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Cranberry Journal

Thursday, October 15, 2026

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At the close · Oct 15
Editor-at-Large

Margaret Holloway

Leadership, management and the culture of work

Margaret Holloway writes about leadership and the institutions that shape how work gets done, with a persistent scepticism toward practices that survive because nobody has examined them. Her reporting has followed the middle management layer companies removed and are now rebuilding, the chief of staff role formalising around executives, and what pay transparency law did to conversations managers were never trained to have. She writes the publication's opinion coverage on measurement and organisational honesty — why companies buy tools instead of making decisions, and why a board meeting spent being briefed has outsourced the judgment it exists to supply.

Stories
86
Published
July 21, 2026 – October 15, 2026
Sections
Leadership 20 · National News 16 · Opinion 12 · Business 11

All Stories

86 stories by Margaret Holloway
A row of new dark SUVs parked on a dealership lot at dusk.
Business

Penske Automotive Agreed to Be Taken Private at $212 a Share, a $16.3 Billion Enterprise Value. The Premium Is 8.8 Per Cent, and Its Two Buyers Are Also Its Two Largest Holders.

Penske Automotive Group said on Thursday 15 October that it will be acquired by Penske Corporation and Japan's Mitsui & Co. for $212.00 a share in cash, an enterprise value of about $16.3 billion. The price is 8.84 per cent above Wednesday's close and $2 above the $210 the buyers proposed in July. The deal needs regulatory approval and two shareholder votes, and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027.

By Margaret Holloway  

Two machined metal flanges resting on engineering drawings.
Business

New York Factories Posted Their Best Reading Since December 2021, 25.5. Delivery Times Are Lengthening, Supply Is the Scarcest Since 2022, and Hiring Is Only Modest.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Thursday 15 October that its Empire State Manufacturing Survey general business conditions index rose 18 points to 25.5 in October, the highest since December 2021. New orders rose 21 points to 23.2, while the employment index held at 10.3, pointing to modest hiring, and supply availability fell to its lowest since June 2022.

By Margaret Holloway  

A single-storey Bank of America branch with its red, white and blue sign, seen across a road junction under traffic lights at State Road 520 and A1A.
Business

Bank of America Took a $1.2 Billion Treasury Penalty the Day Before It Reported. The Charge Cost 17 Cents a Share, and Earnings Still Missed Without It.

Treasury announced more than $1.21 billion in anti-money-laundering and sanctions penalties against Bank of America on Tuesday 13 October, and the bank reported third-quarter results the next morning. The bank says the penalty is a non-deductible charge of about 17 cents a share. The bank earned 91 cents a share, or $1.08 excluding the charge, below the $1.12 analysts had expected.

By Margaret Holloway  

The domed California State Capitol in Sacramento at the end of a tree-lined lawn, with traffic lights in the foreground.
National News

California's Largest State Union Voted 96.2 Per Cent to Strike on 21 October. It Will Not Say How Many of Its 100,000 Members Voted.

SEIU Local 1000, which represents about 100,000 California state employees, said on 8 October that 96.2 per cent of members who voted authorised a one-day strike on Wednesday 21 October. The union has not disclosed turnout, its contract expired on 30 June, and the state labour board has sent the dispute to mediation. No mediation date has been announced.

By Margaret Holloway  

A black-and-white photograph of a Manhattan newsstand in 1935, its racks and awning covered with newspapers and magazines, beneath signs for cigars and malted milk.
Media

The News Business Is Cutting Again. The Reasons Have Not Changed.

McClatchy laid off more than ninety journalists across thirteen papers in September. The Associated Press completed a US restructuring with twenty layoffs in May. Dow Jones merged two editorial units and cut ten positions in June. The pattern is the same one that has defined the industry for a decade, and consumer revenue at McClatchy fell forty-one percent over five years.

By Margaret Holloway  

A corner shop with a dark blue Boots fascia reading Pharmacy and Health, on a street in Saltash, Cornwall.
Business

The Westons Are Buying Boots for $8.9 Billion. An Insurance Group Is Set to Own Half of It.

Wittington Investments, the holding company of Canada's Weston family, agreed on Wednesday to buy Boots from Sycamore Partners and the Pessina family for $8.9 billion including debt. Fairfax Financial, a Toronto insurance and investment group, has agreed to put up as much as $2.3 billion and is expected to own half of the equity. The family gets operational control.

By Margaret Holloway  

A bag of blood with a drip chamber and tubing hanging from a stand in a clinical setting.
The Long View

McKesson Is Paying $1.4 Billion for Half of Option Care. The Deal Sets Up a Framework for It to Buy the Rest.

Clayton Dubilier & Rice and McKesson agreed on Monday to take Option Care Health, the largest independent home infusion company in the United States, private for $32.05 a share. McKesson is putting in about $1.4 billion for 49 per cent, and the agreement sets out a framework for it to buy the private equity firm's majority later. Lenders have committed more money to the deal than the two buyers have.

By Margaret Holloway  

A white truck cab stands between two empty flatbed trailers in a gravel yard in front of a long warehouse with loading bays, under a blue evening sky.
Business

C.H. Robinson Is Paying $5.8 Billion for RXO. The Price Rests on $300 Million of Savings.

C.H. Robinson agreed on Sunday to buy RXO, the truck broker spun out of XPO in 2022, for about $5.8 billion including debt. Its own slides value the deal at 13.2 times RXO's expected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, but only after $300 million of annual cost savings. Without them the multiple is about 42. C.H. Robinson's shares fell 10.8 per cent on Monday.

By Margaret Holloway  

A line of steel lattice transmission towers carrying high-voltage lines across flat, freshly tilled farmland, with wind turbines on the horizon.
Explainer

The Senate's Permitting Deal Would Give Opponents 150 Days to Sue. It Would Also Send Data Centers Their Grid Bill.

The leaders of the two Senate committees that oversee energy and the environment released a 400-page permitting bill on 30 September. It would set two-year deadlines for environmental reviews, give opponents 150 days to sue, make it harder for any administration to block a whole class of energy projects and require data centers to pay all of their transmission costs. The Senate does not return until after the election.

By Margaret Holloway  

A row of new red compact SUVs parked on a dealership lot under an overcast sky, with trees and power lines behind.
Business

Toyota Came Within 38,000 Cars of GM Last Quarter. Hybrids and Sedans Closed Most of the Gap.

General Motors sold 670,974 vehicles in the US in the third quarter, down 5.5 per cent. Toyota sold 633,223, up 0.6 per cent, and more than half of them were hybrids or other electrified models. Hyundai Motor Group finished 1,195 vehicles behind Ford. The automakers gaining share are the ones with cheap cars and hybrids, in a quarter when gasoline cost $1.35 more than a year earlier.

By Margaret Holloway  

Several tall construction cranes over a building site and rows of houses at sunset, with mountains behind, in Lehi, Utah.
The Numbers

America Now Spends More Building Data Centers Than Chip Plants. Most Other Private Building Is Shrinking.

Spending on data center construction reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $85 billion in August, the Census Bureau said, up 73 per cent in a year. Spending on computer, electronics and electrical factories, the category that includes chip plants, has fallen to $52 billion from $126 billion in mid-2024. Without data centers, private nonresidential construction is down about 6 per cent on a year ago.

By Margaret Holloway  

Five people seated and standing around a white table in a glass-walled meeting room with an orange feature wall, seen from the corridor outside through two panes of glass, laptops open and a chart on the screen at the head of the table.
The Numbers

Thirty-Three Hours, Then a Board of Four. Automattic's Control Structure Was Never in Doubt.

Four Automattic directors formed a special committee on 9 September and voted to place chief executive Matt Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence. He was out of the chair, by the company's own count, for 33 hours and 20 minutes. On 25 September the company told staff it has a new board: four directors, none of whom were on it three weeks ago, and none of whom can outvote him.

By Margaret Holloway  

A view over the red roofs and hills of Pristina from a dirt slope on the city's edge.
The Long View

Kosovo's Former President Was Convicted by a Court Kosovo Agreed to Create

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague convicted former president Hashim Thaci of four counts of war crimes on Wednesday and sentenced him to 25 years. Three other former Kosovo Liberation Army commanders were also convicted. The court is Kosovo's own creation, staffed by international judges, sitting in another country, and it exists because Kosovo's allies required it.

By Margaret Holloway  

An empty railway platform at night, lit by overhead lamps, with tracks running into the dark.
The Long View

The Drones Hit a Warsaw-Bound Train Minutes After the Diplomats Passed Through

Russian drones struck a Warsaw-bound train near the Ukraine-Poland border on Sunday, minutes after a delegation including Boris Johnson and Carl Bildt had passed through the station. A second strike hit near another crossing point, and Poland recovered a suspected Russian drone from the Baltic. NATO's secretary general says the alliance will increase its support for Kyiv.

By Margaret Holloway  

The white Grand Mosque in Cotabato City, with golden domes and tall minarets, under a blue sky.
The Numbers

The Former Rebels Are Losing Bangsamoro's First Election to Other Former Rebels

With nearly all votes counted in Bangsamoro's first parliamentary election, the Bangsamoro Federalist Party leads on 35.2 percent against 32.4 percent for the United Bangsamoro Justice Party, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front's own party. The leader in front is the region's chief minister, himself a former MILF commander. Turnout passed 82 percent. Proclamations are delayed.

By Margaret Holloway  

Two hands placing a sealed envelope into the slot of a transparent ballot box.
The Long View

Bangsamoro Voted for Its First Parliament. The Peace Deal Promised It Twelve Years Ago.

More than 2.3 million voters in the Muslim-majority Bangsamoro region of the southern Philippines were eligible on Monday to elect the region's first parliament, the step that ends the transition set up by the 2014 peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. A shooting near a polling station killed three people the day before. Results are still to come.

By Margaret Holloway  

The Welsh flag, a red dragon on white and green, flying from a pole against a clear blue sky.
The Long View

Three First Ministers Signed a Declaration of Self-Determination. None of Them Can Call a Vote.

The leaders of the SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Féin, who are now the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, signed a joint declaration in Cardiff on Monday asserting their nations' right to self-determination. The UK prime minister has already ruled out referendums in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The power to hold one sits with Westminster in every case.

By Margaret Holloway  

An empty conference room with a long wooden table and upholstered chairs, a glass wall beyond.
Feature

The Most Expensive Room in the Building

Meetings starting after 8pm rose 16 percent in a year, sixty percent of meetings are called on the spot, and companies that deleted their calendars entirely got worse rather than better. The packed calendar and the empty one describe the same unresolved question, which is who is allowed to end an argument.

By Margaret Holloway  

A clinician talking with a patient in a consulting room.
Opinion

Coverage Should Follow the Approval, Not the Advice

A regulator decides a vaccine is safe and effective. A separate body decides who should prioritise getting it. Insurance is wired to the second document, which turns a clinical prioritisation into a payment rule nobody voted for. The wiring is the error, and it is fixable without touching the science.

By Margaret Holloway  

Workers walking through a large distribution warehouse lined with pallet racking, captured with motion blur.
The Numbers

The Best Organising Year in Decades Still Loses Ground

Workers won NLRB elections at the highest rate in decades last year — 93,517 of them, up 19 percent. Union density is 10.0 percent, and 14.7 million members in a workforce of about 147 million. Both numbers are real. One is a flow and the other is a stock, and the arithmetic between them is unforgiving.

By Margaret Holloway  

The interior of an art gallery seen through a metal grille.
Field Notes

The Funding Came Back. The Curator Did Not.

San Diego restored arts funding, and two of the city's institutions had already cut staff. The Institute of Contemporary Art reduced headcount by 42 percent across August; the San Diego Museum of Art laid off eleven. The ICA's deficit had doubled between 2023 and 2024, before any of it.

By Margaret Holloway  

An interviewer and a candidate talking across a desk.
National News

Federal Hiring Does Not Stall at the Interview

The Tech Force programme is screening applicants with AI agents that run structured interviews and hand hiring managers a transcript. OPM has issued guidance nudging agencies toward AI in hiring, with human oversight. The interview is not where federal hiring loses its months.

By Margaret Holloway  

A pupil at a desk in a primary school classroom.
The Long View

Three Different Problems Are Being Called a Budget Gap

A Colorado county is closing $12.5m. An Arizona district is cutting five assistant superintendents against a shortfall of nine to eighteen million. A Washington district is down $14m over two years after voters declined a levy. The word covers a transfer that expired, a decline that is permanent and a vote that was lost, and only one of those is fixed by cutting.

By Margaret Holloway  

A rollover collision at the roadside after a traffic accident
Money

Insurance Is the New Inflation

Headline inflation cooled, but households keep feeling squeezed, and the culprit hiding in the budget is insurance: home, auto and health premiums repricing years of accumulated risk.

By Margaret Holloway