Author: Megan Burrows

When the severance line item in a quarterly filing begins to appear unusually generous, a certain kind of silence descends upon a large IT services company. That silence was present in Cognizant’s late-April earnings report. A reserve of $230 million to $320 million for what the company is calling Project Leap was tucked away in the figures, and somewhere in that reserve is the future of twelve to fifteen thousand jobs, according to the most reliable estimates. CEO Ravi Kumar S presented the plan as a restructuring rather than a retreat during the call on April 29. He discussed a…

When a round of layoffs starts, a certain silence descends upon a corporate office, and several HCA employees in Nashville claim to have noticed it as soon as they arrived earlier this month. The lights were on. It was brewing coffee. However, people were waiting for a meeting invitation that, for some, never arrived and, for others, arrived too soon while they sat at their desks and stared at the same email subject line. On May 1, 2026, HCA Healthcare announced that a “small portion” of its non-direct patient care staff had been let go. The wording in the company’s…

This is not how quickly the car market typically moves. It requires a fuel crisis, a recession, or occasionally an industry-surprising regulation. However, the current situation in showrooms in Hamburg, Milan, Hanoi, and a small area southwest of London feels different. The response to the Iran War has been quicker, messier, and more revealing than most analysts anticipated. This is because the war has put an end to cheap gasoline. By the end of April, Brent crude had surpassed $100 per barrel, and gasoline followed suit as usual: swiftly, painfully, and visibly. It was the biggest supply disruption in the…

The way the war in Iran has changed the auto industry has an odd quietness. No policy speeches, no industry summit announcing a paradigm shift, no big announcements. Just an increase in fuel receipts, more EV showrooms, and a gradual change in the vehicles that people are willing to take home. It feels less like a revolution to watch it happen and more like a tide that has already passed before anyone had a chance to look. The trigger was fairly easy to use. The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that carries about a fifth of the world’s oil,…

Seeing a high-end airline falter gives you a strange feeling. For years, Delta has marketed itself as the mature American airline—the one that operates on schedule, doesn’t misplace your luggage, and is the one your boss books when the meeting really counts. Then the schedule just fell apart over the course of one weekend in early May. Over 400 flights have been lost. Almost a thousand delays. The sky is clear. Airports are quiet. There is no storm to blame. In and of themselves, the numbers aren’t disastrous. Six percent of flights on Saturday and four percent on Friday. But…

When a city’s most vocal supporters begin filing complaints against the man they elected, a certain kind of awkwardness descends upon it. You can practically picture the gathering: a few neighbors exchanging anxious looks in a brownstone parlor on East Third Street, with one of them finally saying the quiet part aloud. We cast our votes for him. Not for this, though. That’s about where the East Village is this spring. Late last month, ten locals and a local organization known as the Village Organization for the Integrity of Community Engagement entered the New York Supreme Court and filed a…

The majority of class actions conclude with the little white envelope containing a check for $4.27 or $11.90, the kind of payout that leaves you wondering if the postage was more expensive than the settlement. That type of lawsuit does not apply to the Walmart TeleCheck case. It doesn’t make envelopes. Not a check. The text on a PIN pad screen at every Walmart in the nation has been slightly altered, somewhere between the prompt asking you to confirm the total and the one asking if you want cash back. That is essentially the whole deliverable. Although the $1.85 million…

The receipt has subtly turned into a battlefield at some point in the lengthy, fluorescent-lit history of American pizza chains. The majority of people never check theirs. After taking a quick look at the total, they sign and leave with a heated box. Occasionally, however, someone reads the fine print, scowls, and contacts an attorney. John Murphy experienced something similar in California, and now Domino’s is the one looking at a courtroom calendar. Domino’s is accused in the lawsuit, which was filed in late February in the federal court in San Francisco, of adding a small but persistent charge to…

When a judge actually reads the transcript, it’s difficult to ignore how quickly these things fall apart. In a federal courtroom in Ocala, Laura Loomer’s $150 million defamation lawsuit against Bill Maher and HBO collapsed last Wednesday. The decision reads more like a bench shrug than a legal earthquake. Maher and the network were granted summary judgment by Clinton appointee Judge James S. Moody Jr., who concluded that a reasonable viewer would have realized the comedian was making a joke. failing to provide a fact. not leveling a charge. A joke. In case anyone missed it, the setup began on…

People have a certain level of faith in a $100 Walmart dumbbell. It’s not the confidence you place in a high-end device. The idea that something this commonplace and well-known has already been proven safe by the sheer number of purchasers is more subdued. It turns out that the FitRx SmartBell Quick-Select defied that presumption. The New York-based importer of the FitRx line, Tzumi Electronics, announced late last week that it was recalling about 50,000 of its SmartBell Quick-Select 5–52.5 lb. adjustable dumbbells. The weight plates may come loose from the handle while in use, which is the straightforward—and somewhat…