Wal-Mart pledges to hire vets

NEW YORK – Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been coming under a lot of fire lately. Two of its suppliers were found to have been making goods in a factory where 112 people died in Bangladesh, and employees throughout the country walked out of the store on one of the busiest retail days of the year to protest bad working conditions. But the company, never a crowd favorite at worker-solidarity gatherings, may be trying to improve its image.