Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is walking back earlier comments urging consumers to boycott Starbucks, as tensions grow over Seattle’s relationship with major employers and the coffee giant expands its footprint outside Washington state.

Wilson, a democratic socialist elected last year on a progressive, labor-backed platform, told The New York Times this week that comments she made during a Starbucks worker strike last fall were not productive.

“Those comments were not productive in the sense that they caused more harm than good,” Wilson told the outlet.

The remarks marked a notable shift in tone from comments Wilson made shortly after winning Seattle’s mayoral race in November, when she joined Starbucks workers on a picket line outside the company’s former Reserve Roastery on Capitol Hill and urged residents to boycott the hometown coffee chain.

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“I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either,” Wilson said at the rally, according to KUOW. She later led protesters in chants supporting striking workers.

At the time, several unionized Starbucks workers in Seattle and other cities were striking amid stalled contract negotiations with the company.

Wilson’s comments have resurfaced in recent weeks as concerns mount among some business leaders and local officials about Seattle’s economic climate and whether increasingly progressive politics could drive employers and wealthy residents elsewhere.

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Those concerns intensified after Starbucks announced plans to establish a 2,000-employee corporate hub in Nashville, Tennessee, fueling debate over whether the company could gradually shift more operations away from Seattle, where Starbucks was founded in 1971 and still maintains its global headquarters. Tennessee has increasingly attracted corporate expansions from companies seeking lower taxes, lower operating costs and a more business-friendly regulatory environment than many West Coast cities.

Seattle City Council member Rob Saka told The New York Times he was “gravely concerned” about the potential implications for the city.

“This is real,” Saka told the outlet.

Saka’s concerns mark a notable shift from his tone following Wilson’s election victory, when he praised the mayor’s “energy” and said voters were calling for “change and a renewed focus on affordability.”

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Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz also weighed in earlier this month in a Wall Street Journal op-ed criticizing Seattle’s political leadership and warning the city risks alienating businesses that helped fuel its economic rise.

“Seattle’s mayor, Katie Wilson, has chosen to cast business as a foil rather than a partner,” Schultz wrote. “Her socialist rhetoric vilifies employers, even while she continues to rely on them for revenue.”

Schultz argued Washington state’s economic success was built on entrepreneurship, innovation and business growth, adding that the ecosystem is now “fractured.”

The debate comes as Seattle and Washington state grapple with rising housing costs, affordability concerns and tax policy disputes. Earlier this spring, Washington lawmakers approved a new 9.9% tax on certain personal income above $1 million, a measure critics have described as the state’s first income tax, while Wilson recently drew criticism for remarks dismissing concerns that wealthy residents could leave the state.

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“I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are super overblown,” Wilson said during a Seattle University forum last month. “And the ones that leave? Like, bye.”

Wilson has since indicated she is trying to strike a more balanced tone toward Seattle’s corporate community.

The mayor told The New York Times she now understands her comments will be closely scrutinized for signs of hostility toward businesses and said she hopes to maintain “a multidimensional relationship” with companies like Starbucks.

“I want them here,” Wilson said of Starbucks, “and I believe they want to be here.”

Starbucks has framed its Nashville expansion as part of a broader growth strategy rather than a departure from Seattle. In a letter to employees cited by The New York Times, Starbucks chief partner officer Sara Kelly described the Tennessee expansion as “a complement to our global and North America presence in Seattle.” Starbucks has also continued restructuring portions of its Seattle-based workforce, including reported layoffs tied to its technology division earlier this month.

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Fox Business reached out to Starbucks and the Seattle mayor’s office for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.

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A weekslong selloff in government bonds has intensified in recent days, threatening to drive up borrowing costs across the globe and knocking some momentum out of what had been a furious stock rally. 

With bond prices sliding, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, a key benchmark for mortgage rates and other borrowing costs, reached as high as 4.687% Tuesday, its highest intraday level since January 2025. 

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The shares of Power Finance Corporation (PFC) have gained more than 17% in 2026 so far, while those of REC have declined around 9%, with analysts commenting on whether investors should buy the two stocks as the mega merger process of the two PSU non-banking financial companies marches on.

Earlier in February this year, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman after presenting the Union Budget, said that the government will restructure Power Finance Corporation (PFC) and Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) in order to streamline operations. The shares of the two companies had sharply jumped following the announcement.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs earlier cleared a proposal under which PFC acquired 52.63% of the government’s holding in REC. With this acquisition, PFC and REC are currently operating in a holding subsidiary structure. The proposed merger would consolidate the two entities into a single balance sheet, subject to statutory approvals and detailed structuring.

What should investors do?

Fresh exposure in PFC and REC will be better if staggered than chased after the merger headline, said Harshal Dasani, Business Head at INVasset PMS. He highlighted that the boards of the two companies have cleared the merger proposal, while completion may still depend on regulatory and structural approvals. “That means the trade is no longer only about power financing fundamentals. It is also about swap ratio, timing and execution clarity,” the analyst said.Between the two, PFC offers cleaner visibility because it is the parent entity and is better placed as the consolidation anchor, Dasani said, adding that REC’s underperformance may create a catch-up trade if the swap ratio is favourable, but that is not the same as fundamental comfort. “The core business remains structurally supported by power capex, transmission, renewable financing and improving state utility discipline, but valuations have already priced in a fair amount of that cycle,” he said.

“For fresh money, the prudent approach is to wait for the swap ratio or accumulate only in tranches. PFC looks better suited for conservative exposure. REC is more of a merger-arbitrage call and carries higher event risk. The one thing to avoid is treating the merger as guaranteed upside. In PSU financials, structure can matter as much as earnings,” the analyst further said.

PFC and REC share prices

PFC shares have fallen more than 3% in one week and 9% in one month to close at Rs 429.35 apiece on Wednesday. The stock is overall up nearly 19% in 2026 so far. In the longer term, the shares of the company delivered 6% returns over one year, 226% returns over three years and 362% in five years. The company currently has a market capitalisation of nearly Rs 1.43 lakh crore.
REC shares meanwhile declined over 3% in one week and 12% in one month, closing at Rs 333 apiece on Wednesday. The stock has declined 9% in 2026 so far and 15% in one year. In the longer term, the shares of the company jumped 158% in three years and 217% in five years. The company currently has a market capitalisation of more than Rs 88,210 crore.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

The late Queen Elizabeth II was “very keen” that her second son, then the Duke of York, take on a “prominent role in the promotion of national interests” as the United Kingdom’s special representative for international trade and investment, according to confidential papers on his 2001 appointment released by Downing Street this week.

The cache of 11 files, published on Thursday following a successful Liberal Democrat motion in the Commons, sheds fresh light on how Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor came to occupy one of British business diplomacy’s most senior unpaid posts, a role he held for a decade and which has since become the focus of a Metropolitan Police criminal inquiry.

A royal recommendation, in writing

In a memorandum to the then-foreign secretary Robin Cook dated February 2000, Sir David Wright, the chief executive of British Trade International, the predecessor to today’s Department for Business and Trade, set out the palace’s thinking in unusually direct terms.

“The Queen’s wish is that the Duke of Kent should be succeeded in this role by the Duke of York,” Sir David wrote. “The Duke of Kent is to relinquish his responsibilities around April next year. That would fit well with the end of the Duke of York’s active naval career. The Queen is very keen that the Duke of York should take on a prominent role in the promotion of national interests.”

He added: “No other member of The Royal Family would be available to succeed the Duke of Kent. The Duke of York’s adoption of his role would seem a natural fit.”

For Whitehall officials charged with selling British plc abroad, the recommendation from Buckingham Palace was, in the language of the time, treated as decisive.

The envoy who preferred ‘sophisticated countries’

If the appointment had a regal sheen, the papers also reveal a markedly less flattering portrait of the working envoy. In a letter dated 25 January 2000, Kathryn Colvin, then head of the Foreign Office’s Protocol Division, recorded a briefing from the duke’s principal private secretary, Captain Neil Blair, on his employer’s travel preferences.

The ex-prince, the note records, “tended to prefer more sophisticated countries” and preferred “ballet over theatre”. Captain Blair also stipulated that “the Duke of York should not be offered golfing functions abroad. This was a private activity and if he took his clubs with him he would not play in any public sense”.

For an envoy whose taxpayer-funded brief was to open doors for British exporters in fast-growing emerging markets, the attitudes set out in the briefing will sit uncomfortably with the SME exporters who relied on the office to act as a battering ram into difficult jurisdictions. As former business secretary Sir Vince Cable noted earlier this year, the conduct of Andrew’s tenure deserves serious examination by investigators, not least because the role traded on the prestige of the Crown to win commercial advantage.

From soft power to criminal inquiry

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest on 19 February, his sixty-sixth birthday, has transformed what was once a footnote of royal soft power into a constitutional and commercial headache for the Government. The arrest followed allegations that the former envoy shared sensitive material with the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein during his time as trade representative.

Emails published by the US Department of Justice indicate that Andrew forwarded official reports of trips to Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam to Epstein in 2010 and 2011, within minutes of receiving them from his then special adviser. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has reportedly pressed US authorities to expedite the release of unredacted exchanges held in the wider Epstein files.

Detectives are understood to be considering whether to broaden the scope of their inquiry beyond the offence of misconduct in public office — a notoriously difficult charge to mount — to encompass potential corruption offences as well as alleged sex trafficking. Any prosecution will fall to the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division, which handles the most sensitive matters.

Lord Peter Mandelson, the former business secretary and a mutual acquaintance of both men, was himself arrested following the release of the Epstein files in the United States, accused of having disclosed sensitive information. Both men deny any wrongdoing and have been released under investigation; both maintain they had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

What it means for British business

For owner-managers and SME exporters, the readership Business Matters has championed for more than two decades, the documents matter for reasons that go well beyond royal soap opera.

The Special Representative for International Trade and Investment was, until 2011, the public face Britain put forward to court inward investors and to bang the drum for UK companies in capitals from Riyadh to Astana. It was, in effect, a brand. The newly-published file makes plain that the appointment process was driven less by a forensic assessment of commercial fit than by dynastic convenience and palace preference.

That has implications for how the present generation of trade envoys, and the export support architecture around them, is scrutinised. UK Export Finance has spent the past three years dramatically expanding its direct support for SME exporters, precisely because the soft-power model that underpinned the Andrew era proved fragile when its figurehead became politically toxic. The unwinding of Pitch@Palace, the ex-prince’s own start-up showcase, tells a similar story.

The Government’s decision to release the file, under duress from the Liberal Democrats and against the backdrop of an active criminal inquiry, as the BBC reported earlier this year, is a tacit acknowledgement that public confidence in the way British trade promotion was conducted at the turn of the century has not survived contact with the Epstein files. As RTÉ noted in its coverage of Thursday’s release, the documents arrived “just months after lawmakers accused the king’s brother of putting his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein ahead of the nation”.

For Britain’s exporters, the lesson from these dusty memoranda is brisk and uncomfortable: the credibility of UK trade promotion abroad now depends on transparent process, not royal patronage. The sooner Whitehall internalises that, the better for the businesses that pay its salaries.

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LOS ANGELES — Cameron Diaz and her husband Benji Madden announced the birth of their third child, a son named Nautas Madden, on May 4, 2026.

Madden, 47, shared the news on Instagram with a post featuring an image of a pirate ship titled “Nautas Madden.” He wrote: “Cameron and I are Happy, Excited, and feeling so BLESSED to announce the birth of our third Child, Nautas Madden. Welcome to the world Son!!👊❤️ We love life with our family- our kids are healthy&happy, and we are grateful!!!🙏🙏having a blast ❤️Sending all our best wishes- the Madden Family ❤️🙏👊🏴‍☠️”

Diaz, 53, responded to the post with heart emojis. The couple, married since January 2015, now has three children.

The newborn joins older sister Raddix Madden, born December 30, 2019, and brother Cardinal Madden, born March 22, 2024. Both previous children were born via surrogacy. The family has kept the children’s faces private and shared no public photos.

The name Nautas has nautical origins, meaning “sailor,” “navigator” or “one who embarks on a journey and fears not the unknown,” according to reports on the couple’s announcement.

Diaz stepped back from acting after 2014’s “Annie” to focus on family and personal life. She has spoken in past interviews about the joys of motherhood but made no new public comments on the latest birth.

Madden, co-founder of Good Charlotte, continues music and production work. The couple met in 2014 through mutual friends and maintained a relatively private relationship before marrying in a secret ceremony in 2015.

The announcement generated widespread attention across entertainment media. Fans and outlets noted Diaz becoming a mother again at age 53. The couple has not addressed public speculation about their family planning or use of surrogacy in recent statements.

Diaz previously described her approach to family life as intentional and fulfilling. The couple resides primarily in Los Angeles and has emphasized gratitude for their children’s health and happiness.

Raddix was six years old at the time of her brother’s birth. Cardinal turned two in March 2026. The family has grown steadily while maintaining privacy around the children.

No details were released about the circumstances of Nautas’ birth, including date, location or medical information beyond the announcement. The couple has historically shared minimal specifics about pregnancies and births.

Diaz last appeared in a major film role years ago but has remained active in business ventures, including investments and wellness interests. She has expressed contentment with her life beyond Hollywood.

The Madden-Diaz family has received congratulations from celebrities and fans following the Instagram post. The couple rarely shares joint family updates, making the May 4 announcement notable.

Diaz turned 53 in August 2025. Madden turned 47 in March 2026. Their relationship has been described as supportive, with both prioritizing family time.

The arrival of Nautas marks the couple’s third child in roughly six and a half years. They have consistently chosen unique names with personal significance for each child.

Public interest in the family remains high due to Diaz’s long career in films such as “There’s Something About Mary,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “The Holiday.” She has not confirmed any return to acting.

Madden continues performing with Good Charlotte and other projects. The couple has balanced their professional lives with raising young children.

No additional statements from the couple have been released since the initial Instagram announcement. The family is reported to be healthy and enjoying time together.

The news highlighted broader conversations about later-in-life parenthood among celebrities, though Diaz and Madden have not commented on age-related aspects.

As of mid-May 2026, the couple has not shared further updates or photos. Their approach continues to center on privacy for their three children.