McDonald’s announced a plan to hire 375,000 employees across the U.S. this summer.

The plan, announced on Monday, is one of the fast-food chain’s largest hiring pushes in years, according to a news release. It goes hand in hand with McDonald’s goal to open 900 new restaurants in the U.S. by 2027 and its plan to serve more customers during summer months.

Joe Erlinger, McDonald’s president for the U.S., met with Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer at a location just outside of Columbus, Ohio, to announce the news. The hiring will be across McDonald’s company-owned and franchised locations, according to a company spokesperson.

The news comes amid the Trump administration’s push for businesses to invest more in the U.S. The White House reported that it secured more than $5 trillion in new investment promises in the U.S. during Trump’s first 100 days in office.

Those investments include a $500 billion plan in manufacturing by Apple, and $500 billion investment plans announced by Nvidia and by a coalition of companies including SoftBank and Oracle.

Earlier this month, McDonald’s reported its worst quarterly sales for the U.S. since the height of the pandemic in 2020.

The restaurant company reported U.S. same-store sales fell 3.6%, the largest three-month drop since Q2 2020, when they plunged 8.7%. Forecasts had been for a decline of just 1.7%.

McDonald’s executives told investors during a call that the reason for the decline was that ‘people are just visiting less,’ adding that traffic among middle-income diners fell by “nearly double digits” alongside an ongoing drop-off among low-income ones. As an example, they said more people appear to be skipping breakfast entirely to cut back on spending, or eating breakfast at home.

The fast-food chain has over 38,000 locations in over 100 countries, and is aiming for 50,000 by 2027.

CAMDEN, N.J. — The father and son duo behind a stock fraud scheme involving the infamous $100 million New Jersey deli were sentenced to several months in prison Tuesday.

Peter Coker Jr. was sentenced to 40 months. With credit for time served, he owes about 12 months locked up. But he could be released sooner than that given how federal inmates are granted time off for good conduct.

Earlier Tuesday, the 56-year-old’s father, North Carolina businessman Peter Coker Sr., was sentenced to six months in jail, to be followed by six months of home confinement, for his role in the case.

The Cokers and a third man, James Patten, admitted to the scheme in orchestrated the fraudulent inflation of the share price of two companies to better position them for mergers with private firms.

One of the companies, Hometown International, ended up having a market capitalization of more than $100 million despite owning just a small, money-losing deli in South Jersey.

The other company, E-Waste, had an even larger market cap, despite having no business operations.

Coker Jr. was brutally attacked while in a Thai prison awaiting extradition in early 2023, his attorney said at his sentencing for securities fraud in New Jersey federal court on Tuesday.

Coker Jr. was set upon by as many as 10 fellow inmates in the Thai lock-up, his lawyer said. Coker Jr. was being held there after police found him in Thailand while under indictment in the United States for the securities fraud scheme involving the deli owner and a related shell company

Coker Jr.’s lawyer, John Azzarello, cited his time in the Thai prison and in the 26 or so months he has served in an Essex County jail, in asking a judge to sentence him to effectively time served, or only a few months more.

Azzarello called those conditions in both jails “inhumane.”

Azzarello also detailed how Coker Jr. was suffering from severe cirrhosis of the liver as the result of alcohol abuse — “a bottle of whiskey a day” — before he was arrested in Thailand.

He said Coker Jr. had been hospitalized several times for his condition, and that doctors were considering doing a liver transplant.

Coker Jr., speaking to Judge Christine O’Hearn in U.S. District Court in Camden, said, “This crime has changed me profoundly.”

“The assault and the horrors I experienced in Bangkok prison, I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy,” Coker Jr. said, wearing a yellow one-piece jailhouse uniform.

“It was the lowest point in my life.”

He also expressed regret for his role in the scheme, which involved his father and another man.

“It’s very important to me that your honor and my parents know I wish I could go back,” and not commit the crime, Coker Jr. said.

“It kills me, every time I think about it, how my actions affected my parents,” he said.

“My parents should have never been associated with this abhorrent crime,” Coker Jr. said.

“My greed destroyed us both.”

Coker Jr. faces deportation after he serves his sentence. He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2019, and holds citizenship in the Caribbean nation St. Kitts.

During his sentencing, Coker Sr. was ordered to pay a $500,000 fine and pay up to $644,000 in restitution.

“I do stand before you extremely remorseful for my actions,” Coker Sr. said as his wife, daughter, grandchildren, and friends looked on.

“I’m terribly sorry for my part. This episode has been the worst time of my life,” the 82-year-old Chapel Hill resident said. “I’m sorry for every investor who has been harmed by my actions.”

Federal sentencing guidelines had suggested a prison sentence of 51 to 63 months for Coker Sr.

But prosecutors said they wanted less time than that, namely the top end of a range of zero to 24 months that they stipulated when he pleaded guilty.

Judge O’Hearn said she would have sentenced Coker Sr. to much more time in jail if he was not as old as he is.

“This was a fraudulent scheme from the inception,” Judge O’Hearn said at the start of the hearing.

“The companies are, in fact, worthless, and there is no prospect for recovery,” O’Hearn said.

“This was a multi-year, very sophisticated fraudulent scheme involving a sort of esoteric corporate structure, of which I’ve learned more than I ever care to,” the judge said. “One that was illegal … and it caused harm.”

The judge opened the hearing by delivering a blow to defense lawyers, adopting prosecutors’ argument that there were nearly $5 million in losses from the scheme, which included investments by Duke and Vanderbilt universities.

“What is the motivation here other than greed? Because I don’t see it,” O’Hearn asked at one point, after noting that all three defendants were each worth millions of dollars apiece.

Coker Sr., who was a star college basketball player at Dartmouth and then North Carolina State, has a net worth of $6 million, the judge said.

Patten is due to be sentenced on June 10.

The younger Coker was not in court while his father was sentenced, because of a long delay in transporting him from a jail in Essex County. He has been detained there without bail since being extradited from Thailand in March 2023 following his arrest there as a fugitive.

Coker Sr.’s lawyer, Zach Intrater, asked O’Hearn to sentence him to no prison time after describing him as a good family man who never disputed his criminal conduct after he was first charged.

“I don’t think they make very many more like Pete anymore,” the defense attorney said. “He’s courtly, his manners are impeccable.”

Intrater repeatedly referenced Susan Coker, who has been married to Peter for 61 years, asking the judge to allow the couple to remain together for what remains of their lives.

“He bears responsibility for engaging in an offense that didn’t just hurt other peopl,e that didn’t just hurt his family, but that involved his son, his only son, and knowing that his son has been incarcerated in part from his own actions and knowing what has happening to his son during that term of incarceration.”

“Judge, I think having to live with that is a punishment that could be worse than even what you could impose,” Intrater said.

The attorney also argued that Coker Sr. was not the “prime mover” for the scheme.

Susan Coker told the judge, “He’s just a wonderful guy.”

“I know if he had a second chance, he never would have done any of this,” Susan said, her voice cracking.

Coker Sr. and Patten were arrested in September 2022, months after both Hometown merged with a bioplastics company, and more than a year after E-Waste did its own merger with an electric vehicle company.

Coker Jr., who previously resided in Hong Kong, was arrested months later.

The men were indicted more than a year after CNBC detailed a web of questionable connections between Hometown and E-Waste, as well as the prior criminal and civil court cases of Coker Sr. and of Patten, and consulting deals with both companies that benefited those two men. 

The fraud came to light in April 2021 when hedge fund manager David Einhorn wryly noted that Hometown International’s market capitalization was $100 million despite owning just one asset whose annual revenue from selling sandwiches, soda, and chips was less than $36,000 for the past two years combined.

“The pastrami must be amazing,” Einhorn wrote in a letter to clients.

Intrater on Tuesday said that he believed the case was prosecuted in large part because of the Einhorn letter, which generated significant coverage in the media.

The scam, which ran from 2014 through September 2022, coordinated trading of the stocks of the companies, creating the false impression of demand for shares that traded on OTC Marketplace.

The scheme began when Patten suggested the creation of Hometown as an umbrella corporation to his friend Paul Morina, a high school principal and renowned wrestling coach. The company would go on to own the Your Hometown Deli in Paulsboro, New Jersey.

Morina and the other deli owner were unaware of Patten’s scheme to manipulate Hometown’s stock.

Hometown’s stock price rose by more than 900% during the scheme. The price of E-Waste rose by nearly 20,000%.

In 2010, Patten pleaded guilty in New Jersey federal court to a mail fraud charge in connection with sending a client a false financial statement to cover up bad investments he made using her money. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison in that case.

Four years before, Patten was barred by the broker-dealer FINRA from acting as a stockbroker for failing to satisfy an arbitration award of more than $753,000, violating securities laws, and unauthorized trading for churning a client’s account. 

Coker Sr. years ago was sued for allegedly hiding money from creditors and alleged business-related fraud. He denied wrongdoing in those cases.

UnitedHealth Group announced a new chief executive Tuesday, a sudden and surprising change following the fatal shooting in December of its UnitedHealthcare subsidiary’s leader.

Andrew Witty stepped down from leading UnitedHealth for unspecified “personal reasons,” the company said. Stephen J. Hemsley, who served as chief executive from 2006 to 2017, will return to the role and remain board chairman. Witty will serve as a senior adviser to Hemsley, the company said in a news release. 

UnitedHealth has been the focus of sharp criticism over the health insurance industry’s practices and has seen its stock plummet in the past year. The Justice Department has investigated its business activities.

UnitedHealth’s shares fell more than 17% Tuesday. The stock, which is part of the 30-company Dow Jones Industrial Average, closed at $311.38 a share, well off its recent high of $630.73 in November.

The company also said that it has suspended its annual outlook for 2025, to include ‘more types of benefit offerings than seen in the first quarter’ and because ‘the medical costs of many Medicare Advantage beneficiaries new to UnitedHealthcare remained higher than expected.’

‘The company expects to return to growth in 2026,’ the statement added.

In December, United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in what police described as a “premeditated, preplanned targeted attack” in midtown Manhattan as he was walking to an investors’ conference. 

Luigi Mangione, now 27, was arrested after a five-day manhunt at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

He faces federal and state charges in New York and Pennsylvania in connection with the shooting. He has pleaded not guilty to the murder and terrorism charges in New York, and not guilty to federal stalking and murder charges. If convicted of federal charges, Mangione could be sentenced to death.

Microsoft on Tuesday said that it’s laying off 3% of employees across all levels, teams and geographies.

“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.

The company reported better-than-expected results, with $25.8 billion in quarterly net income, and an upbeat forecast in late April.

Microsoft had 228,000 employees worldwide at the end of June, meaning that the move will affect thousands of employees.

It’s likely Microsoft’s largest round of layoffs since the elimination of 10,000 roles in 2023. In January the company announced a small round of layoffs that were performance-based. These new job cuts are not related to performance, the spokesperson said.

One objective is to reduce layers of management, the spokesperson said. In January Amazon announced that it was getting rid of some employees after noticing “unnecessary layers” in its organization.

Last week cybersecurity software provider CrowdStrike announced it would lay off 5% of its workforce.

In January, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts that the company would make sales execution changes that led to lower growth than expected in Azure cloud revenue that wasn’t tied to artificial intelligence. Performance in AI cloud growth outdid internal projections.

“How do you really tweak the incentives, go-to-market?” Nadella said. “At a time of platform shifts, you kind of want to make sure you lean into even the new design wins, and you just don’t keep doing the stuff that you did in the previous generation.”

On Monday, Microsoft shares stopped trading at $449.26, the highest price so far this year. They closed at a record $467.56 last July.

Financial technology company Chime on Tuesday filed paperwork to go public on the Nasdaq. The company intends to file under the ticker symbol “CHYM.”

“Chime is a technology company, not a bank,” the company said in its prospectus, noting it’s not a member of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Still, the company cited Bank of America, Capital One, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank and Wells Fargo as competitors.

Most of Chime’s new members who arrange for direct deposit previously did direct deposit elsewhere, “most commonly with large incumbent banks,” the company said.

According to the filing, Chime picks up revenue from interchange fees associated with purchases that members make with Chime debit cards and credit cards. Banks collect interchange fees, which are generally a percentage of the transaction value, plus a set amount for each transaction depending on the rates determined by card networks such as Visa. The banks then pass money on to Chime.

In the March quarter, Chime generated $12.4 million in net income on $518.7 million in revenue. Revenue grew 32%. At the end of March, Chime had 8.6 million active members, up about 23% year over year. Average revenue per active member, at $251, was up from $231. It has members in all 50 states, and 55% of them female. The average member age is 36.

Around two-thirds of members look to Chime for their “primary financial relationship,” Chime said. The term refers to those who made at least 15 purchases using its card or received a qualifying direct deposit of at least $200 in the past calendar month.

Chime offers a slew of other services in addition to its cards. Eligible members with direct deposit can borrow up to $500 with a fixed interest rate of $5 for every $100 borrowed. The company doesn’t charge late fees or compound interest.

Following an extended drought, IPOs looked poised for a rebound when President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. CoreWeave’s March debut provided some momentum. But Trump’s tariff announcement in April roiled the market and led companies including Chime as well as trading platform eToro, online lender Klarna and ticket marketplace StubHub to delay their plans.

EToro is now scheduled to debut this week, and digital health company Hinge Health issued its pricing range for its IPO on Tuesday, win an expected offering coming soon. Chime’s public filing is the latest sign that emerging tech companies are preparing to test the market’s appetite for risk. Last month Figma said it had filed confidentially for an initial public offering.

Chris Britt, Chime’s co-founder and CEO, told CNBC in 2020 that it would be ready for an IPO within the next 12 months. But in late 2021 markets turned negative on technology as inflation picked up, prompting central bankers to ratchet up interest rates.

Chime was founded in 2012 and is based in San Francisco. It ranked 22nd on CNBC’s 2024 Disruptor 50 list of privately held companies.

Investors include Crosslink Capital, DST Global, General Atlantic, Iconic Strategic Partners and Menlo Ventures.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.