• The Kremlin is closely watching Greenland after Trump expressed interest in the US acquiring it.
• The Kremlin's press secretary said the Arctic is a zone of national interest for Russia.
• Trump said earlier this week that he would not rule out using military force to seize Greenland.

Russia is keeping a close eye on President-elect Donald Trump's interest in acquiring Greenland.

The Kremlin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia is "watching the rather dramatic development of the situation very closely," according to a report by Reuters.

"The Arctic is a zone of our national interests, our strategic interests," Peskov said. "We are interested in preserving the atmosphere of peace and stability in the Arctic zone."

Russia has ramped up its military presence in the Arctic in recent years. For example, it has deployed a substantially larger fleet of icebreaker ships — which break up ice in strategic waterways and increase maneuverability for other ships — to the Arctic than the US.

Trump, who expressed interest in buying Greenland as early as 2019, resurfaced his proposition in December and has since doubled down on his stance.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Trump said that he would not rule out using force to secure Greenland, which is an autonomous Danish territory, and regain control of the Panama Canal, a critical waterway for trade.

When asked for assurance that he would not resort to "military or economic coercion" to seize the two, he said, "I can't assure you."

"I'm not going to commit to that," he added.

"People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up because we need it for National Security," he said of Greenland in the press conference.

He then threatened to impose tariffs on Denmark "at a very high level" if the Scandinavian country resisted giving up control of the Arctic territory.

Russia's statement comes after Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., landed in Greenland on Tuesday and met with locals in Nuuk, the capital city, according to his X posts.

A Tuesday video on his X showed the president-elect calling his son to talk to Nuuk locals.

In response to Trump's comments, Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said to a local news outlet on Tuesday that Greenland is "not for sale."

Greenland's Prime Minister, Múte Egede, said in a December Facebook statement, "We are not for sale and will never be for sale."

Trump, meanwhile, has also talked about seizing control of the Panama Canal, a roughly 50-mile canal built in 1914 to link the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It was under US control until it was given to the Panama Canal Authority (PCA) in 1999.

Trump called for the canal's control to be returned to the US, slamming "exorbitant" fees for US ships passing through it.

Representatives of Trump and the Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular business hours.

• Wildfires are rampaging across Los Angeles County this week.
• Hundreds of thousands of people are under evacuation orders or warnings.
• Insured losses could top $20 billion, JPMorgan analysts estimated — the most-ever in California.

The Los Angeles area is battling a series of massive wildfires that continue to rip through its picturesque mountains and hillsides — creating a hellscape of burned-out neighborhoods and livelihoods that could end up being the most costly fire disaster in California history.

JPMorgan analysts said the blazes tearing through the region could lead to more than $20 billion in insured losses — and around $50 billion in total economic losses. That would make these conflagrations "significantly more severe" than the Camp Fires that struck the state in 2018 and racked up $10 billion in insured losses, the current record.

More than 1,500 displaced people were being housed in shelters on Thursday night, authorities said, and an additional 200,000 people had been placed under evacuation warnings — with officials advising them to be ready to leave their homes if fires move closer to their residences.

A curfew is in effect in impacted areas under evacuation orders until 6 a.m. Friday, Los Angeles County said.

Thick bands of smoke could be seen in several directions from the city's downtown core — with at least five fires burning throughout the 4,000 square-mile county that's home to nearly 10 million people.

More than 35,000 acres have burned so far — and at least 10 deaths have been reported as of 9 p.m. local time on Thursday.

Over 10,000 homes and other structures have been destroyed so far, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman described the scene in LA as apocalyptic.

"Not since the 1990s, when Los Angeles was hit with the fires, the flood, the earthquake, and the riots, have I seen such disaster occur here in our city," Hochman said at a briefing, referring to the Northridge Earthquake and the disturbances in the wake of the Rodney King verdict.

The National Weather Service predicted that the "red flag warning" signaling high fire danger will persist for LA County and nearby Ventura County through Friday.

But there was some brightening on the horizon: Officials said weather conditions are beginning to turn favorably for firefighters.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a Thursday briefing that twenty people had been arrested on suspicion of looting in areas affected by the fires.

Luna issued a stern warning to the public: Anyone who remains in areas under mandatory evacuation orders is guilty of a misdemeanor, and his officers will begin enforcing that. Beyond that, crimes like looting could reach the felony level, he said.

In an X post on Thursday night, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that "taking advantage "of evacuated communities is "absolutely sick," and said that "looting will not be tolerated."

In a separate post on Thursday night, Newsom said that over 8,000 firefighting personnel, as well as over 600 California Guard members, 991 fire engines, and 40 helicopters were hard at work battling the wildfires.

Late Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration warned civilians against flying unauthorized drones in areas undergoing firefighting efforts, after a firefighting plane sustained wing damage from a civilian drone and had to be grounded.

Meanwhile, around 95,000 power customers remain in the dark, Janisse Quiñones, the CEO and chief engineer of the city's Department of Water and Power, said.

Satellite images of the LA fires showed the destruction left in their wake.

Starlink, Elon Musk's SpaceX subsidiary that provides satellite internet service, said on Thursday that people in the Los Angeles area can use the company's network to text loved ones, contact 911, and receive emergency alerts.

Here's a look at the latest happenings in the main fires spreading throughout the area:

Palisades Fire

The Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades area north of Santa Monica was the first fire to strike the region on Tuesday morning. It has spread to nearly 20,000 acres, making it one of the worst natural disasters in LA history, officials said Thursday.

Data from state agency CalFire early on Friday showed that the fire was 6% contained.

Los Angeles City's Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said in a Thursday briefing that the Palisades Fire had damaged or destroyed more than 5,300 structures.

Wind gusts in the area have calmed down a bit since their Tuesday highs of nearly 100 mph, but remain up to 60 mph.

Crowley would not confirm reports that the fire started in a resident's garden, saying the origin is still under investigation.

Some celebrities have lost homes in the blaze, including Paris Hilton and Billy Crystal.

Eaton Fire

The second-largest fire in Los Angeles County is the Eaton Fire, which started on Tuesday evening in the Pasadena-Altadena area at the foothills of the Angeles National Forest.

The blaze has spread to over 13,000 acres and is zero percent contained, according to CalFire early on Friday.

About 5,000 structures have been damaged by the Eaton Fire, authorities said on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

Hurst Fire

The Hurst Fire, which began late on Tuesday night in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley, spread to around 855 acres, according to data from CalFire.

CalFire estimated it was 37% contained as of early Friday.

LAFD's Crowley said firefighters have been able to hold the fire within a containment area and had established a perimeter.

In an X post on Thursday afternoon, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the mandatory evacuation order for the Hurst Fire had been lifted.

Sunset Fire and others

The Sunset Fire broke out in the Runyon Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday evening, quickly spreading to scorch over 40 acres and threaten major LA landmarks.

As of Thursday morning, firefighters were able to stop the fire's forward progress, Crowley said.

All evacuation orders related to the Sunset Fire were lifted as of 7:30 a.m. Thursday, she added.

A large structure fire consumed two large homes in the Studio City area but firefighters were able to stop its forward growth at just one acre and prevent another brushfire, Crowley said.

Another fire, the Kenneth Fire, started on Thursday afternoon near Calabasas and Hidden Hills, north of the Palisades Fire. The fire quickly grew from 50 acres to almost 1,000 acres in less than a few hours, according to Cal Fire.

On Thursday night, the Ventura County Fire Department said that firefighters had stopped the forward progress of the fire, with the blaze holding at 960 acres with 0% containment.

It was 35% contained as of the early hours of Friday.

A mandatory evacuation order was issued for several neighborhoods near the fire.

LAPD said it is investigating the Kenneth Fire for arson but could not confirm any connection to a suspect it had detained for questioning.

An evacuation notice intended for residents impacted by the Kenneth Fire was mistakenly sent out across LA County due to a "technical error," County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in an X post.

Yet another fire, the Lidia Fire, started Wednesday afternoon in Acton near the Antelope Valley, about 20 miles northeast of the San Fernando Valley. It spread to consume 394 acres but has been 75% contained, per CalFire.

One of the fires has been 100% contained. The Woodley Fire, which began Wednesday morning in the southern part of the San Fernando Valley, has been suppressed and there are no current threats, Crowley said.

Patrols were monitoring the area for any flare-ups, she added.

Events canceled and landmarks closed as smoke chokes LA

Major and minor events alike have been canceled or postponed across the LA area as the city battles the fires.

The 30th Annual Critics Choice Awards, set for Sunday night, were rescheduled for January 26. A National Hockey League game between the Los Angeles Kings and the Calgary Flames, scheduled for Wednesday night at Crypto.com arena, was postponed. The LA Lakers rescheduled Thursday night's game.

Music venues across the city were also canceling or postponing their shows, including The Troubadour, The Wiltern, The Echo, the Kia Forum, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and others.

Flights into and out of LAX, Hollywood Burbank Airport, Ontario International Airport, and Santa Ana's John Wayne Airport were also experiencing delays and cancellations.

The fires are also shuttering tourist attractions in and around Los Angeles, which attracts nearly 50 million visitors a year.

The fires forced some Los Angeles-area landmarks to close, including the Hollywood sign, the Los Angeles Zoo, the Broad Museum, the Norton Simon Museum, the Getty Villa and Getty Center, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal CityWalk, and the Griffith Observatory.

Airbnb told CNN that it would be allowing refunds for bookings in areas affected by the wildfires, following a viral social media post from a customer who said the company refused to offer her a refund.

California already struggled with an insurance crisis

The devastating fires this week will likely only worsen California's ongoing insurance crisis, where many homebuyers already struggle to get approved for loans, home insurance, and fire insurance — even in areas outside the typical risk zones.

In recent years, some insurance companies, like State Farm, have stopped accepting new home insurance policies in the state entirely, as wildfire risks have only increased.

Experts told Business Insider that prices are likely to continue rising for those who can still get insurance.

"I've seen numbers go up 200%, 300%, even 500% in a year," Nick Ramirez, the owner of a California insurance agency, told BI.

And as the fires' estimated damages already climb into the billions of dollars, some homeowners will have to rebuild without the help of insurance payouts.

"These fires will likely be the costliest in history, not the deadliest, and that is the only silver lining right now," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA, told LAist.

This a developing story. Please check back for updates.

• Rolex has hiked prices for some of its most popular pieces.
• This comes after the price of gold surged in 2024.
• As of Thursday, the price stood at about $2,700 per ounce.

Rolex, one of the world's most premium watch brands, just got even more expensive.

The Swiss watchmaker hiked up the prices of certain models made of gold by as much as 8% on January 1, Bloomberg reported, citing watch prices from Rolex's French website.

This comes as the price of gold surged in the past year, with a nearly 30% increase since the start of 2024. As of Thursday, the price stood at about $2,700 per ounce.

Models that saw price hikes included the yellow gold Day-Date watch with a 40-millimeter black dial, which increased from €41,000, or about $42,090, to €44,200 on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported, citing Rolex's listed prices.

The outlet wrote that the price of another model, the yellow gold GMT-Master II, increased from €41,300 to €44,600.

The brand has historically raised prices on January 1 of each year, but this year's hikes are higher than last year's, per Bloomberg.

Rolexes start at around $6,900 for entry-level models like the Oyster Perpetual and can cost millions on the upper end.

Why the price of gold surged in 2024

The gold surge in 2024 was due to factors including rising demand from central banks like in Turkey, India, and China. The World Gold Council said that central banks had bought a record 483 tons of the metal in the first half of 2024.

Rising geopolitical tensions amid the Russia-Ukraine war and the Middle East conflict have also increased the demand for gold, which is seen as a stable asset.

Analysts expect the price to keep rising into the new year. Goldman Sachs expected it to reach $3,000 per ounce by the end of 2025.

Rolex representatives did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have reached a divorce settlement after eight years.
• Jolie filed for divorce in 2016, two years after the pair got married.
• Her representative said in a statement to BI that she was exhausted but relieved it was over.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have reached a divorce settlement.

"More than eight years ago, Angelina filed for divorce from Mr. Pitt. She and the children left all of the properties they had shared with Mr. Pitt, and since that time she has focused on finding peace and healing for their family," Jolie's lawyer, James Simon, told Business Insider on Tuesday.

"This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago," Simon said, adding that Jolie was "exhausted" but "relieved this one part is over."

Jolie and Pitt signed off on the settlement on Monday, Simon told People.

Pitt's representative declined to comment when contacted by BI.

Jolie, 49, and Pitt, 61, became an item after working together on the 2005 film "Mr and Mrs Smith." At the time, Jolie was in the process of divorcing actor and director Billy Bob Thornton, while Pitt was married to "Friends" actress Jennifer Aniston.

Pitt and Aniston were idealized as Hollywood's perfect couple, which made rumors that Pitt and Jolie were having an affair all the more shocking.

A month after Aniston filed for divorce in March 2005, Pitt and Jolie were photographed on vacation in Kenya.

In the years that followed, the couple built a family: Jolie adopted her son Maddox in 2002 and her daughter Zahara in 2005 while she was with Pitt. In 2006, their first biological child, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, was born, and they adopted Pax a year later. In 2008, Jolie gave birth to twins: Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.

The couple got engaged in 2012 and secretly married in France in 2014.

They were photographed together for the final time in July 2016, and Jolie filed for divorce later that year, citing irreconcilable differences and requesting primary custody of their six children.

That September, Pitt was accused of physically abusing one of his children. After an investigation, the FBI agency said no charges had been filed and it would not pursue the case further.

What followed was what is widely regarded as a messy split, with the couple disagreeing over child support, custody, and how to divide their respective stakes in a winery that they bought in 2008, and where they married in 2014.

In 2022, in an FBI report obtained by Rolling Stone and Puck, Jolie alleged Pitt assaulted her on the 2016 flight, was intoxicated, and caused $25,000 worth of damage to their private jet.

At the time, spokespeople for Jolie, Pitt, and the FBI did not respond to BI's requests for comment.

A divorce lawyer for Pitt told the New York Times at the time that while he accepted responsibility for some things in his past, he would not accept responsibility for what he did not do.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

• A premium watch authenticator said there are telltale signs of fake watches.
• He said with counterfeiters getting more skilled, it is often difficult to tell the real from the fakes.
• From the paint on the hands to the magnification of the date window, here's how to check.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ng Yong Shen, a vice president with Re-Loved Luxury, a Dubai-based secondhand luxury retailer. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My journey in watch authenticating started during the pandemic when I became a purchaser for Valuence, a secondhand luxury goods company.

I went on to pursue similar roles, first as an authenticator for Carousell Group, an online marketplace, and later as a commercial manager at Luxehouze, a marketplace focused on pre-owned luxury goods.

Now, after four years in the industry, my day involves procuring secondhand pieces from online marketplaces or vintage shops, authenticating pieces for corporate clients at midday, and then working as Re-Loved Luxury's vice president, trying to scale up its business.

Through these roles, I have been exposed to a large volume of luxury items on a daily basis. In addition to watches, I can also detect fake bags and jewelry.

The traditional way to authenticate a watch is to open the back case, check for movement, and check for the integrity of the movement.

But the fakes have gotten better lately. I have had cases where the watch was opened by the watchmaker, approved, and then brought to me, when I realized it actually had a fake movement.

Over the years, I've found some telltale signs of a fake watch across different brands. Here are some small things to look out for when checking for the real deal:

1. Details in the date window

The first thing to look out for is the date window.

These two photos compare two vintage Rolex two-tone Datejust watches.

The one on the left is fake. Pay attention to the date window. The fonts and the spacing of the square are noticeably different.

You can see they both have different fonts. The one that's fake, you can even see some "bleeding" in the lines of the number, while the number on the real deal has crisper edges.

2. Cut and paintwork of the hands

The hands feature some very fine details and can be good giveaways for counterfeits.

They are supposed to have a very fine polish. For some fakes, you can see that at the edges, they look like they have been laser cut, snapped off, and stuck onto the watch.

These are ways for counterfeiters to skimp on costs. The very good, authentic ones shouldn't have all of these traces.

Another detail is the paintwork. If the hands have color or paintwork on them, the paint should be even and not bleed down the hand. This can be seen in the authentic Audemars Piguet watch shown above, with its hands painted in orange.

If you see a teardrop or dip in the paint, something is not right. It's better if you have a loupe — a magnifying glass — to check for the fine details.

3. Construction quality

Premium watchmakers take time and precision to craft these pieces, and this is reflected in the small details.

For example, the lines of the embossed crown logo on the watch's clasp should look crisp and clean, and the area surrounding the crown should not be elevated.

Better safe than sorry

I advise that the best thing to do is to bring your watch to an experienced authenticator for a proper check.

Counterfeiters are getting better, and there are a lot of "Frankenstein" watches with mixed parts.

Sometimes, they use a real watch, meaning that 60% of the components are real. If you open up the watch, you can see the movement is real.

They may just change the dial or maybe the bracelet. If they remove the bracelet — swap the real bracelet with a fake one — they can make thousands.

So be careful and buy from a reputable seller, or get it checked by an experienced authenticator.

• A luxury jewelry authenticator said there are some telltale signs of a fake Van Cleef & Arpels piece.
• The real deal is made with precision and quality, and counterfeiters often miss the small details.
• Here's what to look out for, from thickness to shape.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ng Yong Shen, the vice president of Re-Loved Luxury, a Dubai-based secondhand luxury retailer. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I got into the business of authenticating luxury goods during the pandemic when I was hired as a purchaser for a secondhand luxury goods company.

In that role, I was exposed to a large volume of luxury items on a daily basis. Bags, watches, and jewelry have become my strong suits when it comes to authentication.

I went on to pursue similar roles, first as an authenticator for Carousell Group, an online marketplace similar to Craigslist, and later as a commercial manager at Luxehouze, a marketplace focused on pre-owned luxury goods.

Now, after four years in the industry, my day involves procuring secondhand pieces from online marketplaces or vintage shops, authenticating pieces for corporate clients at midday, and then working as Re-Loved Luxury's vice president, trying to scale up its business.

I also buy and trade vintage luxury pieces for my personal collection.

One question I get asked a lot as an authenticator is: How can I distinguish a real Van Cleef & Arpels piece from a fake?

For me, the fakes are easy to spot. A friend recently asked me to look at a piece, and just eyeballing it was enough to tell it wasn't authentic.

But to the untrained eye, I can see how it wouldn't be so straightforward. So here are four things to look out for when checking if the Van Cleef piece you're interested in is the real deal.

1. Shape of the clover prongs

The first thing to check is the shape of the four prongs.

The prongs that make up the clover pattern of Van Cleef & Arpels' pieces are very distinct and round, but the fake ones have a more elongated shape.

The fake ones often look almost teardrop-shaped, while an authentic piece has a more even and rounded profile.

2. The spheres surrounding the center stone

Then, look at the small spheres that outline the clover stone.

If you look closely at the fake ones, you can see that the spheres surrounding the stone are not very uniform.

Van Cleef & Arpels is a high-end jewelry brand, so the workmanship is premium. But with replicas, counterfeiters often work faster and may skimp on these small details.

The spheres are often either too big or too small on fakes. Whereas on the real ones, you can see that they are very fine, and very easy on the eyes.

3. Hallmark on the jump ring

One crucial telltale sign is the clasp. You can open and close the clasp, and then you loop it into the jump ring.

Look at the jump ring closely. It has a small dent in it. If you flip it around and look under the loop, you will find that the dent on an authentic piece has a very small hallmark pressed into it.

Upon closer inspection, you will see that the jump ring is imprinted with an eagle's head, the French hallmark for 18-karat gold jewelry.

That's a detail that a lot of counterfeiters tend to miss out on.

4. Neatness of the side profile

Finally, turn the piece to examine its side profile. The rounded area on a fake bracelet is often messier compared to a real one, which is a lot crisper and sharper.

There is also a certain thickness to the center stone itself. You will notice that the fake ones are often thin, which can be another dead giveaway.

• Nike's CEO Elliott Hill said that there are three things he wants to fix at Nike.
• One mistake was being "too promotional" and offering too many discounts.
• The company will also focus on five areas: running, basketball, training, football, and sportswear.

Nike's new CEO said that two months into the job, he's working hard to fix three key mistakes that the sneaker maker has made in recent years.

Hill rejoined the company in October as chief executive after retiring from his post as president of marketplace and consumer in 2020. He's a true insider, having worked his way up from an apparel sales representative intern in 1988.

His post came at a crucial time for Nike, which has been struggling with lackluster sales and dealing with the backlash of trying to sell directly to consumers instead of through marketplace retailers. The company's stock is down more than 36% in the last year.

On Thursday, the company reported revenue of $12.4 billion, down 8% from the year before, for the three months ending November 30.

On Thursday's earnings call — Hill's first in the new job — he highlighted three mistakes he's trying to amend:

1. Becoming "far too promotional"

Hill said that the retailer has been offering too many discounts and becoming "far too promotional."

"Entering the year, our digital platforms were delivering roughly a 50/50 split of full price to promotional sales," he said. "The level of markdowns not only impacts our brand but it also disrupts the overall marketplace and the profitability of our partners."

To counter this, Hill said that Nike would rein in the number of sales.

"Being premium also means full price," he said. "We'll focus promotions during traditional retail moments, not at the consistent levels we are today, and we will leverage NIKE Value Stores to profitably move through any excess inventory."

2. Losing its "obsession with sport"

Hill also highlighted a big-picture reorientation.

"We lost our obsession with sport," Hill said on the call.

"Moving forward, we will lead with sport and put the athlete at the center of every decision," he said, adding, "We will get back to leveraging deep athlete insights to accelerate innovation, design, product creation, and storytelling."

Hill said Nike is focusing on five categories: running, basketball, training, football, and sportswear. Training refers to performance wear for sports training-related activities, while sportswear refers to more casual athleisure apparel.

Analysts have previously slammed Nike's innovation stagnation.

Jim Duffy, a Nike analyst for Stifel Institutional, told BI's Lloyd Lee in September that the company had fallen behind, relying too much on its retro line.

"From a product standpoint, there's been kind of an air pocket of innovation," Duffy said. "The brand, the revenue base, and the profit pool became overly dependent on a short list of retro styles. As they will do, consumer preferences have changed."

3. Souring relationships with marketplace retailers

The third mistake that Nike has made, Hill said, was to sour its relationships with marketplace retailers.

Pre-pandemic, the company started pushing direct-to-consumer sales and cut ties with small sporting goods stores and sneaker boutiques. And it reduced product allocations for sneaker giants like Foot Locker and Dick's Sporting Goods.

"The final action we prioritize is building back and earning the trust of our key wholesale partners. Some partners and channels feel we've turned our back on them and we stopped engaging consistently," Hill said.

He added that he personally connected with the top executives of retailers like Dick's Sporting Goods, Foot Locker, and JD Sports, and named them on the call.

Duffy, the Nike analyst, previously told BI that Nike had "de-emphasized some of the wholesale distribution," which had "created oxygen for some competitors to gain shelf space and recognition."

Wholesale revenue was down 3% in the last quarter, to $6.9 billion, from a year ago. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Poonam Goyal wrote that out of the last quarter's results, "better-than-expected wholesale and apparel revenue were the standouts, with each besting consensus by a wide margin."

Hill's comments come shortly after Nike and Foot Locker announced that they would deepen their partnership by expanding Foot Locker's interactive Home Court basketball section.

• Starbucks' largest workers' union announced that it would begin an escalating strike on Friday.
• The union first announced a work stoppage in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Chicago before expanding.
• The union said it was protesting Starbucks' labor practices and wages.

Starbucks' largest workers union announced that it would go on strike in cities nationwide, including Seattle, where it is headquartered, just days before Christmas.

Baristas from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle were the first to announce their strike. On Saturday, a union representative confirmed to Business Insider that additional workers from Columbus, Denver, and Pittsburgh had joined the labor stoppage.

"We've been in contract negotiations with Starbucks for several months now, and things have been going smoothly up until this point — when they have now refused to offer us a viable economic package," Shay Mannik, a barista in Denver who is on strike after working at Starbucks for two years, told Business Insider. "They just have not been offering us anywhere close to a living wage."

In a statement made on the union's X account, Starbucks Workers United said the strike would "escalate each day through Christmas Eve... unless Starbucks honors our commitment to work towards a foundational framework."

On Wednesday, the union told BI that it would strike to protest what it described as the company's failure to negotiate a sufficiently comprehensive pay package and hundreds of unresolved cases related to labor disputes.

"Starbucks baristas are going on five days of escalating ULP strikes in response to the company backtracking on our promised path forward, starting tomorrow in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle," Starbucks Workers United said in Thursday statements.

It added that the strikes would soon be "coast-to-coast."

The union said the strikes could reach hundreds of stores unless the company works to achieve collective bargaining agreements.

The company has 11,161 self-operated stores and 7,263 licensed stores in North America. As of October, about 500 — or about 4.5% — of all stores were unionized.

"It's been really reassuring seeing a lot of our community members and the customers coming to support us," Diego Franco, a barista in the Chicago area who has worked at the coffee giant for over five years, told BI. "We've had a lot of our regulars come by, drop off supplies, drop off food, and stuff to help keep us warm."

In a Thursday post on Instagram, the union said, "Since February, Starbucks has repeatedly pledged publicly that they intended to reach contracts by the end of the year - but they've yet to present workers with a serious economic proposal."

Starbucks said in a public statement that the union delegates "prematurely ended" the bargaining session this week and that it was "disappointing they didn't return to the table given the progress we've made to date."

"We are ready to continue negotiations to reach agreements," the company wrote. "We need the union to return to the table."

A spokesperson for Starbucks told BI in a statement that the company "offers a competitive average pay of over $18 per hour, and best-in-class benefits."

The spokesperson said Starbucks also offers competitive benefits, including "health care, free college tuition, paid family leave, and company stock grants."

"No other retailer offers this kind of comprehensive pay and benefits package," the spokesperson added. "Workers United proposals call for an immediate increase in the minimum wage of hourly partners by 64%, and by 77% over the life of a three-year contract. This is not sustainable."

The union, which represents more than 10,000 baristas, said on Tuesday that 98% of its member baristas had voted to authorize the strike.

News of the strike came just days after CEO Brian Niccol announced a change in the company's parental leave policy for US store employees.

Starting in March, Starbucks will offer up to 18 weeks of paid leave for birth parents and up to 12 weeks for nonbirth parents. The company currently offers US store employees six weeks of paid parental leave and up to 12 weeks unpaid. The increased benefit will apply to employees averaging at least 20 weekly work hours.

• Many major companies are requiring employees to return to the office full or part-time.
• Business Insider compiled a running list of the companies calling employees back.
• The list includes companies like JPMorgan, Starbucks, and Amazon.

The start of 2025 could herald a new return to office push.

Corporate giants like Amazon and AT&T announced at the end of 2024 that they would bring their employees back into the office five days a week this year. Sweetgreen, too, said in December that it's upping support staff's in-person requirement for 2025.

Other major employers, including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, have also abandoned the hybrid attendance policy they adopted during the pandemic and instead implemented full return-to-office mandates.

Several executives and leaders have said they believe productivity increases when workers are in the office together, while others hope to increase in-person collaboration. Even some CEOs who previously praised the flexibility of remote work have backpedaled, telling workers to comply with RTO mandates. Some are tracking attendance and firing employees who don't comply.

Here's a list, in alphabetical order, of major companies requiring employees to return to offices. Business Insider will update this list regularly.

Amazon

CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a September 16 memo that Amazon would end remote work starting in 2025.

"We've decided that we're going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID," Jassy said. "When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant."

The CEO cited easier employee collaboration and connection and said in-person work would strengthen the company's culture. This echoes his February 2023 memo, which mandated employees spend at least three days a week in the office.

Not everyone agrees. Some Amazon employees took to an internal Slack channel to criticize the new RTO policy, BI's Ashley Stewart first reported, with one staffer writing that it was "significantly more strict and out of its mind" than pre-COVID operations.

"This is not 'going back' to how it was before," they wrote. "It's just going backwards."

The critical reaction is reminiscent of employees' response to 2023's surprise return-to-office rule. Thousands of Amazon workers joined a Slack channel to share their thoughts, with some even organizing to file a petition against the change.

In December, BI reported that Amazon is delaying full RTO for some employees over office-capacity issues.

Apple

In August 2022, Apple's senior leaders told workers they had to return to the office at least three days a week after previously requiring two days a week. CEO Tim Cook said the decision was meant to restore "in-person collaboration." Some employees fought back and issued a petition shortly after the announcement, arguing that staffers can do "exceptional work" from home.

Despite the pushback, Apple's hybrid work program launched the following month and is still in place.

AT&T

AT&T confirmed to BI that it's requiring all office employees to work on-site five days a week starting in January.

The change follows about a year of AT&T accommodating a hybrid schedule in its widely publicized office push.

"The majority of our employees and leaders never stopped working on location for the full work week — including during the pandemic," a spokesperson for the telecom giant told BI.

AT&T told BI it's updating its facilities amid the policy change.

"As we continue to evolve our model, we are enhancing our facilities and workspaces, adapting our benefits programs, and incorporating best practices to ensure our employees are best equipped to serve our customers," the spokesperson added.

BlackRock

In 2023, BlackRock mandated employees return to the office four days a week. The investment firm, which is headquartered in New York City, intended to bring employees into its then newly leased office space — which spans 1 million square feet across 15 floors, according to Hudson Yards.

In a May 2023 memo sent by the company's COO, Rob Goldstein, and the head of human resources, Caroline Heller, the execs wrote: "Career development happens in teaching moments between team members, and it is accelerated during market-moving moments, when we step up and get into the mix. All of this requires us to be together in the office."

Additionally, the memo notified staffers that the firm would give them the opportunity to work remotely for two weeks during a relevant time period in their country, to offer "seasonal flexibility."

Chipotle

The fast-food chain announced in June 2023 that corporate workers should work in the office four days a week, Bloomberg reported. Chipotle had previously required workers to show up three days a week, according to the report.

Citigroup

Citigroup asked its 600 US workers, who were previously eligible to work remotely, to return to the office full-time, Bloomberg reported. In a memo released by the investment firm in May, the majority of staff are reportedly still able to work a hybrid schedule, with up to two days a week outside the office.

HSBC and Barclays followed suit, mandating workers to come into the office five days a week, according to the report.

Vaccinated Citigroup employees across the US were asked to return to the office for at least two days a week in March 2022, an internal memo obtained by Reuters said.

Dell

Dell told its sales staff to return to the office five days a week starting on September 30. Previously, the company let US employees pick between working remotely or following a hybrid schedule with about three days a week in the office.

September's sales-team mandate came with just a few days' notice, Business Insider reported, sending employees with kids into a hurry to find childcare.

Disney

In a January 2023 memo obtained by Business Insider, CEO Bob Iger told workers that starting that March, any Disney staff member working "in a hybrid fashion" would need to return to Disney's offices four days a week.

In response, over 2,300 employees signed a petition asking Iger to reconsider the mandate.

"This policy will slow, or even reverse, our post-COVID recovery and growth by creating critical resource shortages and causing irreplaceable institutional knowledge loss," signees wrote, according to The Washington Post.

Goldman Sachs

In March 2022, CEO David Solomon told Fortune that the company was asking employees to return to the office five days a week. Seven months later, he told CNBC that about 65% of staffers were working in the office.

However, some staff have failed to follow the policy a year into its implementation, causing senior managers to become frustrated and Goldman Sachs to further crack down on employees to return to the office full-time, Bloomberg reported.

Google

In March 2022, Google employees in the San Francisco Bay Area and "several other US locations" were told to return to the office for at least three days a week starting the following month.

The next year, however, the company tightened RTO expectations, telling staff in an email viewed by BI that office attendance would factor into their performance reviews.

Fiona Cicconi, Google's chief people officer, wrote in the memo that requests to work remotely full time will now be considered "by exception only."

Some employees expressed feeling "frustrated" with the new policy. One staffer previously told BI, "We don't like being micromanaged like school kids."

IBM

At the start of 2024, IBM told managers to either come into offices or leave the company.

IBM asked all US managers to report to an office or client location at least three days a week, according to a memo viewed by Bloomberg.

A source told the outlet that staff would have to live within 50 miles of an IBM office or client location. The memo said employees had until August to complete their relocation arrangements, and those who were unable to comply with the new policy must "separate from IBM."

CEO Arvind Krishna previously told the news outlet that employees' careers could suffer if they work from home. He said that although he wasn't forcing his own staffers back to the office, he thought remote workers may struggle to get promotions.

JPMorgan

JPMorgan Chase was a first mover in the full return to office push.

The bank began requiring managing directors to work in person five days a week in April 2023 — and, at the time, reminded all other employees to come in at least three days a week.

Now, the company plans to double down. Bloomberg reported in January 2025 that JPMorgan may soon require all of its workers to return to the office five days a week and eliminate the option of remote work entirely.

CEO Jamie Dimon has long been vocal about the importance of onsite work in the face of pushback from employees.

"I completely understand why someone doesn't want to commute an hour and a half every day, totally got it," he told The Economist in July 2023. "Doesn't mean they have to have a job here either."

The company has also been collecting data on staff activity, including tracking attendance.

Meta

Meta updated its remote work policies in September 2023, requiring employees to head into the office three days a week.

It had also stopped offering remote work in new job listings. People familiar with the company previously told BI that hiring managers could no longer post new jobs that list the work location as "remote" or outside an existing office.

In June 2023, the company doubled down on its RTO efforts, telling workers that their attendance would be tracked daily and that failure to comply could lead to termination.

However, some employees returning to the office said they were met with a lack of space and privacy, with one worker calling the mandate "a mess."

Redfin

In April 2023, real estate company Redfin announced an updated return-to-office policy via a memo from CEO Glenn Kelman.

The memo noted that starting July 2023, Redfin would require "headquarters employees" who live within 20 miles of the company's Seattle, San Francisco, and Frisco offices to work from the office for a full day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

The company said those who live beyond the 20-mile radius were required to visit the office in person once a quarter for a day or more of meetings.

To hold employees accountable, the memo included a "no-exceptions" section, reading that "to determine your distance from an office, we'll use Google Maps, with the distance from your home address measured in miles driven over roads by car."

Salesforce

Salesforce told employees in an internal memo seen by The San Francisco Standard in July that, as of October 1, the majority of workers had to be in an office four to five days a week.

According to the memo, the new policy is mandated for select staff in sales, workplace services, data center engineering, and on-site support technicians.

Early in 2023, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff revised the company's annual strategic plan, including return-to-office mandates, according to a draft shared in an internal Slack message viewed by BI.

The updated draft return-to-office policy required nonremote employees to work three days a week in the office and employees in "non-remote" and "customer-facing" roles to work four days a week. Engineers must work from the office 10 days per quarter, down from 20 in the initial draft, which was updated based on employee feedback.

Snap

Snap implemented a new mandate in September 2023, requiring employees to work in an office at least four days a week. The change represented a shift from the company's former "remote first" policy, which allowed employees to work from home or elsewhere.

Employees previously told BI that some managers told them the company can track workers' WiFi connections to see who is complying.

Starbucks

In a January 2023 memo to corporate staffers, then-CEO Howard Schultz said employees within commuting distance would be required to return to the office at least three days a week.

Schultz said some staff had failed to "meet their minimum promise of one day a week" and also said that Starbucks baristas didn't have the "privilege" of working from home. The executive had previously said he "pleaded" with workers to come back to the office.

Starbucks employees responded by signing an open letter protesting the company's return-to-office mandate.

In September 2024, former Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol took over as CEO of the coffee chain.

In October, the company threatened to fire staff if they did not comply with the RTO policy, Bloomberg first reported, citing an internal memo.

Beginning in January, the company plans to initiate a "standardized process" to hold workers accountable to the hybrid schedule at the team level, where consequences will cover "up to, and including, separation," according to the email obtained by Bloomberg.

Employees, however, may request exemptions due to physical or mental medical reasons.

Sweetgreen

Salad chain Sweetgreen is shifting to a four-day workweek from January 2.

The mandate will apply to its few hundred support staff who do not work at the chain's restaurants, Bloomberg reported on December 18.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Sweetgreen's cofounder and chief executive Jonathan Neman said that the company will move to a "hard four" days in the office policy, a shift from its current "more flexible" three to four-day policy.

He said the decision was in the works earlier in the year then solidified after Amazon put out its own five-day workweek RTO announcement in September.

"That was the big turning point where everyone's like: 'Oh, they're doing it, now we can do it,'" Neman said to Bloomberg.

Representatives of Sweetgreen did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular business hours.

Tesla

In June 2022, Tesla employees were notified of a mandatory return-to-office policy.

The email from Elon Musk told employees "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned," and said that everyone at Tesla must work from the office at least 40 hours a week.

Musk, who has called remote work "morally wrong," nodded to his frequent presence at Tesla factories as the reason for the business' success. "If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt," he wrote.

Ubisoft

In September, Ubisoft, the France-based maker of the popular "Assassin's Creed" and "Far Cry" video game series, ordered its staff worldwide to return to the office three days a week.

French workers at the video game maker went on strike on October 15 over the RTO mandate.

X

After buying X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, Musk told employees that not showing up to an office when they're able to was the same as a resignation.

Musk also told staffers in an email that remote work was no longer allowed and that employees were expected to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week unless given explicit approval to work elsewhere.

In 2023, the National Labor Relations Board filed a formal complaint saying that X had illegally fired an employee who complained about Musk's RTO policy.

The complaint said that Yao Yue, a principal software engineer, criticized the mandate, tweeting, "don't resign, let him fire you." She also posted, "don't be fired. Seriously" in a company Slack channel.

Yue was then fired five days later and told it was due to violating an unspecified company policy.

Uber

In a memo obtained by Business Insider, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees that beginning in April 2022, Uber staffers in 35 of the company's locations were required to return to the office at least half the time. He added that on other days, staffers were allowed to work remotely and that some could be entirely remote if they got clearance from their managers.

Khosrowshahi said in 2024 that remote work took away some of Uber's "most frequent customers," adding that "there is an audience who kind of stopped using us as frequently as they used to."

Walmart

Along with slashing hundreds of jobs, Walmart also asked previously remote employees in the US to move to offices in May 2024.

Staffers located in smaller offices in Dallas, Atlanta, and Toronto were being directed to the company's central hubs, including its headquarters in Arkansas or New Jersey, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The retail giant would still permit hybrid schedules as long as workers come in-person most of the time, according to the outlet.

The Washington Post

William Lewis, CEO and publisher of The Washington Post, told staffers in early November that they would be required to return to the office five days a week, according to a memo obtained by BI.

"I want that great office energy for us every day," Lewis wrote, referring to the energy in the office during election week. "I am reliably informed that is how it used to be here before Covid, and it's important we get this back."

All employees were expected to return to the office by June 2, 2025, while managers were expected to return by February 3, 2025.

After starting remote work in 2020, the Post previously required employees to return to the office three days a week in early 2022.

The announcement at the Post came shortly after Amazon's return-to-office mandate. The Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and executive chairman.

Zoom

Zoom, the darling of remote work, said in 2022 that less than 2% of staffers work in person full time. However, in 2023, the video-calling company asked employees to return to the office.

Workers living within 50 miles of one of its offices were mandated to work there at least two days a week.

"We believe that a structured hybrid approach — meaning employees that live near an office need to be onsite two days a week to interact with their teams — is most effective for Zoom," a spokesperson previously said in a statement. "As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers."

• Starbucks' biggest workers union on Tuesday went forward to authorize a nationwide strike.
• It said that the coffee chain had not settled hundreds of unfair labor practice cases.
• Starbucks said that the union considering a strike was "disappointing."

Starbucks Workers United, the coffee chain's largest union, said workers have authorized a nationwide strike.

The union, which represents more than 10,000 baristas, said in statements on Tuesday that 98% of its member baristas had voted to strike. The group was set to meet with Starbucks later that day for a final round of bargaining.

The union told CNBC in a statement that the strike was prompted by hundreds of unfair labor practice cases that Starbucks had not settled. It also said that the company had not brought a sufficiently comprehensive pay package to the bargaining table.

Starbucks, in a statement to CNBC, said that it was "disappointing" that the union was considering a strike "rather than focusing on what have been extremely productive negotiations."

"Since April we've scheduled and attended more than eight multi-day bargaining sessions where we've reached thirty meaningful agreements on dozens of topics Workers United delegates told us were important to them, including many economic issues," the company told CNBC.

Starbucks has 11,161 company-operated stores and 7,263 licensed stores in North America. As of October, 500 — or about 4.5% — of all stores were unionized.

More than 150 unionized stores went on strike in June 2023 to protest what the union called the company's "hypocritical treatment of LGBTQIA+ workers." A Starbucks spokesperson told BI at the time that the union was spreading "false information" about its benefits, policies, and negotiation efforts.

News of the possible union strike comes just a day after CEO Brian Niccol announced a change in the company's parental leave policy for US store employees.

Starting in March, Starbucks will offer up to 18 weeks of paid leave for birth parents and up to 12 weeks for nonbirth parents. The company currently offers US store employees six weeks of paid parental leave and up to 12 weeks unpaid.

The increased benefit will apply to employees averaging at least 20 hours of work a week.

"Our benefit was already the best in retail, but after hearing from some partners who shared the leave as new parents wasn't adequate, we reviewed the program and have decided we're making a change," Niccol wrote in his announcement Monday.

Starbucks had a lackluster fourth quarter. On October 29, it posted a 7% decline in comparable sales from last year, including a 6% drop at its US stores. Sales in China declined 14% in the same period.

Its net revenue was down 3% from last year, to $9.1 billion.

The company's stock is down about 1.7% since the start of the year.

Representatives of Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United did not respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

• Russia's head of chemical weapons was killed on Tuesday when a scooter bomb exploded in Moscow.
• Ukraine was behind the attack, a Ukrainian Security Service source told BI.
• Igor Kirillov is the most prominent military official to be killed since Russia invaded Ukraine.

A high-ranking Russian general responsible for Russia's chemical weapons was killed on Tuesday by a bomb placed in a scooter on a Moscow street.

A source inside Ukraine's Security Service with knowledge of the attack told Business Insider the agency was behind the death of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.

The Wall Street Journal also reported Ukrainian officials as saying the killing was a special operation by the Security Service of Ukraine.

Kirillov, the head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops, was killed by a bomb planted in a scooter parked on a street in Moscow, Russia's investigative committee said in a statement on Telegram on Tuesday.

"According to the investigation, on the morning of December 17, an explosive device was detonated in a scooter parked next to the entrance of a residential building on Ryazansky Prospekt in Moscow," the statement said.

"As a result of the incident, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological protection troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Igor Kirillov and his assistant were killed," it added.

The committee said it had opened a criminal case and that investigators and forensic experts were working at the scene.

The Russian investigations committee didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

According to the Ukrainian source, the bomb on the scooter was detonated when Kirillov and his assistant were entering a nearby house on Ryazansky Prospekt. BI couldn't independently verify the claim.

"Kirillov was a war criminal and an absolutely legitimate target," they said, accusing Kirillov of giving orders to use banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces.

"Such an inglorious end awaits all those who kill Ukrainians. Retribution for war crimes is inevitable," they added.

Kirillov is the most prominent military official to be killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to the Financial Times.

He was sanctioned by the UK in October for the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, including the choking agent chloropicrin.

Kirillov's death follows a string of similar attacks, some of which sources said were the work of Ukraine's Security Service or other agencies.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia's Security Council and a former Russian president, described Kirillov's killing as a terrorist attack, and offered his condolences to Kirillov's family, per the TASS news agency.

He also said that Ukraine would pay for its actions.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

• TikTok CEO Shou Chew met Trump at Mar-a-Lago Monday.
• TikTok is trying to avoid an impending ban on the app.
• Trump has said he is opposed to the TikTok ban and that he has a "warm spot" for the app.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, a person familiar with the meeting told Business Insider. The meeting comes as the popular video-sharing app fights to avoid an impending ban in the US.

Earlier on Monday, TikTok asked the US Supreme Court to block the law that requires the app to be sold by January 19 or be shut down. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, argued the ban violates the First Amendment rights of the millions of Americans who use the app. The request came after a panel of federal judges earlier this month upheld the ban.

Representatives for TikTok did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Details of the meeting were unclear. Trump has spoken out against the TikTok ban, which was passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year.

"We'll take a look at TikTok," Trump said at a press conference earlier on Monday. "You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok."

Trump also said at the press conference that company executives have been more open to meeting with him ahead of his second term and that during his first term they were "hostile."

"Everybody was fighting me," he said. "This term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. My personality changed or something."

Trump positioned himself as the TikTok-friendly candidate in the election

The meeting between Shou and Trump is the latest in TikTok's legal fight to remain available in the US.

The ban stems from lawmakers criticizing TikTok's data-collection practices and being concerned that the Chinese government is using the app to influence American politics.

In his first term, Trump tried to get the app banned in the US. But he has since flipped-flopped on his stance.

During this presidential run, Trump positioned himself as the TikTok-friendly candidate.

In June, he launched a TikTok account to rally younger voters. It now has 14.7 million followers.

Some of his closest advisors — some of whom he has tapped for cabinet roles — support the app's banning.

His pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, called the potential ban a "win for America" in March. Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr is also a vocal critic of the app, having called it an "unacceptable threat to U.S. national security."

Other cabinet picks, such as tech executive Jacob Helberg, the former US director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, and Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, are all outspoken critics of the app.

• Chipotle's CEO Scott Boatwright said he values the human touch in the chain's assembly lines.
• He said automation will likely be contained "in the digital system only."
• The chain has been criticized for delivering inconsistent portions to customers.

Chipotle's CEO wants to make sure your burrito is made by hand for as long as possible.

In a podcast interview with Yahoo Finance's "Opening Bid," released on Friday, host Brian Sozzi and CEO Scott Boatwright discussed topics including automation and modernization at Chipotle.

Boatwright, who became the fast food chain's interim CEO in November after his predecessor Brian Niccol left to lead Starbucks, said Chipotle intends to "leverage that automation in the digital system only."

"We still believe the best way to Chipotle is down the line with a team member, highly customized, great variety, big beautiful burritos and bowls down the line," he added.

Boatwright said human interaction is "a core equity of the Chipotle brand."

The brand has dipped a toe into automation: Last July, it announced that it had tapped a robot called "Autocado" to cut, core, and peel avocados, reducing the amount of time needed for the task by half.

It also announced a partnership with Hyphen, a San Jose-based food technology startup. In 2023, the startup told BI that its robotics could crank out up to 180 bowls per hour, six times more than human workers' capabilities.

Criticism over portion sizes

The chain was criticized this year after analysts accused it of skimping on portion sizes.

In June, Fortune reported that Wells Fargo analysts had ordered 75 burrito bowls from eight different locations in New York City and weighed them to check for consistency.

The analysts wrote that among the bowls ordered in-store, the heaviest bowl weighed 47% more than the lightest.

Danilo Gargiulo, a senior analyst of restaurants at AllianceBernstein, told BI in July that using robots in the assembly line would not be a good solution for portion control, as the in-store experience was "part of the secret sauce of Chipotle."

"It's part of the experience of consumers to go there, check out what they have, and ask a person, 'Hey, can I have a little bit more, please?' Or mix up the ingredients as you wish," Gargiulo said.

In the last fiscal quarter, Chipotle reported that its commitment to ensuring consistent portions had taken a toll on its profitability.

"The benefit of last year's menu price increase was more than offset by inflation across several items, most notably avocados and dairy, as well as higher usage as we focused on ensuring consistent and generous portions," CFO Adam Rymer said on the earnings call on October 29.

Boatwright's comments come as restaurants and fast food chains, including Sweetgreen and White Castle, increasingly use robots to handle human tasks. Amid the robotization of the industry, though, some leaders have expressed hesitation about rolling out the red carpet for robots.

When asked by Yahoo Finance about whether he wants to increase automation in Shake Shack, the chain's CEO Danny Meyer said: "Personally, I don't."

"I think when it comes to making the product, there's something about the human touch, smashing that burger, seasoning the burger, flipping the burger, knowing exactly when it is time to come off, where not any two burgers at Shake Shack taste exactly the same," Meyer added in an "Opening Bid" episode on December 4.

Chipotle's shares were trading at $64.60 on Monday. Its stock is up about 41% from the start of the year.

Chipotle representatives didn't respond to a request for comment from BI.

• Costco said it's seeing a boost in meat and produce sales.
• Costco's finance chief said in the Q1 2025 earnings call that there was a shift toward "food at home."
• The retailer posted strong growth this quarter, with sales increasing 7.5% from the year before.

Americans are swapping dinners out for nights in, Costco said in its 2025 first-quarter results.

"I would say that we are seeing what we think is a little bit of a shift from food away from home to food at home," Costco's finance chief, Gary Millerchip, said in the company's Q1 2025 earnings call on Thursday.

He said the trend was "certainly reflected in strong meat and produce sales."

Customers showed a "gravitation towards those lower price per pound items across categories like poultry cuts of beef and pork as well," he said.

He added that international food items, such as "Synear pork soup dumplings, Sona Masoori Rice, and Hot Pot Beef Sliced Rolls," were also seeing "strong momentum."

The wholesale chain, which operates on a membership model, reported a strong quarter. It reported $60.99 billion in sales, an increase of 7.5% from the previous year.

Membership numbers increased by 7.2% compared to last year, with Costco ending the quarter with almost 139 million membership cardholders.

The company's stock is up nearly 50% since the start of the year.

Costco's comments on Americans' dining habits echo those made by other fast food chains and grocery retailers this year. They come as inflation and high food prices leave Americans looking for ways to save on costs.

"Consumers are choosing to stay at home or look for cheaper alternatives than more expensive sit-down restaurants," Jefferies analysts wrote in a July note.

The CFO of McDonald's told analysts at the UBS Global Consumer and Retail Conference in March that lower-income consumers "are just choosing to eat at home more often."

In June, the fast food chain launched a $5 value meal to try to win back some customers. Its rivals, Taco Bell and Burger King, quickly followed suit.

And the country's largest grocer, Walmart, told CNBC in May that the rising price of eating out has pushed more people into its stores to buy groceries.

"It's roughly 4.3 times more expensive to eat out than it is to eat at home," Walmart's finance chief, John David Rainey, told CNBC. "And that's benefiting our business."

Costco didn't respond to a request for comment.

• Jeffrey Katzenberg, the cofounder of DreamWorks, said Hollywood bigshots are embracing AI.
• He said the top showrunners and creators find AI an "amazing resource."
• During the monthslong WGA strike last year, writers opposed the adoption of AI.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the cofounder of DreamWorks, said Hollywood is warming up to the use of artificial intelligence.

Speaking at Fortune's Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, he said top Hollywood showrunners and creators are embracing AI.

"I would say almost across the board they have all talked about how the AI tools today have been helpful to them," Katzenberg said.

"They have seen them as a resource and an asset that have made them more productive," he said about AI tools, adding that with the use of AI, creators have been "able to widen the diversity of their work, the quality of their work."

"They find these tools an amazing resource for them — and it's not constraining them, it's inspiring them," he added.

DreamWorks Animation is the force behind animated classics like "Shrek," "Kung Fu Panda," and "How to Train Your Dragon."

Katzenberg's comments come after Hollywood writers spent months on strike last year, partially in reaction to the use of AI in their industry.

More than 11,000 film and TV screenwriters went on strike from May to September 2023 after the Writers Guild of America, or WGA, could not agree on a labor contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP.

The strike was aimed at securing better wages and fairer work practices, and at prompting more regulation of the use of AI in film writing and production.

The strike led to key wins: The WGA agreement with AMPTP said the AMPTP members can use AI-generated material but can't write or rewrite literary material with AI.

Under the agreement, AI-generated material won't be considered source material, a rule that will protect writers from having their credit undermined by AI. Writers also can't be required to use AI software.

Katzenberg previously said AI could reduce the cost of animated films by 90%.

"I think AI as a creative tool, think of that as a new form, a new paintbrush or new camera, has so much opportunity around it," he said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore in November 2023.

"Well, the good old days when, you know, I made an animated movie, it took 500 artists five years to make a world-class animated movie," he said.

"I don't think it will take 10% of that three years out from now," he added.

Representatives for DreamWorks didn't respond to a request for comment from BI, sent outside regular business hours.

• UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot outside a Manhattan hotel on December 4.
• Police arrested Luigi Mangione, who now faces a murder charge for the killing.
• Mangione has hired prominent New York lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo to defend him.

Luigi Mangione, the man police say murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has hired high-profile attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo.

Friedman Agnifilo is married to Marc Agnifilo, lead lawyer defending Sean "Diddy" Combs against federal sex-trafficking charges.

The Combs and Mangione cases will be handled by the same Manhattan law firm, Agnifilo Intrater LLP, and can be expected to dominate legal news headlines in the coming year.

In getting retained, Friedman Agnifilo bested some half-dozen other prominent attorneys who had been interviewed by the Mangione family last week, according to multiple sources who asked not to be named due to their connection with the case.

Friedman Agnifilo last week left her previous law firm, Perry Law, to join her husband's firm as counsel, representatives for both firms told Business Insider.

Friedman Agnifilo had been a CNN commentator as recently as Wednesday, when she suggested that an insanity defense would be Mangione's best bet.

She told journalist Kaitlan Collins, "It looks like to me there might be a 'not guilty by reason of insanity' defense that they're going to be thinking about because the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that he did what he did."

On Friday night, Collins broke the news that Friedman Agnifilo had been hired by the Mangione family.

Friedman Agnifilo worked as the chief assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for seven years before pivoting to private practice in 2021.

Mangione faces a second-degree murder charge in New York for the fatal December 4 shooting of Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two from Minnesota. That charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

(A charge of first-degree murder is reserved for those accused of killing a law enforcement official or witness of a crime, or for when a murder is committed during the commission of another high-level crime, including robbery, rape, or kidnapping.)

Mangione is fighting extradition to New York City. The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate appeared for a hearing on December 10 at Pennsylvania's Blair County Courthouse, where a lawyer, Thomas Dickey, told the judge that Mangione was contesting his extradition. Police arrested Mangione in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on December 9 on local charges and later arraigned. Mangione made a bail request, which the judge denied during the hearing.

The suspect will remain at Pennsylvania's Huntingdon State Correctional Institution during the extradition proceedings. Dickey told reporters on December 10 that Mangione would plead not guilty to all the charges in Pennsylvania.

In an interview with CNN that evening, Dickey also said that he anticipates Mangione would plead not guilty to the murder charge in New York and that he hadn't seen any evidence that officials in New York "have the right guy."

Mangione also faces four other charges related to the killing of the insurance CEO: two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second-degree, one count of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the third-degree.

A gun found on Mangione matched the three shell casings found at the site of the shooting, New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during a December 11 press conference.

Tisch added that the suspect's fingerprints also matched those found on a water bottle and snack bar wrapper discarded near the crime scene.

During Mangione's arrest, officers found a three-page handwritten document "that speaks to both his motivation and mindset," Tisch said at a separate press conference on December 9.

An internal NYPD report obtained by The New York Times gave the clearest view of the potential motive yet. Based on the so-called manifesto discovered, Mangione "likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices," the NYPD report said, as reported by the Times.

Mangione "appeared to view the targeted killing of the company's highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and 'power games,' asserting in his note he is the 'first to face it with such brutal honesty,'" according to the NYPD report by the department's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, the Times reported.

In a statement to Business Insider, representatives for Nino Mangione — a Maryland state legislator and a cousin of Mangione's — declined to comment on the news of Mangione's arrest.

"Unfortunately, we cannot comment on news reports regarding Luigi Mangione," the statement read. "We only know what we have read in the media. Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest."

Recognized at a McDonald's

Mangione was eating in an Altoona McDonald's when an employee recognized him from the several surveillance images that authorities released in the aftermath of Thompson's killing and called the police, New York police said at the December 9 press conference.

Altoona police found Mangione in the McDonald's with multiple fake IDs and a US passport, as well as a firearm and a suppressor "both consistent with the weapon used" in the shooting of Thompson in the heart of Manhattan, Tisch, the NYPD commissioner, said.

The gun appeared to be a "ghost gun" that may have been made on a 3-D printer. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at the press conference that such a gun could fire a 9-millimeter round.

A Pennsylvania criminal complaint filed against Mangione said officers found a black 3-D-printed pistol and 3-D-printed silencer inside the suspect's backpack.

When Altoona officers asked Mangione if he had been to New York recently, he "became quiet and started to shake," the criminal complaint said.

Clothing, including a mask, was also recovered "consistent with those worn" by the suspect wanted for Thompson's killing, along with a fake New Jersey ID matching the ID that the murder suspect used to check into a Manhattan hostel before the attack, Tisch said.

Based on the handwritten document that police found on Mangione, according to Kenny, "it does seem that he has some ill will toward corporate America."

During a December 10 interview on NBC's "Today" show, Tisch said the "manifesto" revealed "anti-corporatist sentiment" and "a lot of issues with the healthcare industry."

"But as to like particular, specific motive that'll come out as this investigation continues to unfold over the next weeks and month," the NYPD commissioner said.

NBC News and The New York Times, each citing an unnamed senior law enforcement official, reported that the handwritten document read in part: "These parasites had it coming."

"I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done," it added, according to the reports.

Police believe that Mangione acted alone.

NYPD investigators traveled to Altoona last week to interview Mangione after Altoona officers took him into custody.

Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks said at Mangione's Pennsylvania arraignment that Mangione was carrying $10,000 in cash, including foreign currency, according to the Associated Press.

Mangione disputed the amount in court.

Mangione was active on social media

Mangione posted and amplified posts about technological advances like artificial intelligence on X. He also posted about fitness and healthy living.

He frequently retweeted posts by the writer Tim Urban and commentator Jonathan Haidt about the promise and perils of technology. He also appeared to be a fan of Michael Pollan, known for his writing about food and ethics.

Other deleted social media posts showed support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and expressed skepticism toward both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump.

At the top of his profile was a header image with three images: a photo of himself, smiling, shirtless on a mountain ridge, a Pokemon, and an x-ray with four pins or screws visible in the lower back.

Mangione founded a company called AppRoar Studios in 2015 while still in high school. AppRoar released an iPhone game called Pivot Plane that is no longer available.

The two other cofounders of AppRoar could not be reached for comment.

Mangione's X account has been deactivated. A spokesperson for YouTube said his three accounts on the platform were also terminated, but that they had not been active for about seven months.

A manhunt

Mangione's arrest followed a nearly week-long manhunt.

According to police, Manigone was born and raised in Maryland, and has ties to San Francisco, California. His last known address was in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The New York Post, citing law-enforcement sources, reported that Mangione's mother reported him missing in mid-November.

Law-enforcement sources told ABC News that FBI agents and members of the NYPD spoke to the mother a day before Mangione's arrest, following a tip, and that in the conversation she indicated that the person in the surveillance photos could be her son.

Kenny, the NYPD's chief of detectives, said that Manigone has no prior arrest history in New York and no known arrests in the US.

A Luigi Mangione with a matching birthday and address received a citation for simple trespass for entering a forbidden area of a state park in Hawaii in November 2023. He pleaded no contest and paid a $100 fine.

"For just over five days, our NYPD investigators combed through thousands of hours of video, followed up on hundreds of tips, and processed every bit of forensic evidence — DNA, fingerprints, IP addresses and so much to tighten the net," Tisch said at Monday's press conference announcing the arrest of Manigone.

Thompson was shot multiple times on a Midtown sidewalk as he was walking toward the Hilton hotel. He was steps away from a side entrance to the hotel — where he was set to speak at UnitedHealth Group's investor conference — when a hooded gunman opened fire on him from behind.

The chief executive of the nation's largest health insurer was struck at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf, police said.

Surveillance footage showed the gunman firing his weapon as Thompson, wearing a blue suit jacket, walked several feet in front of him.

The gunman fled the scene, first on foot and then on an electric bike, which he rode into Central Park before ultimately escaping from New York City, police said.

Shell casings and bullets found at the scene had the words "deny," "defend," and "depose" written on them, according to multiple reports citing unnamed sources. BI couldn't independently confirm these details.

In the aftermath of the attack, the NYPD offered a $10,000 reward for tips leading to the gunman's arrest, with the FBI offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

A spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, reacted to news of Manigone's arrest in a statement to BI, saying: "Our hope is that today's apprehension brings some relief to Brian's family, friends, colleagues and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy. We thank law enforcement and will continue to work with them on this investigation. We ask that everyone respect the family's privacy as they mourn."

• Shake Shack's founder, Danny Meyer, said that always saying "yes" to the customer is risky.
• Too much customization, he said, may not work in favor of the business or the customer.
• Meyer referenced Starbucks, saying it offers too many "permutations" of lattes.

Shake Shack's founder, Danny Meyer, believes too much customization might spoil the broth.

In a podcast interview with Yahoo Finance's "Opening Bid," released on Wednesday, Meyer told host Brian Sozzi about how saying "yes" to customers excessively may put companies at a disadvantage and be a disservice to the average customer.

Sozzi asked Meyer what he thinks about companies like Starbucks that offer customers tons of product customization.

He said that Starbucks' newly instated CEO, Brian Niccol, "is about to make some changes to the menu, pull back some of the clutter, and get things off the menu that didn't make sense."

To this, Meyer responded that in the name of hospitality, "good restaurants figure out how to find a 'yes.'"

"And Starbucks certainly figured out for years how to say the 'yes,'" Meyer said. "You want your latte, how? I can't even go through all the permutations, there's so many."

But he said that if taken too far, a company's strength in saying "yes" to the customer could become a weakness.

"That doesn't work to the benefit of the average customer," Meyer said. "And the average customer may have a declining good experience because of all the hospitality we're giving, saying 'yes.'"

He added that all the alternatives "gum up the works for the average person who just wants a tall coffee."

Meyer said he had to restrain himself to keep Shake Shack's menu simple. The chain used to have more milkshakes than it now does, and it used to have daily frozen custard flavors, which it has scaled back on.

Meyer, who founded Shake Shack in 2001, said that one piece of advice he follows is, "Can we make it so that the bigger we get, the smaller we act?"

"And there's magic in trying to figure that out," he said to Sozzi.

The fast-food chain, which started as a hot dog stand in New York City's Madison Square Park, now has over 510 locations worldwide, including over 180 international locations. Its stock price is up 85% this year.

In addition to being the head of Shake Shack, Meyer is also the chairman of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns a portfolio of popular New York restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and The Modern.

Starbucks' new chief, Niccol, has announced that he will simplify the chain's offerings.

Visiting a Starbucks store in the US "can feel transactional," and the "menus can feel overwhelming," Niccol wrote in an open letter in September.

He aims to make Starbucks more warm and inviting, deliver coffee faster to customers, and simplify online ordering to reduce the burden on baristas.

Representatives for Shake Shack did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular business hours.

• A bright spot on Lululemon's horizon was its robust growth in international markets.
• Its international sales increased 33% in Q3 of 2024, compared to 2% in the Americas.
• China, in particular, was a strong market for the brand this quarter.

Lululemon's robust growth in its international markets — particularly China — made up for its lackluster performance in the Americas.

The Vancouver-based activewear brand, known for selling $100 yoga pants, reported strong third-quarter sales in its stores abroad, with its international sales increasing 33% from a year ago.

CEO Calvin McDonald said on the Thursday earnings call that internationally, "momentum remains strong in all of our markets as we continue to see great acceptance of the Lululemon brand across the globe."

In mainland China, the company's net revenue increased 39% year-over-year, and comparable sales increased by 27%. China's net revenue was $318.3 million, compared to $228.6 million a year ago.

In its international markets outside China, Lululemon's net revenue increased 27% to $307.9 million, with comparable sales increasing 23% compared to the year before.

Lululemon now has 749 company-operated stores globally, compared to 686 the year before. This quarter, it opened six new stores in mainland China.

International growth has been a boon for Lululemon this year.

In August, the company reported second-quarter China net revenue of $314.2 million — up 34% from Q2 in 2023.

In this latest quarter, Lululemon said that its brand aligned with "Healthy China 2030," the Chinese government's plan for health and development.

Closer to home, its sales in the Americas fell flat, continuing last quarter's little annual growth. Its Americas net revenue increased by 2% to $1.8 billion. Comparable sales decreased by 2%.

The company expects to open 40 new stores in 2024, some of which will be in mainland China.

"And then, on the success of some of the markets with our franchise model, we'll be opening Denmark, Belgium, Turkey, and Czech Republic through our franchise model and partnerships," McDonald said on Thursday.

Representatives of Lululemon did not respond to BI's query, sent outside regular business hours, asking how many new outlets will be opened in China in 2024.

Martin Roll, a global business strategist and senior advisor at consulting giant McKinsey, told BI earlier this week that Lululemon's success in China could be attributed to the trend of consumers focusing on health and wellness in tough economic times.

"China is kind of waking up in terms of health," Roll said to BI, adding that consumers are catching up with health habits like yoga, gym, and physical welfare that North American consumers have followed for the last two decades.

Lululemon's stock price rose 9% in after-hours trading after it released its Q3 earnings. The company is down more than 30% this year.

• As the CEO of the fashion company Tapestry, Joanne Crevoiserat helms Coach and Kate Spade's ships.
• The chief shared some leadership and career advice in a "Leadership Next" interview.
• Her North Star is an "insatiable curiosity about the consumer."

As the CEO of the fashion company Tapestry, Joanne Crevoiserat steers popular brands like Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman.

In an interview with Fortune's "Leadership Next," which was released on Wednesday, Crevoiserat gave host Diane Brady her leadership, business, and career advice.

Here are three nuggets of wisdom from the chief.

1. Have 'insatiable curiosity' about the customer

Crevoiserat's first top was to have "insatiable curiosity about the consumer."

She said that understanding the customer goes beyond survey data and involves "going a step deeper into the consumer's closet, into their home, and talking to them about what matters to them."

Doing this ensures that the brand can build more relevant products and experiences for their consumers, she told Fortune.

2. Don't be afraid to take side steps in your career

Her second piece of advice was to enjoy the career journey.

"Relationship building, understanding the end-to-end business is not always the intended outcome of a specific job," Crevoiserat said to Fortune. "It's not on your job responsibility list, but it helps you build your career."

She also careers aren't always going to be linear.

Crevoiserat has held top jobs in several retail companies, including Walmart, Kohl's, and Abercrombie & Fitch. She became Tapestry's CEO in 2020 after working as the company's finance chief for a year.

"I've taken a few side steps in my career and people have said, 'Trust me on this,' and you have to have a little trust. But it has worked out," Crevoiserat said.

She added, "And I do see the benefit of taking those side steps and being able to have a bigger picture and better perspective on business overall.

3. Inspiration strikes outside the office walls

Crevoiserat said that being "outdoors and moving" is essential.

"I get a lot of inspiration from being in the natural world, whether it be a walk along the Hudson or a hike in the mountains," the leader said.

She said that staying inside a building all day makes it "hard to be inspired if all you're seeing are the same four walls over and over again."

She draws inspiration and energy from walking, running, hiking, and visiting museums in New York City, she added.

In the interview, Crevoiserat and Brady also discussed the potential impact of President-elect Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on foreign imports and Tapestry's recently halted merger with fashion brand Capri.

Tapestry announced in August 2023 that it would buy Capri for $8.5 billion. Under the proposed merger, six high-end fashion brands would operate under one umbrella: Capri's Versace, Jimmy Choo, and Michael Kors, along with Tapestry's Coach, Stuart Weitzman, and Kate Spade.

But in October, a New York federal judge blocked the merger, saying it would "substantially lessen competition in the market for accessible-luxury handbags."

Tapestry's stock price is up 73% this year.

Representatives for Tapestry didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Walmart's chief, Doug McMillon, got his wine sent to him by drone.
• He lives in one of the areas in the US in which Walmart offers drone deliveries.
• He said Walmart's future looked like "urgent deliveries happening in a really fast time."

Walmart's CEO Doug McMillon gets his groceries in style.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer and Retail Conference in New York on Tuesday, the head of the country's largest supermarket chain said he got wine delivered by drone right to his front door.

He said he ordered the drone delivery when his wife Shelley realized she didn't have a key ingredient in the kitchen.

"A few weeks ago, Shelley's making Chicken Marsala, and she said out loud, 'I forgot the cooking wine,' which meant I was supposed to get up off the couch and stop watching football and go get Marsala cooking wine," McMillon said.

"But what we had was a drone delivery in less than 15 minutes that dropped it right at my front door, and that was pretty cool," said McMillon, who lives in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Walmart is headquartered.

"I think our future looks like big baskets moving slowly at a value and urgent deliveries happening in a really fast time in a variety of ways," McMillon said.

Walmart launched drone deliveries in six states in 2022 but was forced to scale back in recent years.

In August, DroneUp, Walmart's drone delivery partner, told Axios that drone deliveries were not economically sustainable for smaller, low-cost packages. They closed 18 Walmart delivery hubs in Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Tampa. The retailer currently offers drone deliveries in three locations in the US — Bentonville, Dallas, and Virginia Beach.

Walmart aims to have the largest drone delivery footprint of any retailer in the country. In January, it expanded its drone delivery radius to serve 1.8 million additional households in the Dallas-Forth Worth area.

Drone deliveries cost $12.99 per trip for Walmart+ members and $19.99 per delivery for non-members.

McMillon's comments come as Walmart reported strong third-quarter earnings in November, beating analyst expectations.

It saw comparable US sales growth of 5.3% year over year and reported an operating income growth of 8.2%.

Walmart representatives didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.