Blake Farmer

The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is college football's most dominant program. It has won the Bowl Championship Series for the past six years. And a record six SEC teams finished in the top ten this year. Another SEC team, Vanderbilt, is also doing well. Long the doormat of the conference, the private university known more for its academics is enjoying gridiron success.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Some other news. Women who work for Wal-Mart - the world's largest retail chain - continue to make claims they get paid less and are not promoted as often as men. Current and former Wal-Mart employees have now filed a court case in Tennessee.

As Blake Farmer of member station WPLN reports.

BLAKE FARMER, BYLINE: Three women are named. Attorney Scott Tift says each has a first-hand account of discrimination.

The U.S. Army has been ramping up instruction in the languages of Afghanistan, even as troop levels in the country decrease in preparation for the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2014.

This year, key installations have added several hundred speakers of Pashto and Dari to their ranks, more than doubling the number of soldiers trained in the Afghan languages.

But it's not just the country's languages that are foreign to U.S. soldiers — it's the culture, as well.