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Starbucks plans to close hundreds of cafés across North America this week, the latest move under Chief Executive Brian Niccol to streamline and boost the profitability of its operations. The closures mark the second round of café cuts under Niccol, who joined the coffee giant in September 2024. The company’s fiscal year concludes later this month, which is around the same time when Niccol announced hundreds of store closures last year.

Attorney General James Uthmeier alleged that the coffee chain excluded or disfavored nonminorities in a lawsuit that mirrored recent federal enforcement activity.

On the heels of a PSL Day win, the coffee giant adds new seasonal offerings, limited-time drinks, and merchandise.

The coffee giant is also stepping up operations in a Southern U.S. city.

Major packaged-goods firms, retailers and food makers are seeing substantial increases in overseas revenue that are outpacing slowing domestic sales.

THE DEAL: After relocating from the Seattle area to Florida, billionaire Howard Schultz, the former chairman and chief executive of Starbucks has sold his house in Hawaii’s affluent Hualālai Resort community for $36 million in an off-market deal. THE BUYER: The buyer is upsizing from a smaller house in the wealthy Big Island community to accommodate a growing family, said listing agent Robert Kildow of Hualālai Realty. Kildow declined to identify the buyer, who agreed to buy the house over FaceTime, he said.

The stock market sold off as oil prices surged on Trump's Iran threats. Microsoft, Meta and Fortinet were key earnings movers late.

Starbucks is widely believed to be in turnaround mode, but margins, growth and earnings expectations have retreated in the two years since Brian Niccol took over. Read more below in today’s Markets A.

Earnings season kicks into high gear this week.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the coffee shop giant, agreeing that its former CEO did not make “flagrantly false” statements about its sales results.

Verizon is aiming to attract customers by offering simpler plans, dropping activation and upgrade fees and unveiling a ‌new loyalty program offering discounts and perks. The U.S. company is aggressively ‌competing with AT&T and T-Mobile in the saturated U.S. telecoms market, where network providers have extended device ​subsidies, added plan discounts and increased network infrastructure spending. Verizon said its new program will offer customers 3% back on bills from July that can be used toward new phones or at consumer brands like Sephora, Hilton, Marriott and Starbucks.

Starbucks shares fell 2% Tuesday after a promotion misfire and threatened boycotts in South Korea, one of the chain’s biggest markets. The company’s South Korean licensee recently ran a “Tank Day” marketing campaign, offering discounts on the company’s “Tank” tumbler series. The promotion’s last week coincided with the anniversary of a 1980 massacre in South Korea, when the country’s military deployed soldiers in tanks to crush a demonstration, killing protesters.

Starbucks is laying off 300 U.S. workers and closing several regional corporate offices in the latest move by Chief Executive Brian Niccol to turn the coffee chain around. Starbucks said the 300 U.S. corporate roles are based in Seattle along with remote positions scattered around the country. The company said it is closing regional corporate offices in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Burbank, Calif. It will maintain North American regional offices in New York, Toronto and Coral Gables, Fla., along with its Seattle headquarters and a new Nashville, Tenn., corporate hub.