make. Last year, Walmart promoted about 170,000 people to jobs with more responsibility and higher pay."

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As many as 13,000 people in the U.K. are victims of modern slavery, including sex trafficking, those "imprisoned" as domestic helpers, factory workers and on fishing boats, according to a new analysis release by Britain's Home Office.

According to the BBC, the Home Office says victims, including women and girls forced into prostitution or manual labor on farms, in factories and on fishing boats for little or no pay, include people from more than 100 countries, with Albania, Nigeria, Vietnam and Romania, heading the list, although British-born adults and children were also included.

"The first step to eradicating the scourge of modern slavery is acknowledging and confronting its existence," Home Secretary Theresa May was quoted by The Associated Press as saying. "The estimated scale of the problem in modern Britain is shocking and these new figures starkly reinforce the case for urgent action."

The BBC reports:

"Data from the National Crime Agency's Human Trafficking Centre last year put the number of slavery victims in the UK at 2,744.

"The assessment was collated from sources including police, the UK Border Force, charities and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

"The Home Office said it used established statistical methodology and models from other public policy contexts to estimate a 'dark figure' that may not have come to the NCA's attention."

Rape Crisis London says that "hundreds of women and children are trafficked into the UK every year."

In a 2012 report, Russia Today quoted Paul Donahoe, press officer at the British charity Anti-Slavery International as saying that teenagers from rural Vietnam, many orphans, are often lured to the U.K. with false promises of jobs in restaurants only to be forced to work in illegal Cannabis farms.

"He continued that women from Nigeria, many of whom have sworn to their traffickers not to run away or go to the authorities, arrive in the UK and are forced to work in prostitution.

"'They never pay off their debt and are forced to keep working until they are no longer useful,' he explained."

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Retired U.S. Air Force Col. David Roeder spent more than a year as one of 52 American hostages held by Iranian revolutionaries who took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

"I spent 14 months of my life and getting beaten around and tortured and threats against my family and all those sorts of things," he says.

For many, he adds, the ordeal never ended.

"Quite frankly, I was one of the lucky ones," he says. "I think I'm ok. But there's an awful lot ... who are really hurting. Everything from post traumatic disorder-type depression, to age, of course."

A battle for compensation has dragged on for years. And many of those former hostages are keeping close watch on the ongoing negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

The U.S. and other world powers missed a self-imposed deadline this past week to reach a deal, though they've set a new one for next June 30. While the talks carry on, Iran receives about $700 million a month in frozen funds in exchange for some temporary limits on its nuclear program.

And that is raising eyebrows among some of the former hostages.

One problem in obtaining compensation for the former hostages is that the deal that President Jimmy Carter signed to help obtain their release granted Iran immunity from legal claims.

The State Department says it is bound by that, which frustrates another former hostage, John Limbert, who spent his career in the Foreign Service.

"The painful thing for me is that it's been our colleagues in the State Department who have defended" the agreement, he says. "They might not like to hear this, but they have tacitly put themselves in an alliance with the Iranians."

State Department officials say they are working with members of Congress now to explore options to provide former hostages with compensation. They say the $700 million a month Iran currently is receiving in sanctions relief under the temporary nuclear deal is a separate issue.

While skeptical, Limbert says his career in diplomacy taught him to remain hopeful.

"Of the original 52, there are now 39 of us left alive and none of us are getting any younger," he says.

Now a professor at the Naval Academy, Limbert says he's glad to see Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif engaged in negotiations.

"When Kerry and Zarif sit down to talk – there's a lot of history in the room," says Limbert.

He adds that he was struck by a recent news report that quoted an Iranian official involved in the talks as saying it is time to address the issue of the American hostages.

Limbert says he's not sure if those comments will amount to anything, but he says it is a big change coming from an Iranian official.

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Australian cricket player Phillip Hughes died this week in Sydney after he was struck on the back of the neck by a bounced pitch that's an ordinary and routine part of cricket.

Mr. Hughes was 25, an accomplished and admired player. There's been an outpouring of grief in Australia and around the world over his death. Cricket fans from India and Pakistan to New Zealand have observed a minute of silence before a match, and worn black armbands. Cricket fans have put out cricket bats in tribute. Rory McIlroy, the great Irish golfer, played with a black ribbon in his cap.

Few Americans follow cricket. The game often has a faintly dainty image here, with players in white sweaters who stop for tea over a six-hour match. But the cricket ball is hard. Bowlers, as they're called, can pitch a ball at over 90 miles an hour, which can, after hitting the wicket, bounce towards a batsman's head or body. Hit it, or get out of the way.

Phillip Hughes wore a helmet. It's required of professional cricket players and children alike in many situations these days. But the ball bounced into the back of his neck, which is not covered by the helmet, and apparently set off bleeding that flooded his brain.

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Cricketer Phillip Hughes celebrates a score in 2011. Hughes was wearing a helmet this week when a ball struck him on the neck and killed him. Eranga Jayawardena/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Eranga Jayawardena/AP

Cricketer Phillip Hughes celebrates a score in 2011. Hughes was wearing a helmet this week when a ball struck him on the neck and killed him.

Eranga Jayawardena/AP

The injury that felled Phillip Hughes might seem freakish, but cricket fans know that there's been a string of injuries in the sport in recent months, when fast balls have struck players, even on their helmets. Darryn Randall, a South African player, was struck on the head and died in October of 2013. Mr. Hughes is the second cricketer in two years to die because of an injury suffered in a game.

By contrast, a major league U.S. baseball player has not died of an injury on the field since Ray Chapman was hit in the head by a pitch in 1920.

But The Economist, the British weekly, raised a question this week that not only applies to cricket, but to U.S. sports, and some aspects of life, too. It's what economists call "the moral hazard" question: Do people take more risks when they think they are protected from the consequences of something that might go wrong?

Do cricket players try to hit a ball that should make them duck because they expect a helmet to protect their heads? Do the sturdier helmets that have been developed just encourage U.S. football players to absorb more hits and crashes, and thereby shake up their brains and spines? Does new headgear encourage hockey players to skate faster and hit the boards more recklessly?

Do the technological advances we tell ourselves will protect us risk just winding up as new examples of good intentions that go wrong?

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