Frontier Airlines said Wednesday it has again proposed merging with struggling rival Spirit Airlines, which is in bankruptcy.

Frontier and Spirit first announced a deal to merge in 2022, but a JetBlue Airways offer derailed that plan. JetBlue’s proposed acquisition of Spirit was blocked by a federal judge last year, and Spirit filed for bankruptcy protection in November.

Frontier said in a release that it has met with Spirit’s board and executives since it made its proposal this month. Frontier executives said in a email to counterparts at Spirit this week that their plan is better than Spirit’s own plan to emerge from bankruptcy.

“We continue to believe that under the current standalone plan, Spirit will emerge highly levered, losing money at the operating level, and this would not be a transaction we would pursue,” wrote Frontier Chairman Bill Franke and CEO Barry Biffle in a Tuesday email to Spirit Chairman Mac Gardner and CEO Ted Christie. “As a result, time is of the essence.”

Christie and Gardner told their Frontier counterparts that they were rejecting the deal, calling the terms “inadequate and unactionable,” according to a letter shared in a securities filing on Wednesday.

Spirit said it expects to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy this quarter. It has cut costs recently, including by slashing some 200 jobs and selling some of its Airbus planes. The airline had also been particularly challenged by a Pratt & Whitney engine recall that grounded dozens of its jets.

Budget carriers like Frontier and Spirit have struggled post-pandemic, as costs like salaries have risen and consumers have opted for trips abroad on carriers with options for roomier and more expensive seats.

Both Frontier and Spirit have been working to upend their business models that were marked by low fares and fees for add-ons from seat assignments to cabin baggage.

The airlines last year did away with cancellation and change fees for some of their tickets and started bundling perks along with tickets. Frontier last year said it would start offering a premium section at the front of the plane.

Starbucks is expected to report its quarterly earnings on Tuesday, kicking off several weeks of reports from restaurant companies as investors anticipate improving demand for dining out.

A handful of restaurants released preliminary results earlier in January ahead of presentations at the annual ICR Conference in Orlando. For many, like Red Robin and Noodles & Company, their early report showed sales trends improved during the fourth quarter, giving investors more confidence and pushing their shares higher. Only Shake Shack saw its stock fall; its outlook disappointed shareholders, who were hoping for higher targets.

But the largest restaurant companies have yet to announce any results. Starbucks paves the way with its announcement on Tuesday after the bell. Yum Brands and Chipotle won’t share their earnings until next week. McDonald’s, often considered a consumer bellwether, isn’t on deck until Feb. 10.

However, a rollercoaster 2024 for restaurants might have ended on a high note — and that could bode well for the industry in the year ahead.

Industry data suggests that the fourth quarter was better for restaurants overall than the rest of the year. Same-store sales grew in both October and November, according to data from market research firm Black Box Intelligence. December was the only month same-store sales fell during the quarter, but Black Box attributed the swing to the calendar shift caused by a late Thanksgiving.

“We came out of [the fourth quarter] with a lot of momentum and started off really strong … That gives me a feeling that the consumer is still very resilient,” Shake Shack CEO Rob Lynch said. “Consumers are still out there spending money. There’s still a lot of jobs for people who want to go out and get great jobs. We’re kind of bullish on ’25.”

Most casual-dining chains have been in turnaround mode, hoping that revamped menus and new marketing plans will reinvigorate sales. For most of last year, only Chili’s, owned by Brinker International, won over customers with its strategy, helping the chain report double-digit same-store sales growth.

But some of Chili’s rivals saw an improvement in the fourth quarter.

For example, Red Robin said it expects to report a 3.4% increase in its fourth-quarter comparable restaurant revenue, excluding a change in deferred loyalty revenue.

“We’ve been doing a ton of work behind the scenes, and I believe that these stories take time, and you can’t skip the process,” Red Robin CEO G.J. Hart told CNBC earlier in January.

For two and a half years, the chain has implemented a broad comeback strategy, which included bringing back bussers and bartenders and overhauling its signature burgers. More recently, Red Robin has launched a loyalty program and unveiled promotions for certain days of the week, reintroducing customers to its revamped restaurant experience and helping it compete with Chili’s.

California Pizza Kitchen also had a strong fourth quarter, and the momentum hasn’t slowed, according to the chain’s President Michael Beacham.

“We had a great [fourth quarter], and we’re already starting out in 2025 with some really strong numbers, and that’s just with our in-dining guests,” Beacham said. CPK is privately owned and doesn’t publicly report its quarterly results, but its sales trends can offer clues about how other casual restaurants are performing.

It helps, too, that diners aren’t feeling as strapped for cash as they were earlier in 2024.

“It looks like the consumer is starting to feel a little bit better than they were in prior quarters,” Darden Restaurants CEO Rick Cardenas said on the company’s earnings conference call in December.

Before the holidays, Darden, which operates on a different fiscal calendar than most of its peers, reported stronger-than-expected demand for its food during the quarter ended Nov. 24. In particular, same-store sales at LongHorn Steakhouse and Olive Garden beat Wall Street’s estimates. Executives credited more frequent visits from diners with annual incomes of $50,000 to $100,000.

Some of the biggest restaurant names might have the most disappointing quarters.

Starbucks is still in turnaround mode. Now under the leadership of former Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol, the coffee giant is in the early innings of a turnaround.

″[Fiscal quarter one] is expected to be another challenging quarter as SBUX implements a host of operational changes. Margin pressure is expected to be similar to Q4, but we believe investors likely look through [near-term] headwinds while focusing on evidence of [long-term] turnaround potential,” Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem wrote in a research note on Thursday.

While Niccol has already tweaked the company’s advertising and promotional strategy, it will take more time for Starbucks to implement larger changes, like a menu overhaul and faster service. The company also recently said it will lay off some of its corporate workforce, although it hasn’t shared how many jobs will be affected.

Wall Street is expecting the Starbucks to report quarterly same-store sales declines of 5.5%, according to StreetAccount estimates.

And then there’s McDonald’s, which spent much of its fourth quarter handling a foodborne illness crisis.

In October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention connected a fatal E. coli outbreak to McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers. The chain reacted by temporarily pulling the menu item in affected areas and eventually switched suppliers for the slivered onions targeted as the likely culprit.

Traffic to McDonald’s restaurants across the U.S. fell as consumers reacted to the headlines, although analysts expect the company to report that trend reversed later in the quarter.

“We expect headwinds related to the E. coli outbreak likely weighed on 4Q US [same-store sales], with data indicating pressured trends in November, but our franchisee discussions and traffic trends highlighting recovering guest counts in December,” UBS analyst Dennis Geiger wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday.

Though some chains are lagging behind, restaurant executives generally seem more positive about 2025, citing improving consumer sentiment and wage growth.

“I’m cautiously optimistic about where we’re headed, and it feels good — it really does,” Red Robin’s Hart said.

Restaurants will also be facing easier comparisons to last year’s sales slump, making their growth this year look more impressive.

But industry optimism doesn’t ensure smooth sailing for the year ahead. Investors will be listening carefully for executive commentary about how traffic and sales are faring so far in the first quarter.

For example, restaurants have had to contend with the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles, displacing residents and temporarily shuttering some eateries, in addition to the usual seasonal snowstorms and frigid temperatures that keep diners at home.

“I think overall, if you take out weather, this tragic thing that’s happening in California, we see green shoots already for restaurants that aren’t impacted,” Fogo de Chao CEO Barry McGowan said. “We’re hopeful this year.”

More than 3.2 million people will see increased Social Security benefits, under a new law.

However, individuals who are affected may have to wait more than a year before they see the extra money that’s due to them from the Social Security Fairness Act, the Social Security Administration said in an update on its website.

“Though SSA is helping some affected beneficiaries now, under SSA’s current budget, SSA expects that it could take more than one year to adjust benefits and pay all retroactive benefits,” the agency states.

The Social Security Fairness Act eliminates two provisions — known as the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset — that previously reduced Social Security benefits for certain beneficiaries who also had pension income provided from employment where they did not contribute Social Security payroll taxes.

Those provisions reduced benefits for certain workers including state teachers, firefighters and police officers; federal employees who are covered by the Civil Service Retirement System; and individuals who worked under a foreign social security system.

The law affects benefits paid after December 2023. Consequently, affected beneficiaries will receive increases to their monthly benefit checks, as well as retroactive lump sum payments for benefits payable for January 2024 and after.

The benefit increases “may vary greatly,” depending on an individual’s type of Social Security benefits and the amount of pension income they receive, according to the Social Security Administration.

“Some people’s benefits will increase very little while others may be eligible for over $1,000 more each month,” the agency states.

The Social Security Administration said it cannot yet provide an estimated timeline for when the benefit adjustments will happen.

In the meantime, the agency is advising beneficiaries to update their mailing address and bank direct deposit information, if necessary. In addition, non-covered pension recipients may now want to apply for benefits, if they are newly eligible following the enacted changes.

The Department of Education said Tuesday that the pause on federal grants and loans will not affect student loans or financial aid for college.

The freeze, which could affect billions of dollars in aid, noted an exception for Social Security and Medicare. The pause “does not include assistance provided directly to individuals,” according to the White House memo that announced the pause on Monday.

The pause gives the White House time to review government funding for causes that don’t fit with President Donald Trump’s policy agenda, according to Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The memo specifically cited “financial assistance for foreign aid, non-governmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

The Department of Education said the freeze also has no bearing on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the upcoming year.

“The temporary pause does not impact Title I, IDEA, or other formula grants, nor does it apply to Federal Pell Grants and Direct Loans under Title IV [of the Higher Education Act],” Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann said in a statement.

In addition to the federal financial aid programs that fall under Title IV, Title I provides financial assistance to school districts with children from low-income families. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, provides funding for students with disabilities.

The funding pause “only applies to discretionary grants at the Department of Education,” Biedermann said. “These will be reviewed by Department leadership for alignment with Trump Administration priorities.”

The pause could affect federal work-study programs and the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, which are provided in bulk to colleges to provide to students, according to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

However, many colleges have already drawn down their funds for the spring term, so this might not affect even that aid, he said. It may still affect grants to researchers, which often include funding for graduate research assistantships, he added.

“While the memo says the funding pause does not include assistance ‘provided directly to individuals,’ it does not clarify whether that includes money sent first to institutions, states or organizations and then provided to students,” said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

Most federal financial aid programs are considered Title IV funds “labeled for individual students” and so would not be affected by the pause, McCarthy said, but all other aid outside Title IV is unclear. “We are also researching the impact on campus-based aid programs since they are funded differently,” she said.

“When you have programs that are serving 20 million students, there are a lot of questions, understandably,” said Jonathan Riskind, a vice president at the American Council on Education. “It is really, really damaging for students and institutions to have this level of uncertainty.”

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called on the Trump administration to rescind the memo.

“This is bad public policy, and it will have a direct impact on the funds that support students and research,” he said. “The longer this goes on, the greater the damage will be.”

Starbucks announced another stage in its leadership shake-up on Tuesday, as CEO Brian Niccol will bring in two more executives who spent time at his former employer Taco Bell while dividing key leadership roles.

“As we focus on our ‘Back to Starbucks’ plan, we need a new operating model for our retail team, with clear ownership and accountability and an appropriate scope for each role,” Niccol said in a letter to employees shared on the company’s website.

Before spending six years at Chipotle, Niccol served as CEO of Yum Brands’ Taco Bell. Since starting at Starbucks in September, he has already poached some of his former colleagues to help with his transformation of the coffee giant. For example, he tapped Chipotle and Yum Brands alum Tressie Lieberman as Starbucks’ global chief brand officer in the fall.

The newest changes to the Starbucks organization include splitting the role of North American president into two jobs. The company’s current North American president, Sara Trilling, will depart the company. Trilling has been with Starbucks since 2002.

Starting in February, Meredith Sandland will hold the role of chief store development officer. Sandland is currently CEO of Empower Delivery, a restaurant software company. Previously, she served as chief operating officer of Kitchen United and as Taco Bell’s chief development officer.

Additionally, Mike Grams will join the company in February as North America chief stores officer. Grams has been with Taco Bell for more than 30 years, starting as a restaurant general manager and working his way up to become the chain’s global chief operating officer, according to his LinkedIn.

Both Sandland and Grams will be tasked with implementing Niccol’s vision to go “back to Starbucks.” The strategy includes decreasing service times to four minutes per order, making its stores more welcoming and cozy, as well as slashing the menu.

Arthur Valdez, Starbucks’ chief supply officer, also plans to leave the company. He joined in 2023 after seven years at Target. Starbucks has already identified his replacement and will share that news in the coming weeks, Niccol said in the letter.

Starbucks is expected to report its fiscal first-quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday. Wall Street is expecting the company’s same-store sales to fall for the fourth consecutive quarter as consumers in the U.S. and China opt to get their caffeine fix elsewhere.

Amazon has tapped Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel to oversee its sprawling grocery business, the company announced Monday.

Doug Herrington, the company’s worldwide retail chief, wrote in a memo to employees posted to Amazon’s site that Buechel will “take on an expanded responsibility leading Worldwide Grocery Stores” while continuing to lead Whole Foods. Amazon acquired the upscale grocer for $13.7 billion in 2017.

“In his time as CEO, Jason has unlocked our ability to make high-quality natural and organic groceries more affordable and accessible to customers, helping WFM achieve record sales growth and expand to over 535 locations,” Herrington said.

Buechel became CEO of Whole Foods in 2022 after co-founder John Mackey retired from the company. In his expanded role leading Amazon’s grocery business, Buechel will succeed Tony Hoggett, who left Amazon last October to join Wondery, a food delivery startup led by serial entrepreneur Marc Lore.

Buechel will oversee not only Whole Foods, but also Amazon’s larger grocery business, which includes its line of Fresh supermarkets, Go cashierless stores and online grocery service.

Amazon has long been determined to cement itself as a grocery destination for shoppers. Since acquiring Whole Foods, it has launched its own chain of Fresh supermarkets, and it’s taken steps to unify its online and brick-and-mortar grocery operations while appealing to a broader swath of consumers.

Herrington said he’s “incredibly energized” by the momentum of Amazon’s grocery business.

“Since creating a single WW Grocery Stores organization in 2022, we have made notable progress in our vision to make grocery shopping simpler, faster, and more affordable for customers,” Herrington wrote in the memo. “We’ve taken steps to integrate our huge grocery selection across our broader logistics network, and create a more seamless experience for customers, especially Prime members. This work will continue under Jason’s leadership.”

The company has further tweaked its grocery division in recent years by shuttering some Fresh and Go stores as part of Jassy’s broader cost-cutting efforts. Last April, Amazon said it would begin removing its pricey and elaborate cashierless checkout system from Fresh stores in the U.S. Instead, it has focused on selling the technology, called Just Walk Out, to third-party retailers.

Amazon has also brought its Fresh and Whole Foods grocery businesses closer together since the 2017 acquisition. The company last October began piloting a new concept at one of its Whole Foods locations outside Philadelphia, where it attached an automated warehouse onto the store that lets Amazon shoppers purchase goods from brands not typically stocked at the organic grocer.

Shares of chipmaker Nvidia plunged Monday, for its worst day since the global market sell-off in March 2020 triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The plunge came amid a global tech stock sell-off over fears about America’s leadership in the AI sector. Those fears were largely sparked by advances claimed by a Chinese artificial intelligence startup.

Shares of the chipmaker, one of the primary beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom in tech stocks, plummeted as much as 18%. That pushed Nvidia’s market value below $3 trillion. Still, shares of the firm are up more than 480% over the last two years.

The drop accounted for nearly $600 billion in lost market value though. It is the biggest market value drop in U.S. stock market history, according to Bloomberg. And nearly double the second worst drop in history, also seen by Nvidia shareholders in September 2024, when the company shed $279 billion in value.

For some perspective, the amount of market value lost by Nvidia on Monday is more than the entire market value of Exxon Mobil, Costco, Home Depot or Bank of America.

Due to the AI-fueled surge in mega-cap tech stocks, Nvidia catapulted into the top five most valuable companies in the world in 2023. The surge didn’t stop there, with the company soaring past Alphabet, Microsoft and the most valuable company in the world: Apple. At its most recent peak, Nvidia reached a towering $3.7 trillion.

With Monday’s losses, Apple has retaken the title of world’s most valuable company and Nvidia’s value sank to around $2.9 trillion.

Nvidia’s drop was also a drag on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which finished the day higher but began the day in the red. Nvidia joined the prestigious 30-stock index in November, replacing rival chipmaker Intel. The Nasdaq Composite, which more closely tracks publicly traded tech companies, slid around 3%.

The global sell-off in tech stocks also meant the S&P Technology sector fell into the red for the year so far, the only sector lower over that time.

DeepSeek on Monday said it would temporarily limit user registrations “due to large-scale malicious attacks” on its services, though existing users will be able to log in as usual.

The Chinese artificial intelligence startup has generated a lot of buzz in recent weeks as a fast-growing rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and other leading AI tools.

Earlier on Monday, DeepSeek took over rival OpenAI’s coveted spot as the most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple’s App Store, dethroning ChatGPT for DeepSeek’s own AI Assistant. It helped inspire a significant selloff in global tech stocks.

Buzz about the company, which was founded in 2023 and released its R1 model last week, has spread to tech analysts, investors and developers, who say that the hype — and ensuing fear of falling behind in the ever-changing AI hype cycle — may be warranted. Especially in the era of the generative AI arms race, where tech giants and startups alike are racing to ensure they don’t fall behind in a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.

DeepSeek reportedly grew out of a Chinese hedge fund’s AI research unit in April 2023 to focus on large language models and reaching artificial general intelligence, or AGI — a branch of AI that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks, which OpenAI and its rivals say they’re fast pursuing.

The buzz around DeepSeek especially began to spread last week, when the startup released R1, its reasoning model that rivals OpenAI’s o1. It’s open-source, meaning that any AI developer can use it, and has rocketed to the top of app stores and industry leaderboards, with users praising its performance and reasoning capabilities.

The startup’s models were notably built despite the U.S. curbing chip exports to China three times in three years. Estimates differ on exactly how much DeepSeek’s R1 costs, or how many GPUs went into it. Jefferies analysts estimated that a recent version had a “training cost of only US$5.6m (assuming US$2/H800 hour rental cost). That is less than 10% of the cost of Meta’s Llama.”

But regardless of the specific numbers, reports agree that the model was developed at a fraction of the cost of rival models by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others.

As a result, the AI sector is awash with questions, including whether the industry’s increasing number of astronomical funding rounds and billion-dollar valuations is necessary — and whether a bubble is about to burst.

When the Trump administration announced a return-to-office mandate this week, it stated Americans “deserve the highest-quality service from people who love our country.”

Federal employees like Frank Paulsen say that comment suggests they aren’t hardworking or loyal.

Paulsen, 50, is the vice president of the Local 1641 chapter of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a federal workers union. He works as a nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Spokane, Washington, and has been teleworking three days a week since 2022. His main job involves processing referrals to send patients to community health care partners, something he can do remotely.

Paulsen said he has been a federal employee for 22 years and is a disabled veteran himself. And he doesn’t think anyone he works with isn’t measuring up.

“I do not believe that I would subscribe to that belief at all,” Paulsen said. “My co-workers are very diligent about getting the work done.”

On Monday, Trump signed an executive order mandating all federal agencies order their employees back into the office full time “as soon as practicable” alongside a directive to end remote-work arrangements except as deemed necessary.

Late Wednesday, administration officials released a more detailed directive demanding the termination of all remote-work arrangements, alongside a statement that it’s a “glaring roadblock” to increasing government performance that most federal offices are “virtually abandoned.”

The GOP has long bemoaned the state of the federal bureaucracy. But the Trump administration appears to be making good on promises to overhaul it, in part supported by Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest donor, who is now serving as a semiofficial adviser.

“This is about fairness: it’s not fair that most people have to come to work to build products or provide services while Federal Government employees get to stay home,” Musk wrote on X following the order’s signing.

Though it represents just a sliver of the nation’s overall workforce, the U.S. government is the country’s largest employer, with more than 2 million civilian employees. Some 162,000 workers alone are located in Washington, D.C., according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and federal workers make up over 40% of the city’s workforce.

But most federal workers, like Paulsen, actually work in other parts of the country: Only 7.56% of federal employees work in D.C.

Yet whatever their location, many workers like Paulsen are responding to Trump’s RTO order with concern. There are practical worries: Paulsen has questioned whether the office he works in, which the VA leases, has enough seats for everyone employed by his division. Another VA employee, who requested anonymity because she didn’t want her program targeted, echoed space concerns, especially in settings where sensitive medical information is discussed.

Paulsen said he is planning for a return to the office five days a week no matter what.

“The guidance we give our employees is basically, don’t put yourself in a position to get fired,” he said.

Morale has never been lower on one metastatic cancer research team within the VA, an employee there told NBC News. She requested her name not be used because she didn’t want her team to lose funding. Two people on her team are remote workers and the employee said she works from home two days a week, doing administrative tasks and data analysis.

Guidance was changing by the hour on Thursday, she said. With a contract that renews every three years, the employee said she was told by management at one point to start looking for new jobs, then was later alerted by a higher-up that she fell into the VA’s list of exemptions.

The fate of her remote colleagues and telework options remains unclear, she said. They work with veterans across the country, and the team worried for those whose treatments could be canceled without them.

“It just doesn’t feel good to go into work knowing that you don’t know if you’re going to have a job in a few months,” she said.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who works in Washington, D.C., said he and his colleagues are making backup plans. They all have telework arrangements, and some work remotely — hourslong drives from the nearest federal office. He views the executive order as an attempt to force people to quit. He wanted to remain anonymous because he fears retaliation.

“The feeling is there’s an ax over our heads,” he said.

The Trump administration has said that just 6% of federal employees now work in person. But according to an August report from the Office of Management and Budget, among federal workers eligible for telework — and excluding those who are fully remote — roughly 61% of work hours are now in person.

Among agencies, the Department of Agriculture had the highest percentage of in-person work hours, at 81%; while the Environmental Protection Agency had the lowest, at about 36%.

The Biden administration had already been keeping an eye on return-to-office implementation as the Covid-19 pandemic waned, with regular reports being issued on how much telework was being used by each federal agency.

In December, an OPM survey found 75% of telework-eligible employees had participated in telework in fiscal year 2023, though that was 12 percentage points lower than in fiscal year 2022.

The report said there had been positive results from a hybrid setup.

“Agencies report notable improvements in recruitment and retention, enhanced employee performance and organizational productivity, and considerable cost savings when utilizing telework as an element of their hybrid work environments,” it said.

A GOP-sponsored House Oversight Committee report this week accused the Biden administration of exaggerating in-office attendance, citing “physical and anecdotal evidence,” while accusing it of taking a “pliant” posture toward federal union groups as they sought more generous telework arrangements.

Even as it praised Trump’s desire to improve federal workforce accountability and performance, the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan think tank focused on government effectiveness, said in a statement that the return-to-office order was an example of overreach.

‘While any move toward making the government more responsive to the public should be welcomed, it said, the actions announced in Trump’s workforce-related executive orders put that goal “farther out of reach.”

On a press call with reporters this week, Partnership CEO Max Stier said telework is necessary to attract more qualified employees who already tend to enjoy higher salaries in the private sector.

In a follow-up statement, Stier warned of the dramatic impact the order will have on career civil servants’ personal lives.

“The affected employees are everyday people who have to support themselves and their families, and the abrupt and rushed approach chosen here will have a traumatizing impact on not just them but their colleagues who remain in their roles serving the public, as well,” Stier said.

Social media forums frequented by government workers have also lit up, with many raising questions about how agencies were expected to comply given that many have been downsizing their office space.

Even before the pandemic ushered in widespread work-from-home policies, 2010 legislation cited telework for federal employees as a way to reduce office costs and promote resilience in emergency situations, as long as employees continued to meet performance expectations.

The Wall Street Journal reported the government was looking to sell off many of its commercial real estate holdings. NBC News could not independently confirm the report.

Unions representing federal employees have slammed the new policy, saying it would undermine the government’s effectiveness and make it harder for agencies to recruit top talent.

“Rather than undoing decades of progress in workplace policies that have benefited both employees and their employers, I encourage the Trump administration to rethink its approach and focus on what it can do to make government programs work better for the American people,” Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement.

The AFGE’s contracts with major government firms, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education, establish procedures for telework and remote work in accordance with the 2010 law. The union said the order “doesn’t appear to violate any collective bargaining agreements,” and whether it would file a lawsuit depends on how the policy is implemented.

“If they violate our contracts, we will take appropriate action to uphold our rights,” the AFGE said in a statement.

The NFFE, Paulsen’s union, likewise said the executive orders would “impair critical services” and viewed the termination of remote work arrangements as an attempt to force employees to quit.

“I am worried about this administration violating those contracts with regard to telework,” Randy Erwin, the national president of the NFFE, told NBC News.

One sector that would stand to benefit from the mandate is local business in downtown Washington, D.C.

Gerren Price, the president of the DowntownDC Business Improvement District, which covers an area to the east of the White House, said only about half of the office space within its boundaries is occupied. Price said 27% of that office space is owned and operated by the federal government.

From coffee shops to dry cleaners, local businesses that used to cater to a nine-to-five crowd have closed, Price said.

Leona Agouridis, the president of the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, which encompasses an area between the White House and Dupont Circle a mile to the north, said the neighborhood hasn’t felt as busy as it did before the pandemic.

“This will go a long way in bringing back vibrancy that we have lost over the last five years,” Agouridis said.

At the Tune Inn, a restaurant and bar that has served D.C.’s Capitol Hill neighborhood since 1947, general manager Stephanie Hulbert is bringing back a federal worker lunch discount, which the establishment had done away with after the pandemic because no one used it. She knows this policy will change many federal workers’ lives, but hopes they can help each other out.

“I really hope that when these workers do come back, they come and support the small businesses that need it in D.C.,” Hulbert said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get the morale up to where it needs to be.”

Adidas plans to cut as many as 500 jobs in a bid to simplify its business, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to CNBC on Thursday. 

The layoffs will affect employees at Adidas’ headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, and represent nearly 9% of the 5,800 staffers it employs at the location. 

The company has not determined how many jobs it will cut, but up to 500 positions could be affected, a source told CNBC. Adidas will decide the final number when it is further along in its process. 

Employees learned about the cuts on Wednesday, just one day after Adidas announced what it called better-than-expected preliminary profit results for its holiday quarter and 19% sales growth. It is expecting sales to grow to 5.97 billion euros, ahead of the 5.68 billion euros that analysts had expected ahead of the announcement, according to LSEG. 

In a statement to CNBC, a spokesperson said Adidas’ current operating model has become “too complex” and the cuts are designed to simplify operations. 

“To set adidas up for long-term success we are now starting to look at how we align our operating model with the reality of how we work. This may have an impact on the organizational structure and number of roles based at our HQ in Herzogenaurach,” the spokesperson said. “We will now start to work closely with the Works Council to ensure that any changes are handled with the utmost respect and care of all employees.” 

The layoffs are not part of a cost-cutting program, but more of an effort to adapt its business to how it has changed over the past couple of years, the spokesperson said.

Adidas has been restructuring its business and capped off 2024 on a high note with sales and profits that came in higher than analysts and the company expected. 

It has leaned on its classic Samba and Gazelle styles to boost sales and has also benefited from a slowdown at Nike, its biggest competitor.