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The Antwerp Six, and the country's famed fashion schools, set a template balancing "intellect and practicality" — and their influence has only multiplied.

Possessed of a steely resolve, clear design signatures and an ability to tell vivid stories with wearable clothes, Belgian and Belgium-trained designers are ruling the roost in fashion today.

“I think it’s the right moment for them because we are in a period when it’s very important to express yourself in fashion. And they learned how to work with garments in a way [that] is very expressive,” said Walter Van Beirendonck, one of the original Antwerp Six who catapulted a small European city to global fashion fame 40 years ago. “Fashion needs this kind of deeper thinking.”

He was interviewed Friday night at the opening of an exhibition dedicated to The Antwerp Six at MoMu, where other designers, educators and curators were quizzed about the enormous impact of the nation and graduates of its famous schools — the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and La Cambre in Brussels.

Chanel, Hermès, Gucci, Prada, Saint Laurent, Versace, Balmain, Tom Ford, Maison Margiela, Diesel, Rabanne and Marni are just some of the European houses that currently boast Belgian-born or Belgium-schooled designers at the helm — not forgetting such notable homegrown talents as Kris Van Assche, Olivier Theyskens, Christian Wijnants, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Julie Kegels and Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, to name but a few.

Van Beirendonck and other key members of the Six — headlined by Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester — remain fixtures of Paris Fashion Week, even if the latter two have retired from the runway and passed the design reins to other talents.

“You go to Britain for a concept; to France for something [that] is about the body; to Italy for fabrics; America for sportswear. What you come to Belgium for is a combination of the intellect and the practicality,” said milliner Stephen Jones, who has done otherworldly toppers for Van Beirendonck for decades. “It’s not that they’re not ambitious, but they go for the solid, long path.”

What’s more, “it’s not about this season or the fabulous image, it’s actually about making something that people want to buy,” Jones said in an interview. “The reason they have a business is because people wanted to wear their clothes. It wasn’t PR puff.…There is a steadfastness.”

Belgians “often find the right balance between dream and reality,” Van Noten agreed. “It’s always quite grounded.

“We had to do things in a different way because we were not part of the fashion system,” he explained. “We questioned the fashion system: how things are made, sold, promoted, communicated.

“For me, it all became clear the moment I started to do fashion shows, because fashion shows gave me really the possibility to tell a full story, that it was not only making clothes, but also you were showing the type of models, the lighting, the hair, the makeup, the music. It was really kind of like making a play,” he enthused.

“I think it’s always good to be a little bit of an outsider and Antwerp was, at that time [when The Antwerp Six emerged], it was not really a fashion city,” agreed Linda Loppa, who has helmed the MoMu fashion museum and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts’ fashion school in her long career, which started as a designer and retailer. “But it was always a city based on art and culture.”

One of the world’s major seaports, Antwerp has long welcomed and hosted new industries — whether the diamond trade or printing — plus new thinking in science, philosophy and the arts.

“We are probably a culture that takes things seriously, whether it’s food, art, literature, fashion design or industrial design,” Loppa said. “In that sense, it makes it more profound what we do.”

Most observers also pointed to the quality of fashion and design educations in Belgium, including Raf Simons, who studied industrial and furniture design at Genk’s LUCA School of Arts, and Pieter Mulier, an architecture graduate from the Brussels Institut Saint-Luc.

“I think our education system is different. It’s less molding, it’s much more open and interdisciplinary,” said Mulier, who spent most of his fashion career working with Simons — at his signature label, Jil Sander, Christian Dior and Calvin Klein — before taking the design helm of Maison Alaïa and, starting July 1, Versace.

Mulier also credited The Antwerp Six for pioneering a pathway that has inspired generations of designers.

“We grew up with all of this, [the Six] showing that it was possible to do something different and still succeed internationally,” he said. “They were not the first; the Japanese [designers] came before. But it showed us that everything is possible from a small country. We’re in Flanders. It’s even smaller than Belgium.”

Simons, co-creative director of Prada since 2020, agreed the example of the Six, plus maverick Belgian designer Martin Margiela, provided much “motivation and stimulation” early in his career. “I was in the middle of the situation because I did an internship at Walter [Van Beirendonck] for two years,” he related in an interview.

The Neerpelt-born designer said having experienced “the smallness of it, or relative smallness of it compared to businesses today,” made entering fashion seem less daunting than it might be today.

“When I started in ’95, I was still very naive and thinking like, ‘Let’s just make clothes and hopefully a few people will like it,'” he said. “That was more the thinking. We weren’t thinking about structures and shows.”

Wijnants, who graduated from the Royal Academy in 2000 and launched his eponymous label in 2003, did not mince words about how demanding his fashion education was.

“It’s so competitive, and the level is quite high. When I studied there, there were about 200 people applying, only 60 got in in the first year, and we graduated with 12 people,” he said in an interview at his Antwerp boutique. “So you work really hard to to succeed and to progress to the next year. It was a healthy competition, but it was very stressful. I think that helps building really strong designers who can survive.”

Students were taught to never be satisfied with their designs, and compelled by professors to “go further and further, make it stronger, make it even better, being very perfectionist,” he recalled.

They were also compelled to drill down to discover their own true style.

“What they teach you in the academy is to be authentic. I think this word ‘authentic’ is really what describes best the designers in Belgium, because everybody’s just doing his or her own thing and not looking to the left or to the right,” Wijnants said.

Van Beirendonck, who was head of the Royal Academy’s fashion department from to 2007 until 2022, called “storytelling” a key element of the education.

“We try to go very deep, and [students] have the possibility over four years to really work on the signature and go very deep in their own world,” he said. “It’s a very important period in their life to have the possibility to develop their own signatures. You work very intensely together with your teachers, and you have to create an opinion, you have to present your garments. It’s very intense and very demanding also.”

Kaat Debo, director of MoMu, noted that the Royal Academy has “internationalized like crazy” since the days of The Antwerp Six, now attracting students of more than 35 different nationalities.

“The school has the luxury of attracting top talent from all over the world — and that’s an important evolution,” she said. “But they really focus on an individual approach — a lot of one-to-one. Teaching drawing is still a very important element in the training and, of course, finding your own signature.”

According to Floriane de Saint Pierre, who operates a namesake executive search and consulting firm in Paris, it’s key to understand “the path to recognition.”

While The Antwerp Six were propelled by wide press coverage and powerful multibrand retailers hungry for new stories, subsequent generations of Belgian- or Belgium-trained creative directors benefited from fashion awards, particularly the ANDAM prize, or from launching their own brands in Paris, as Anthony Vaccarello did before joining Saint Laurent; Haider Ackermann before being recruited by Berluti, Canada Goose or Tom Ford, and Demna with Vetements before being snatched up by Balenciaga and later Gucci.

Others received “in-house professional development” at a key training ground like Maison Margiela, where the likes of Nadège Vanhée (Hermès), Julian Klausner (Dries Van Noten) and Matthieu Blazy (Chanel) all got their start. (Like Mulier, Blazy also worked under Simon, who spawned his own unofficial fashion school.)

Also, since Belgium did not have an established heritage of fashion houses upon which to build, the creative education there unites “intellect, function — quite a few come from architecture or design — and a prescient sense of where society was heading,” de Saint Pierre said.

Meryll Rogge, who founded her signature label six years ago and is also the creative director of Marni in Milan, credited her Belgian fashion education for learning how to think independently.

“There’s no strict guideline on how to behave as a Belgian designer,” she said. “Everybody really follows his own intuition and way to create.”

In addition, “Belgians do have quite a hard work ethic. And the passion surpasses the ego,” she said. “The passion for the craft and for the job is the most important thing for us, more than the networking or the glamour. We’re in it for what it is.”

Here’s a startling statistic: The last time Amazon shares traded as cheaply as they are now, as a multiple of earnings, was during the 2008 financial crisis, according to Koyfin data. Indeed, Amazon’s stock is so cheap that it’s trading at a discount to Walmart for the first time ever.

Considering that Amazon’s revenue is growing at roughly a 12%-plus annual basis, and Walmart at closer to 5%, the disparity in their valuations doesn’t make much sense. Then again, it doesn’t make any sense that shares of AI chip giant Nvidia are now trading at their lowest forward earnings multiple in seven years—or that the valuations of Microsoft and Oracle have converged for the first time in a decade. Is this some kind of selective AI-wariness syndrome? (and if so, what does that mean for OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s IPO prospects?).

Sure, the whole market has sold off in the past month thanks to the Iran war. But that doesn’t justify how cheap these stocks are. At Nvidia’s closing price on Monday at $165.17, it is trading at a forward earnings multiple of 19.9. Apple, in contrast, is trading at 28.7 times forward earnings.

Does that make sense given their relative growth rate? Nvidia’s revenue is expected to expand 71% in the year to next January, while Apple’s topline is projected to expand 12% in the year to September, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Even assuming Nvidia’s growth slows sharply in the coming years, it’s still likely to outpace Apple.

Nvidia is arguably the biggest money-maker from the AI boom, at least so far. Apple hasn‘t benefited much at all. Investors, though, don't seem to care.

What about other big tech stocks such as Microsoft’s? After falling about 26% so far this year, the software giant’s shares are trading at 20.4 times forward earnings, compared with smaller cloud and software rival Oracle at 18.5. Two years ago, Microsoft was trading at 34 times forward profits to Oracle’s 20 times, Koyfin data shows.

One explanation for Microsoft’s slide may be that analysts project its annual revenue growth will stagnate at around 16% for the next couple of years, close to its growth level of the past few years, according to S&P. Oracle’s topline growth, in contrast, is expected to spike to 46.5% by fiscal 2028, compared with 8.4% in its fiscal 2025 year that ended last May.

But Oracle is a fraction of Microsoft's size, which makes a growth comparison tricky. Moreover, Oracle is borrowing heavily to fund its expansion, which makes it a much riskier bet. This is what you might call an AI opportunity.

US Department of Labor to offer plan administrators safe harbour process for selecting alternative investments

The Trump administration on Monday took its first step in opening the more than $10tn US retirement marketplace to complex and illiquid private markets deals such as corporate takeovers and direct loans, as it pushes forward with an executive order issued by the president last summer.

The Department of Labor, a US agency that oversees the regulation of US retirement plans such as popular tax-deferred 401k savings accounts, said on Monday it would offer administrators of retirement plans like large asset managers a “process-based safe harbour” when selecting alternative investment options for ordinary savers so long as they considered factors to safeguard investors.

The new rule could help open savings plans to private equity deals and private credit loans. However, it comes amid turmoil in private markets as buyout deals have struggled to exit a $4tn stockpile of investments and reported lacklustre returns, while private credit funds for wealthy individuals have seen a recent explosion of redemption requests that has forced some funds to restrict withdrawals.

Wealthy individuals who had ploughed more than $200bn into private debt funds over the past decade have sought to pull over $13bn in recent months due to fears of falling returns and rising loan defaults, causing some managers to implement withdrawal limits that are features of such funds to avoid the risk of fireselling assets

Nonetheless, the partial “gates” have spooked investors. Shares in Blackstone, Blue Owl, Ares, Apollo and KKR that manage large funds for wealthy investors have all fallen over 15 per cent this year.

Individual retirement savings plans, which currently manage more than $10tn in assets in the US, have almost no exposure to unlisted assets and instead are composed mostly of publicly traded bond funds, mutual funds and broad index funds. While there has been no explicit rule against offering private investments in such investment accounts, managers of 401k plans have been reluctant to do so out of fear of being sued.

The safe harbour proposed by the DoL could defray some of these litigation fears, accelerating the push of private assets into the savings of millions of ordinary Americans. The DoL said its proposed regulation would offer a safe harbour if managers of retirement plans considered six key risk factors such as the performance of funds, their costs and their ability to sell assets to meet withdrawals. Other factors include funds’ valuation practices and their complexity.

Large asset managers such as BlackRock, Partners Group and industry lobbying groups told the FT they applauded the new rules. “BlackRock supports this and other policy initiatives that thoughtfully expand access to investments historically out of reach, enhance diversification, and improve long-term outcomes,” said Martin Small, chief financial officer of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.

The Trump administration is asking plans to study funds’ ability to sell assets and meet investors’ oftentimes significant liquidity needs, for instance, if a saver retires or falls into financial hardship. Plans must show a “prudent process” in considering this risk and the factors that are part of its safe harbour.

The rulemaking, long awaited on Wall Street due to the potential to open products to trillions of dollars in new assets, was slow to be released. Some industry experts told the FT that they worried recent turmoil in private markets would cause a delay to its release.

Adding to industry fears, last month, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent warned about “rotten” private equity entering ordinary 401k retirement accounts. But Bessent ultimately signed off on Monday’s ruling.

An administration official said Bessent had been engaged in the rulemaking throughout months of deliberations and that some recommendations did respond to recent turmoil in private markets.

The rule asks for a more detailed process for valuing private assets without a recognisable trading price, like a private loan, in response to investor fears about credit valuations, said the person. It also excludes so-called continuation funds, where a private equity firm sells assets between funds it manages, from the safe harbour due to the inherent conflicts in the deals.

“This proposed rule is an initial step in implementing the president’s executive order in a safe and smart manner, broadening access to additional retirement plan options for millions of Americans while being mindful of the importance of protecting retirement assets,” said Bessent in a press release.

“Our goal is to deliver on President Trump’s promise for a new golden age by fostering a retirement system that allows more Americans to retire with dignity,” said US secretary of labour Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a prominent critic of the finance industry, criticised the rule and effort to open retirements to private assets.

“As cracks emerge in the private credit market, private equity returns fall to 16-year lows, and crypto keeps tumbling, President Trump has decided now is the time to stick all of these risky assets into Americans’ 401(k)s,” she said.

Top energy developer warns on overbuilding power supplies for AI

David Crane says data centres should bear the cost of developing infrastructure to serve their demand

A leading US clean energy investor has warned of the risk of overbuilding energy infrastructure for the AI boom, urging power companies to require data centres cover the cost of the build-out — whether they use the electricity or not.

David Crane, chief executive of Generate Capital, an investment firm with $8bn assets under management, told the FT that data centres’ rush to secure electricity may result in excess power plants — the costs of which could fall on power companies.

“As much as the data centre people tell you their demand for electricity is infinite, it feels to me like there will be a time when they’ll be overbuilt. They’re going to have spare electrons,” he said.

“Someone’s got to pay for the infrastructure that’s put in place and then not being used . . . you need to have take-or-pay contracts, so if they suddenly don’t need the power, it’s on the back of the data centre company, not the power company.”

Generate Capital is a sustainable infrastructure investor and owner-operator, with a focus on sectors such as power, electric vehicles and industrial decarbonisation.

The company develops on-site gas, battery and renewable power supplies for data centres and holds investments in data centre developers such as Soluna.

Crane served as under-secretary for infrastructure in former president Joe Biden’s energy department and as CEO of power giant NRG Energy.

His comments come as the US power grid struggles to keep up with the wave of data centre-fuelled electricity demand.

BloombergNEF estimates US data centre power demand is set to surge from 34.7 gigawatts in 2024 to 106GW by 2035.

Companies such as Sam Altman’s OpenAI have warned AI “requires far more electricity than the US can currently provide and the growing shortfall threatens our leadership”.

To avoid long waits to connect to the grid and alleviate concerns about their impact on utility bills, data centre companies are turning to on-site power plants and contracting newly built supply, and power companies are rushing to meet this demand.

NextEra Energy, the largest electricity company in the US, said it is planning to build at least 15GW of new plants ‌for data centres over the next nine years, equivalent to the power demands of 15mn homes.

Utility capital spending plans have risen 19 per cent for 2026 to 2030, according to Wolfe Research.

But concerns are rising over how large data centre’s ultimate demand for power will be and how the costs to build them will be recovered.

Because on-site power plants are less reliable than a grid connection, they have to be built oversized to ensure the data centre stays online. If a data centre is eventually connected to the grid it may end up with more energy than it needs.

Data centres could also require less power as AI chips become more efficient, or if quantum computing takes off.

“The AI ship has sailed, but the energy cost of serving it is very much in question,” said Ben Hertz-Shargel, global head of grid edge at Wood Mackenzie.

However, Crane said overbuilding could present an “opportunity” if planned for correctly, with underused power plants integrated back into the grid to boost supply for regular customers and bring down electricity costs.

Company is part of growing cohort of UK groups developing faster AI processors

London-based start-up Fractile is in talks to raise more than $200mn as part of a growing group of UK chip companies seeking to challenge Nvidia’s dominance.

Fractile, backed by former Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger and Nato’s Innovation Fund, is in discussions with investors including venture capital firm Accel to raise new funding at a $1bn valuation, according to people familiar with the matter.

A deal has not yet been finalised and talks could still change, they added.

Founded in 2022, Fractile is one of several British start-ups aiming to capitalise on soaring demand for computing power by building AI chips that are faster than Nvidia’s. Its fundraising comes a month after 25-year-old British entrepreneur James Dacombe raised $220mn for his AI chip start-up Olix.

Investor interest in potential challengers to Nvidia has been reignited amid growing signs that the $4.3tn US chip giant’s traditional GPUs face limitations in so-called AI “inference”.

This has led Nvidia to step up efforts to defend its dominance. This month it launched a new chip dedicated to running AI apps more quickly and efficiently following its $20bn deal with Al chip start-up Groq in December.

Like Groq and Olix, Fractile’s chips rely on a different kind of memory technology to Nvidia’s GPUs — static random access memory or SRAM — to improve the speed and cost of AI inference, with a focus on both hardware and software.

The start-up is also tapping growing interest from governments around the world for homegrown “sovereign” AI capabilities. Last month it announced plans to invest £100mn over the next three years to expand in London and Bristol, including a new industrial hardware engineering facility.

However, other UK chip ventures have proven less successful. Graphcore, a UK-based chip start-up, was acquired by SoftBank in 2024 for just above $600mn — less than the total amount of venture capital that the company had raised.

Fractile is led by chief executive Walter Goodwin, who completed a PhD in Oxford. The start-up’s team includes veterans of chipmakers Nvidia and Imagination Technologies, as well as several former Graphcore engineers.

Fractile raised early funding from the investment group Oxford Science Enterprises, which is in talks to invest in the latest deal. Prior to the most recent funding talks, it had raised about $15mn of seed financing from investors including Kindred Capital and the Nato Innovation Fund.

Fractile, Accel and OSE declined to comment.

Decision could be published in April with foreign capital requirements component moving to parliament for debate

Swiss lawmakers have assured senior UBS executives that they will water down stringent new rules as Bern finalises a decision on how much capital the country’s largest bank should hold.

Senior parliamentarians have privately told UBS executives they would come up with a compromise on the finance ministry’s proposals, which would increase its capital requirements by $22bn, according to people familiar with the situation.

The “too big to fail” reform package was unveiled last year by Swiss finance minister Karin Keller-Sutter in response to the collapse of Credit Suisse in 2023. 

The government’s decision could be published as soon as April, while the most contentious element — the foreign capital requirements — will move to parliament for debate.

The issue has raised questions over Switzerland’s position as a global financial centre. Regulators argue that the rules are necessary to protect depositors, while critics say it will harm the country’s competitiveness.

A core group of lawmakers, who argue that the capital requirements are too stringent, has this year indicated to UBS that they would “solve the problem by agreeing on a compromise”, according to one of the people.

While the group is influential, any proposal could still face opposition from other parties, including those on the left.

Switzerland is deciding how much risk the country is willing to tolerate from its last remaining global banking champion, whose balance sheet is sizeable relative to its domestic economy.

UBS executives have grown frustrated with what they see as the unwillingness of the Swiss government to negotiate on the reforms, and are pinning their hopes on parliament to moderate the proposals.

The bank has warned the proposed rule changes risk putting it at a competitive disadvantage internationally and would leave the Swiss finance sector more strictly regulated than rival jurisdictions such as the US and the UK.

UBS executives have privately warned that failure to reach a compromise could push the bank to move to a more favourable jurisdiction.

The finance ministry rejected a compromise proposal put forward by lawmakers late last year that would have allowed UBS to use additional tier one debt to meet half of the new capital demands, underscoring the limits of parliament’s influence at that stage.

One person involved in the discussions warned that the terms of any new compromise had not been decided but noted that a key parliamentary economic affairs and taxation committee would “take over” the process in May. “We will have more decision-making power” from that point, the person said.

The committee is one of several within the Swiss parliamentary system responsible for drafting, reviewing and amending legislation related to economic policy, tax and trade. The proposals are then likely to be debated by lawmakers from June.

There are two main parts of the government’s “too big to fail” package. First, so-called ordinance changes — a form of executive regulation not requiring a parliamentary vote — will focus on the quality of UBS’s capital, tightening the treatment of items such as deferred tax assets, in-house software and other hard-to-value assets.

These would add between $2bn and $3bn to UBS’s core capital requirements. However, analysts estimate the broader figure could be as high as $11bn because the measures will restrict the types of capital UBS can count towards its regulatory requirements.

Second, UBS would be required to hold substantially more capital against its international operations, in particular by increasing the amount of equity backing its foreign subsidiaries. The changes are designed to ensure that pivotal units can be stabilised or resolved independently in a crisis, without relying on support from the Swiss parent.

Swiss lawmakers have greater scope to influence or dilute the larger $20bn capital component held against foreign subsidiaries, raising the prospect that the final burden could be materially reduced.

UBS declined to comment. One person familiar with its thinking said the package could still prove bad for the bank overall: “Even if assurances are made, there is no guarantee that the end result will be palatable.”

In December, UBS shares hit a 17-year high above SFr35 on hopes of a compromise on capital rules. However, the stock has fallen more than a fifth this year and closed at SFr29.56 in Zurich on Monday.

The Iran war will likely push inflation higher in coming months, the New York Fed President said, but he signaled the central bank has room to wait and see if those pressures last

The Iran war will likely push inflation higher in coming months, a senior Federal Reserve official said Monday, but he signaled the central bank’s current interest-rate setting gives it room to wait and see if those pressures last.

In a speech on New York City’s Staten Island, New York Fed President John Williams said that the Middle East conflict has “added a great deal of uncertainty” and has already begun lifting prices. That effect would likely reverse after the conflict ends, Williams said. But he warned that while it persists, it could create a complex economic shock that could both fuel additional inflation and slow economic growth.

For now, Williams signaled, he is in no hurry to support adjustments to the Fed’s interest-rate target, which has held steady at 3.5% to 3.75% since December. “The current stance of monetary policy is well positioned to balance the risks to our maximum employment and price-stability goals,” Williams said, according to a published text of his remarks.

Since attacks began Feb. 28, the Iran war and the resulting shock to global oil markets have created a challenging environment for the Fed. Rising energy costs have already pushed up gasoline prices.

Policymakers are anxious to see whether those increases spur expectations of higher inflation in the long-term, a dynamic that can itself generate inflation. Williams noted Monday that so far, there is no sign that is happening.

On the other hand, the supply crunch for oil, fertilizer and other critical commodities could push down economic activity by straining households’ and businesses’ budgets.

Speaking earlier Monday, Chair Jerome Powell said it is too early to say how the Fed would confront that dilemma.

“We’re not really facing it yet because we don’t know what the economic effects will be,” Powell said.

At the start of the year, economists and investors widely believed the Fed would opt for a few more rate cuts in 2026, continuing the easing cycle that began in late 2024. This month, however, traders’ bets have shifted toward the possibility that inflation from the Iran war will lead the Fed to hold policy steady this year.

Although the labor market has cooled over the past few years, Williams pointed to signs that it has stabilized since last summer, a development that could allow the Fed to take its time considering whether to bring rates lower.

“Recent indicators of labor market conditions do not point to a sharp change in the balance between labor demand and supply,” Williams said. He added that some surveys suggest that sedate hiring has made job hunting especially frustrating for those out of work.

The streamer, which currently has Christmas games, is among those interested in the new Thanksgiving-Eve matchup

Netflix NFLX -0.49%decrease; red down pointing triangle is ready for more football.

The streamer is looking to expand its current two-game package to four games, according to people familiar with the matter. It is interested in adding the National Football League’s new Thanksgiving Eve game and an international game, likely in the season’s opening week, those people said.

Netflix is in the final year of its three-year Christmas Day game package, for which it paid about $75 million a game.

Sports and live events are seen as a means to attract and keep subscribers and an opportunity for Netflix to boost its nascent advertising business. In addition to eyeing more NFL games, Netflix has added boxing matchups and other sporting exhibitions, as well as some WWE content, in recent years. It carried its first Major League Baseball game last week, part of a $50 million-a-year deal that also included the Home Run Derby component of the All-Star game and the annual “Field of Dreams” game.

The NFL reclaimed the rights to four games as part of its deal last year to sell the NFL Network to Disney’s ESPN and take an ownership stake in the sports service. A fifth game is also up for grabs—the first international game of the season, which the NFL has sold as a stand-alone property for the past two seasons.

The league is taking a flexible approach to selling the games and is willing to field offers for some or all of the inventory from suitors, said a person familiar with the NFL’s thinking. In other words, these five games could end up being sold to multiple services.

Google’s YouTube, which last season carried an international game and has the rights to the Sunday Ticket package offering out-of-market games, has expressed interest in additional games, people familiar with the situation said. Some broadcast partners and Amazon, which carries Thursday Night Football, are also open to potentially adding more games, said people familiar with their plans.

Separately, the NFL is seeking to open up its deals with current rights holders, motivated in part by the National Basketball Association’s lucrative new pact with ESPN and NBC. Under the NFL’s current agreements with CBS, NBC and Fox, the league has an opt-out window after the 2029-30 season.

The sale of CBS parent Paramount to Skydance Media triggered a change-of-ownership clause allowing the NFL to renegotiate its $2.1 billion annual agreement. Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison has said he expects to maintain the company’s relationship with the NFL.

The NFL also owns a small stake in Paramount.

If the NFL reaches a new pact with CBS, it is expected to turn its attention to new deals with other broadcast rights holders, people familiar with the matter said. A potential sticking point will be the networks’ desire to extend the contracts’ length and lock in any new pricing to stave off another increase soon.

The NFL’s deals with Fox, CBS and Amazon are up after the 2033 season, while its agreement with ESPN expires after the 2034 season.

Most received two full retroactive paychecks Monday, DHS says; security officers had gone more than five weeks without pay

Transportation Security Administration officers are getting paid again.

After more than five weeks of working without pay due to a funding impasse, most TSA employees received two, full retroactive paychecks on Monday, according to union officials and a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman. The spokeswoman said the department is working to complete processing for the remaining half-paycheck owed.

Payments resumed Monday after President Trump late last week directed federal officials to pay TSA workers through an executive order. Over the past month, travelers have endured hourslong waits at airports in Houston, Atlanta, New York and elsewhere as TSA officers called out from work. Union officials have said many are working side jobs to cover bills.

Wait times at TSA checkpoints eased in some major airports around the country on Monday, according to TSA data, though estimated times for some security lines, including at Houston airports, continued to stretch past an hour throughout the day.

Absences continued at airports through the weekend, according to DHS. Nearly 10.6% of TSA officers called out on Sunday, down from a peak of about 12.4% on Friday.

Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport was Sunday’s most affected airport, where more than 38% of officers called out, DHS said. More than a third of officers called out at airports in Houston, New Orleans and Atlanta.

Trump’s executive order covers back pay for the officers—paychecks missed since funding for DHS lapsed on Feb. 14. The order directed administration officials to use federal funds relating to TSA operations in order to pay security officers. Congress still hasn’t reached a deal to fund the department and is on its two-week recess.

“To say we are utterly disgusted and disappointed with our elected officials is an understatement,” said Hydrick Thomas, president of the union that represents TSA officers. “Congress must come back to Washington, fix this crisis, and stop putting politics over people and vacation over values.”

TSA officers’ call-out rates at some airports have hit 40% to 50% while DHS has been shut down, according to Airlines for America, a trade association for major U.S. carriers. Assaults on TSA officers have increased sixfold in that time, the group said.

TSA staffing challenges could linger. Working without pay during the shutdown has prompted more than 500 officers to leave the agency, the DHS spokeswoman said.

Union officials said Monday that it wasn’t clear whether the executive order covered future pay periods, should the funding impasse continue.

DHS and the Office of Management and Budget didn’t immediately comment on how future pay periods would be covered.

Hellmann’s mayonnaise-maker’s board met Monday afternoon to review details of the transaction

Unilever ULVR 1.09%increase; green up pointing triangle is in advanced talks to combine its food business with spice-maker McCormick MKC 1.22%increase; green up pointing triangle in a deal that would create a new food behemoth worth roughly $60 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

A cash-and-stock deal could be announced as soon as Tuesday, when McCormick is set to report its latest quarterly results, the people said, cautioning that the plans could still slip.

The major strategy shift by Unilever would continue a trend of consumer conglomerates streamlining their businesses and would leave U.K.-based Unilever focused on beauty, personal-care and home products.

As part of the deal, Unilever shareholders are expected to own about two-thirds of the new food business, the people said. The deal includes a cash component of around $16 billion, the people said.

The deal is expected to be structured as a so-called reverse Morris trust, which offers tax benefits.

Unilever has a market value of more than $130 billion. Its food labels include Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Knorr soup mixes.

McCormick’s market value was a little over $14 billion as of Monday. The company is known by its red-capped bottled spices and rectangular tins and owns brands including French’s yellow mustard, Old Bay seasoning and Cholula hot sauce.

Unilever’s board was meeting Monday afternoon to review details of the transaction, the people familiar with the matter added.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Unilever and McCormick were in talks regarding a potential food combination.