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With nearly 40,000 locations in over 100 countries, tens of millions of people worldwide regularly eat McDonald’s iconic burgers. But in an Instagram post that’s blowing up the internet, company CEO Chris Kempczinski appears less-than-thrilled to be eating one himself. The video was posted to Kempczinski’s Instagram account a month ago, but found new life over the weekend on platforms like X and TikTok, with many users wondering if it’s “intentionally cringe,” saying that Kempczinski looks “uncomfortable” or commenting how he “looks like he’s gonna hurl.” “From this video, it seems likely the CEO of McDonald’s has never eaten McDonald’s before,” one user wrote. …

Valentine’s Day is known as the day to celebrate all things love—and also a day for expensive dates. However, a new offering from one of your favorite fast food chains may have you skipping the white table cloths and snagging something from McDonald’s instead. McDonald’s is serving up caviar this Valentine’s Day. But there’s a catch. In a Feb. 2 announcement, the chain explained what the latest offering entails. “To be known is to be loved, and we know our fans love pairing our crispy Chicken McNuggets with their favorite caviar,” it said. “Inspired by this perfect match, we’re dropping our first-ever McNugget Caviar kits featuring premium Baerii Sturgeon caviar o…

The results are in. McDonald’s latest earnings report sheds light on the growing divide among U.S. consumers—as the wealthiest Americans continue to spend and eat out—while lower income families are making less trips to the Golden Arches as they battle the rising cost of living, skyrocketing food prices, grocery inflation, and stagnate wages. A look at McDonald’s third quarter earnings, released Tuesday after the closing bell, shows the fast food giant’s U.S. same-store sales increasing 2.5%, over the same period last year, (up 3.6% globally,)—but missing analyst expectations with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) coming in at $3.22, ten cents under expectations of $3…

I’ve read a lot of business memoirs. One I keep coming back to is Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc—the man who built McDonald’s into the global giant it is today. Kroc was 52 before he even heard of the McDonald brothers who originally started the company. That fact alone says a lot about how he thought: Success comes eventually, but only to those who keep showing up. Which brings me to McDonald’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday. McDonald’s reported solid results: global comparable sales up 3.6 percent, U.S. sales up 2.4 percent, revenue of $7.08 billion. The company is outperforming most competitors, but in a brutal environment: Fast-food traffic is…

By now, anyone who follows major brands has seen it or heard of it: The small bite that went ‘round the world. McDonald’s CEO and chairman Chris Kempczinski recently posted a video of himself on Instagram trying the brand’s newly launched Big Arch burger. It was basically the golden arches version of a dorky corporate unboxing. When he got the Big Arch into his grips, he took a reasonable, if small, bite and said, “I love this product. It is so good.” Cue the online mockfest. Kempczinski didn’t deliver the news like an amphetamine-laced nano-influencer. No, here he was eating like some quarter-zip normie on a first date. On a scale of 1-10 in exec…

Activist and advocate Tarana Burke has spent 30 years raising awareness of sexual violence and working to eradicate it. Burke, who currently serves as the chief vision officer of the nonprofit organization Me Too Movement, coined the phrase “Me Too” in 2006 as a way show young women of color who had experienced sexual violence that they were not alone. The phrase took off as a hashtag on social media in 2017 in the wake of sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein and other high-profile men. Since then, Burke’s organization has partnered with groups including &Rise, Black Women’s Blueprint, and Callisto to support survivors of sexual violence in more than 80…

It’s only February, and an outbreak of measles infections is already inching toward nearly 1,000 cases this year in the U.S. Infections are at an all-time high as a result of declining vaccination rates, following a steep rise in cases in 2025 at 2,280 cases, the highest in 33 years. This week saw new outbreaks concentrated in both South Carolina and Florida. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? As of Thursday, February 12, there were 910 confirmed measles cases in 24 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Another six cases were reported among international visitors coming to the U.S.) Those states are: Ari…

Texas has more than 600 known cases of measles on Tuesday as the outbreak in the western part of the state approaches the three-month mark. The U.S. was up to 800 cases of measles nationwide on Friday. Two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children died from measles-related illnesses in the epicenter in West Texas, and an adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated died of a measles-related illness. Other states with active outbreaks—defined as three or more cases—include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico. The U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024. North America has two other outbreak…

Measles infections in America have hit their highest numbers in 33 years. In 2025, cases have topped 1,900, and that number is expected to rise due to an ongoing outbreak in South Carolina. Here’s what you need to know about America’s latest measles outbreak and why the upcoming period could spell troubling times with the disease. What’s happened? Earlier this week, the South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) announced 27 new cases of measles in the state since the previous Friday, raising the total number of active measles cases in the southeastern state to 111. Due to the outbreak, there are currently 254 people in quarantine, with another 16 in…

Measles cases continue to rise in the United States nearly two and a half decades after the virus had been declared eliminated in the country. Currently, the epicenter of the U.S. measles outbreak is in Texas, where one child has now died from the disease. Here’s what to know about the outbreak, how far it has spread, and the symptoms to watch out for. Measles U.S. outbreak map As of the time of this writing, there are more than 130 cases of measles across two states alone, reports Reuters. Those states are Texas and New Mexico. However, while Texas has garnered the headlines due to it having the majority of cases, the disease has been found in other U.S. states si…

It’s not just the tech industry that is facing layoffs in 2025. In recent weeks, a number of high-profile media and entertainment companies have seen job cuts. The most recent media giant to reportedly undergo layoffs is the Walt Disney Company. Here’s what you need to know about the layoffs affecting the media industry right now. ABC News and Disney Entertainment Networks cut jobs The Walt Disney Company company is getting ready to let go of about 6% of its employees who work in the company’s ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks units, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The layoffs will total about 200 employees and will reportedly…

Transparency comes up a lot with respect to the use of AI in journalism. There are obvious reasons for this—journalism is all about bringing transparency to what happens in the world, after all—and AI is a new thing that many people (rightly) view with skepticism. But that desire for transparency brings an opportunity to improve audience trust, something that’s in short supply lately. In fact, a recent report on the use of AI in news media from the Reuters Institute showed a pretty clear pattern of audiences’ trust declining the more AI was used in the journalistic process. Only 12% of people were comfortable with fully AI-generated content, increasing to 21% for most…

Medicare has launched a six-year pilot program that could eventually transform access to healthcare for some of the millions of people across the U.S. who rely on it for their health insurance coverage. Traditional Medicare is a government-administered insurance plan for people over 65 or with disabilities. About half of the 67 million Americans insured through Medicare have this coverage. The rest have Medicare Advantage plans administered by private companies. The pilot program, dubbed the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction Model, is an experimental program that began to affect people enrolled in traditional Medicare from six states in January 2026. …

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. When Geoff Martha, chairman and CEO of Medtronic, took over the medical device maker’s Restorative Therapies Group in 2015, the company faced a tough decision. The group at the time was underperforming, and the leadership team had to consider how to prioritize technology investments suc…

At hundreds of Burger King restaurants across the U.S., there’s a new invisible worker who’s tracking which ingredients are in stock, analyzing daily sales data, and checking in on whether employees are saying “Thank you” and “You’re welcome.” It’s an AI assistant named Patty. According to Thibault Roux, Burger King’s chief digital officer, the voice-activated chatbot is designed to help employees and managers handle tasks that might usually require pulling out a computer or consulting with an instruction guide. Patty began showing up at select locations about a year ago, and is now in a pilot phase at approximately 500 Burger Kings. It’s expected to roll out to the …

It’s easy to say that the name of the advertising game has always been attention. But the level of skill, belief, strategic rigor, creative confidence, and sheer will required to win this game has never been higher or more complex. Effectively engaging with culture in this pursuit has never been more important or desired by brands and marketers than it is right now, thanks to an ever-fragmented media landscape. There is almost nothing better at attracting our attention and, importantly, keeping it. Why? Because we care. We talk to our friends and family about it. We engage in online and IRL communities about it. The brands and agencies on this year’s list are finding more…

Increasingly, the media and entertainment brands that thrive are ones that can build on their core business in creative ways. Two of the 2025 Brands That Matter honorees in the media and entertainment world—Ebony and Essence—are legacy Black publications that have grown their audiences and cultural cachet by building events around their flagship editorial product. Overtime is partially a sport brand, but it’s also a company that knows how to engage with younger consumers around sports—that’s how it’s gotten noticed by major brands and other sports leagues. Those three examples of the six outlined below, are just some of the ways companies are rethinking what a me…

Aging gracefully is a tall order for any company, but the 2025 Brands That Matter heritage brands honorees have stuck around in style for decades—and in one case, even centuries. Along the way, they’ve adapted to the times and grown even stronger in the process, whether that means embracing design overhauls, creating innovative new technologies, or staying on the pulse of Gen Z trends. Here are the brands proving that age doesn’t necessarily make a brand old-fashioned in 2025. Bath & Body Works Bath & Body Works began as a mall staple in 1990, and 35 years later, it could easily have fallen by the wayside like so many of its peers. But instead, it is Ge…