The departments of Labor and Homeland Security have issued a joint rule that significantly raises the wages employers must pay foreign workers who come to the country under H-1B visas and reduces the scope of "specialty occupations" eligible for the visas. "Companies have been incentivized to avoid hiring Americans or even lay off their own qualified, better-paid American workers and replace them with cheaper foreign labor," said DHS' Ken Cuccinelli.

Microsoft says the Labor Department is probing its initiative to double the number of Black employees in leadership positions via a letter that gives the company until Oct. 29 to respond. Microsoft's general counsel, Dev Stahlkopf, says, "The letter asked us to prove that the actions we are taking to improve opportunities are not illegal race-based decisions. Emphatically, they are not."

A study of working parents by Cleo finds 61% of women say they feel they take on the brunt of caregiving, compared with 26% of men, and women suffer the loss of 49% more time than men. In addition, 34% of respondents say they don't have child care help and 1 in 4 are seeking new positions to "better accommodate their dual role."

Community-college enrollment and credential completion typically increase following mass layoffs, according to a study co-authored by Andrew Foote, a senior economist at the US Census Bureau, and Michael Grosz, an economist at the Federal Trade Commission. Data shows that, following such an event, people seek out degrees and certifications in in-demand fields.

A lawsuit against Kim Davis, a former Rowan County, Ky., clerk who cited her religious beliefs when declining to issue same-sex marriage licenses, can move forward after the US Supreme Court said it will not hear her appeal. Meanwhile, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito wrote that the 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which determined that same-sex couples have the right to marry, "bypassed the democratic process" and that "Davis may have been one of the first victims of this Court's cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last."