As Paramount moved Monday to sweeten its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, a high-stakes political battle is playing out behind the scenes.

Paramount’s latest offer enhanced its earlier $30-a-share bid, valued at $108 billion, said a person familiar with the process who was not authorized to comment publicly. Details of the revised proposal, first reported by Bloomberg, were not immediately available.

The firm is leveraging both the dynastic wealth of Larry Ellison’s empire and his ties to the Trump administration to dismantle Netflix’s rival $82.7-billion deal for Warner, which owns CNN, HBO and the premier Hollywood film and television studios, according to people close to the auction.

Over the weekend, President Trump turned up the heat, demanding that Netflix “IMMEDIATELY” fire Susan Rice — a former Obama and Biden administration official — who serves on Netflix’s 13-member board or “pay the consequences.”

Trump, in a Saturday night social media post, called the former ambassador “deranged … She’s got no talent or skills — Purely a political hack!”

Trump previously said he would not get involved in the pivotal Warner Bros. auction, instead leaving the matter to the Department of Justice, which is investigating whether a Netflix takeover, or Paramount’s alternative bid, would harm competition. Trump has been an outspoken critic of CNN and many of its on-air hosts.

Netflix won the bidding for the storied studio and HBO in December, prompting the spurned Paramount executives to launch a multipronged strategy to scuttle the Netflix deal.

Netflix co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos sought to downplay the latest controversy, saying during a BBC interview Monday: “This is a business deal, it’s not a political deal.”

But Paramount, which declined to comment for this article, has not been shy about playing its political cards.

The company, overseen by Larry Ellison’s son, David, is trying to convince Justice Department regulators and Warner Bros. shareholders that the Netflix deal is too dicey and that they should instead side with Paramount, said sources who were not authorized to comment publicly.

Paramount has attempted numerous maneuvers to gain the upper hand.

“This deal was never going to be decided on the merits of the offer or rigid antitrust considerations,” said Gabriel Kahn, a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “This was a classic Trump administration deal where proximity to the president counts a lot more than financial terms.”

Trump’s Saturday night outburst came after Rice, during a podcast interview last week, said that “it is not going to end well” for corporations, media outlets and law firms that “bent the knee” to Trump should Democrats regain control in Washington.

The comments of Rice, a Netflix director for eight years, came as Paramount-owned CBS was involved in a headline-grabbing dust-up with late-night talk-show host, Stephen Colbert, over Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair‘s threat to modify a rule requiring that broadcasters to give political candidates equal time. Colbert has accused his company of kowtowing to Trump, which CBS has denied.

Netflix’s Sarandos and Paramount’s David Ellison have made separate treks to the White House.

In October, Paramount hired a former Trump administration official, Makan Delrahim, who oversaw the Justice Department’s antitrust division during Trump’s first term, to quarterback Paramount’s campaign to win over regulators and politicians.

A formidable ally — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — recently visited Delrahim on Paramount’s Melrose Avenue lot in Los Angeles. While there, Cruz said he was a fan of the CBS show “NCIS,” which prompted Paramount executives to put together an impromptu tour of the “NCIS Origins” soundstages, according to a person familiar with the visit.

In December, Delrahim made a tactical move to apply for Justice Department approval of Paramount’s deal — despite the absence of a signed agreement with the Warner Bros. board and the consent of its shareholders. The gambit was meant to speed the agency’s approval should the Netflix deal crumble. Warner stockholders are expected to vote March 20.

Last week, Paramount announced that a major deadline had passed without pushback from the Justice Department. “There is no statutory impediment in the U.S. to closing Paramount’s proposed acquisition of WBD,” Paramount said in a regulatory filing.

Paramount faces a separate deadline late Monday to improve the finances of its proposed takeover to shake the support of Warner Bros. Discovery’s board members for the Netflix deal.

Paramount wants to buy all of Warner Bros. Discovery, including CNN.

Netflix, in contrast, does not want the bulk of cable TV channels beyond HBO, and has offered $27.75 a share. It has the right to match any improved Paramount proposal.

Warner is planning to spin off the bulk of its channel portfolio, including HGTV, TBS and Cartoon Network, in a separate company. Its shareholders will receive stock in that entity, slated to be called Discovery Global.

Concerns over Netflix’s deal have been mounting.

Department of Justice regulators have sent inquiries to the three companies, according to one senior executive who was not authorized to speak publicly. The department is said to be looking at Netflix’s historic business strategy of steering most of its film releases to its streaming platform, often bypassing movie theaters. Sarandos has promised to maintain a 45-day theatrical window for Warner Bros. films.

Bloomberg has reported that regulators also are trying to determine whether Netflix has exerted leverage over creators in negotiations when acquiring programming to build its catalog.

This month, Republican lawmakers blasted Sarandos during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights hearing to explore antitrust implications of the Warner Bros. sale. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) sent Netflix a series of pointed follow-up questions, including: “If allowed to proceed, what effect will the merger have on future competition?”

The hearing also veered into culture wars, with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) suggesting Netflix was promoting a “transgender ideology” to children, which Sarandos denied.

Another Missouri Republican, Sen. Eric Schmitt, accused Netflix of making some of “the wokest content in the history of the world.”

“Netflix has no political agenda of any kind,” Sarandos told the lawmakers.

David Ellison also was invited to appear at the Feb. 3 hearing, but he declined — which raised the eyebrows of some members of the panel.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) challenged Ellison for failing to answer lawmakers’ questions under oath, including about his dealings with the president.

Ellison instead responded with a statement but Booker and other lawmakers wrote back, saying Ellison’s statement “failed to address” the issues raised by Booker.

“The pattern of evasion, combined with Paramount’s apparent confidence that a politically sensitive transaction will clear without difficulty warrants serious scrutiny,” Booker, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and others wrote in the Feb. 19 letter.

The Democrats instructed Ellison “to preserve records related to the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery transaction.”

The move came days after Gail Slater, the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, was bounced from her job, reportedly after becoming a thorn in the side of some business interests. Slater’s former top deputy, who also left the Justice Department, publicly warned that antitrust decisions are being influenced by corporate lobbyists — not in the interest of ordinary Americans.

“We see this happen again and again,” USC’s Kahn said.

“Let’s not forget that Larry Ellison’s Oracle was part of the consortium that purchased the U.S. operations of TikTok. Repeated complaints from the FCC about content at CBS have been heeded by the Ellison regime,” Kahn said, adding: “This is the reality of trying to do any business in the Trump administration: It’s about payoffs and proximity.”

New York on Monday filed a lawsuit against UPS alleging the delivery giant stole millions of dollars in wages from seasonal workers in the state. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James accused UPS of violating labor laws by using unlawful timekeeping practices to underpay seasonal help.

“UPS built its holiday business on the backs of workers who were not paid for their time and labor,” James said in a statement announcing the charges. “UPS’s seasonal employees work brutal hours in the cold to deliver the holiday packages families across the country count on. Instead of compensating these workers fairly for their labor, UPS has played the Grinch.”

UPS denied the allegations that it intentionally underpaid workers.

“We offer industry-leading pay and benefits to our more than 26,000 employees in New York, and we remain committed to following all applicable laws,” the company said in a statement to CBS News. 

James said Monday that Atlanta-based UPS, which employs nearly 500,000 people worldwide and generated more than $90 billion in revenue last year, stole wages from seasonal workers, including “Driver Helpers” and “Seasonal Support Drivers” who assist full-time staff with package delivery around the holidays. 

UPS allegedly failed to pay seasonal workers for all of the hours they worked, according to the civil lawsuit, which was filed in New York state court. For example, UPS delayed worker clock-ins until they scanned in a package or made a delivery, even if they had been scheduled to start working hours earlier, the complaint alleges. UPS also automatically deducted 30-minute meal breaks regardless of whether workers took them, according to the lawsuit. 

The suit seeks back pay for UPS workers in New York, as well as a court order requiring the company to end off-the-clock work and to overhaul its timekeeping and payroll practices. 

Edited by

Alain Sherter

UPS and FedEx said they are grounding their fleets of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 planes “out of an abundance of caution” following a deadly crash at the UPS global aviation hub in Kentucky.

The crash on Tuesday at UPS Worldport in Louisville killed 14 people, including the three pilots on the MD-11 that was headed for Honolulu. National Transportation Safety Board official Todd Inman said Thursday that the crashed plane was a 1991 McDonnell Douglas 2 that had been “altered” into a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 Freighter.

MD-11 aircrafts make up about 9% of of the UPS airline fleet and 4% of the FedEx fleet, the companies said.

“We made this decision proactively at the recommendation of the aircraft manufacturer,” a UPS statement said late Friday. “Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our employees and the communities we serve.”

FedEx said in an email that it will be grounding the aircrafts while it conducts “a thorough safety review based on the recommendation of the manufacturer.” 

Boeing, which merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, told CBS News in a statement that it made the recommendation to ground the aircraft “out of an abundance of caution.” Boeing’s Safety Review Board assessed all available information about the crash and determined that further engineering analysis was needed, a company spokesperson told CBS News via email. The manufacturer recommended pausing fleet operations while that analysis was conducted.

Inman said Thursday that the crashed plane was currently being “handled” by Boeing. 

Boeing announced in 1998 that it would be phasing out its MD-11 jetliner production, with final deliveries due in 2000. There are about 70 MD-11 planes in operation today. The planes are operated by FedEx, UPS and Western Global Airlines. CBS News reached out to Western Global for comment. The airline has 16 MD-11s in its fleet, but 12 of them have already been put in storage, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. 

Flight records suggest the UPS MD-11 that crashed underwent maintenance while it was on the ground in San Antonio, Texas, for more than a month until mid-October. It is not clear what work was done.

The UPS cargo plane was nearly airborne Tuesday when a bell sounded in the cockpit, Inman said during a briefing Friday. For the next 25 seconds, the bell rang and the pilots tried to control the aircraft as it barely lifted off the runway, its left wing ablaze and missing an engine, and then plowed into the ground in a spectacular fireball. The plane was carrying about 255,000 pounds of jet fuel, as well as up to 20,000 packages. 

The cockpit voice recorder captured the bell, which sounded about 37 seconds after the crew called for takeoff thrust, Inman said. There are different types of alarms with varying meanings, he said, and investigators haven’t determined why the bell rang, though they know the left wing was burning and the engine on that side had detached.

Inman said it would be months before a transcript of the cockpit recording is made public as part of that investigation process.

Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said the bell likely was signaling the engine fire.

“It occurred at a point in the takeoff where they were likely past their decision speed to abort the takeoff,” Guzzetti told The Associated Press after Inman’s news conference. “They were likely past their critical decision speed to remain on the runway and stop safely. … They’ll need to thoroughly investigate the options the crew may or may not have had.”

Dramatic video captured the aircraft crashing into businesses and erupting in a fireball. Footage from phones, cars and security cameras has given investigators evidence of what happened from many different angles. Witnesses recalled chaos on the ground. 

“It was explosion after explosion after explosion, so you just didn’t know when it was going to stop,” Georgie Dow, the chief financial officer of an auto parts business that was struck by the plane, told CBS News. “It was so hot … You took a step back because it was like heat in your face. There was no going to help.”

The UPS package handling facility in Louisville is the company’s largest. The hub employs more than 20,000 people in the region, handles 300 flights daily and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.

UPS Worldport operations resumed Wednesday night with its Next Day Air, or night sort, operation, spokesperson Jim Mayer said.

The UPS plane crash near the Louisville airport in Kentucky sent people running for their lives, but one man says he was trapped in his truck repair shop. Videos he took with his phone shows the business surrounded by flames. Tom Hanson has the latest.

NEW YORK — The UPS cargo plane crash on Tuesday at the company’s global aviation hub in Kentucky, which killed at least nine, will temporarily disrupt the supply chain and result in some shipping delays.

But UPS says it has contingency plans in place, and experts say the impact should be cleared up before the peak holiday season.

The plane crashed Tuesday evening as it was departing for Honolulu from UPS Worldport, UPS’ largest shipping hub, at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. Package sorting at the center was halted late Tuesday and the halt continued on Wednesday. About 416,000 packages can be sorted at the facility per hour, according to a UPS fact sheet.

Consumers who want to check on their UPS packages can wait to hear from the company or look up tracking details online.

Tom Goldsby, professor of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said UPS will most likely step up flights to its regional hubs to offset Worldport’s closure.

The hubs are “going to take on a greater burden until that critical operation in Louisville gets back to the full capacity,” he said.

UPS said in a statement that it has contingency plans in place to help ensure that shipments arrive at their final destinations as quickly as conditions permit, but did not give specifics on what the plans were.

Goldsby said UPS will be under pressure to resolve any delays before the peak holiday season.

“It’s an issue that they quickly want to resolve, but they are going to have to do their due diligence in resolving the current crisis,” he said.

He himself was expecting a UPS package from Oregon routed through Worldport today, but got a message that it would have to be rescheduled.

“I understand the circumstance and will gladly receive it when it arrives,” he said, adding patience will be needed for others expecting packages. “People and businesses don’t have a lot of understanding (about the supply chain). We just don’t expect our logistics operations to have a calamity or even a bad day.″

The crash comes as UPS works on a turnaround, focusing less on Amazon deliveries and more on business-to-business deliveries. In its most recent earnings report last week, the company said it has cut 48,000 jobs in the year to date and closed some buildings as part of its turnaround. Its third-quarter results beat expectations.

At least nine people were killed and several others injured after a UPS plane crashed shortly after takeoff near the Louisville International Airport on Tuesday, officials said.  

The death toll rose on Wednesday morning, as Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg said on social media that first responders had located nine victims at the crash site. Officials had previously said the death toll was at least seven. 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear confirmed the increased death toll in a post on social media and said there is “the possibility of more” fatalities. Greenberg said Tuesday night that at least four people had been killed on the ground. UPS said the plane had a crew of three. 

At least 11 people were injured, officials said earlier. Beshear wrote on Wednesday that 16 families have reported loved ones who are unaccounted for. Search and rescue operations began overnight and are continuing this morning, he said.

UPS Flight 2976 crashed around 5:15 p.m. local time after it departed from the Louisville airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The aircraft was headed to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, Hawaii, when it went down three miles south of the airfield, Louisville airport public safety officer Jonathan Biven said at a news conference. 

According to preliminary flight data from FlightRadar24, the three-engine McDonnell Douglas MD-11 plane appeared to hit 175 feet in altitude briefly after takeoff. Louisville Fire Chief Brian O’Neill said the plane was carrying about 38,000 gallons of fuel, weighing about 233,000 pounds. That likely led to the significant fire as seen from CBS affiliate WLKY-TV‘s chopper. The plane was also carrying up to 20,000 packages.  

Videos of the crash showed the aircraft partially on fire as it sped down the runway before it burst into flames. Other images suggest the plane’s left engine separated from the plane during the fire. Debris from the separation may have been sucked into another engine, meaning the plane could not generate sufficient lift to take off. 

More than 100 firefighters responded to the fiery crash site, Greenberg said, and were still battling hot spots as of Tuesday night. Over 200 first responders were at the scene, Greenberg said. 

Beshear said there was no hazardous cargo onboard the plane that would create environmental issues around the crash site, but urged residents to follow any shelter-in-place orders. There is still a shelter-in-place order for those within a quarter-mile radius of the crash site, Greenberg said Wednesday morning. All schools in the Jefferson County School District, the state’s largest with just under 100,000 students, will be closed Wednesday, Greenberg said. 

Greenberg urged any residents who find debris on their property not to touch it, and instead report it through a website that should be live by Wednesday.

All arriving and departing flights at the Louisville airport were temporarily suspended, and the airport was closed Tuesday night. It reopened on Wednesday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration said, though multiple taxiways remain closed. 

The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation into the crash. Investigators from the NTSB and the FAA arrived at the scene Wednesday morning, the aviation agency said. 

Louisville International Airport is home to UPS Worldport, an international air hub for the parcel service. The 5.2 million-square-foot facility processes up to 400,000 packages an hour and employs 20,000 UPS workers. The facility sees more than 300 daily UPS flights, according to the company.

“This is a UPS town,” Louisville Metro Councilwoman Betsy Ruhe, whose district is part of the crash site, said during the news conference Tuesday night. “We all know somebody who works at UPS, and they’re all texting their friends, their family, trying to make sure everyone is safe. Sadly, some of those texts are probably going to go unanswered.”

Package sorting operations at the facility were paused on Tuesday night and resumed Wednesday morning. UPS said Wednesday morning that sorting for the expedited shipping service Second Day Air was canceled for the day and that employees in that department should not report to work.  

Some UPS packages may be delayed because of halted operations. The investigation could also cause further operational delays, if officials need to inspect or review other planes, though UPS could charter additional planes to meet delivery needs. 

UPS Airlines planned to operate about 25 MD-11 planes by the end of the year, and is phrasing out the aging three-engine jets for newer and more fuel-efficient two-engine freighters. The crashed plane was built in 1991, according to according to FAA data. 

Kris Van Cleave

contributed to this report.

For most of 2025, the job market was described by economists as “no hire, no fire” — a stretch of time when job seekers faced slim prospects, but workers could count on job security. But that fragile balance may now be shifting, labor experts warn, as mass layoffs at companies like Amazon and UPS signal a possible turning point for the labor market.

Amazon on Tuesday announced 14,000 job cuts, citing a shift toward artificial intelligence, while UPS on the same day said it has reduced its workforce by 48,000 from a year earlier. Paramount Skydance, the owner of CBS News, on Wednesday also announced it is shedding jobs, part of an ongoing effort to cut costs at the entertainment and media company. 

Target on Tuesday also notified a state employment agency in Minnesota, where the retailer is based, that it plans to lay off more than 800 workers in January as part of a broader corporate restructuring, CBS News Minnesota reported. The retailer announced last week that it would cut 1,800 corporate positions as the chain trims its global workforce by about 8%.

The mass layoffs come as the Federal Reserve scrutinizes the labor market for signs of weakness, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell last month citing concerns about slower hiring in announcing the central bank’s first interest-rate cut of 2025. The announcements from Amazon and UPS could signal that the Fed has good reason to be worried, experts said. 

“No question that this is a shift, and it does seem to me it signals that ‘no hire, no fire’ is a thing of the past,” John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told CBS News. 

“These are major layoffs, the kind of which we only see in periods of real change in the economy,” he added.

Layoffs picking up

Even before Tuesday’s job cuts, layoffs had been trending higher, according to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Employers across the U.S. cut nearly 950,000 jobs this year through September, the largest number of layoffs since 2020, its most recent data shows.

Official federal reports on the state of the labor market have been suspended due to the government shutdown, which means the Fed will make its next interest rate decision tomorrow, Oct. 29, without information about hiring in September. 

But job growth has slowed sharply in recent months, with average monthly payroll gains of roughly 27,000 between May and August — down from average gains of nearly 123,000 per month between January and April, labor data shows. 

On Oct. 1, the ADP National Employment Report, a measure of private employment in the U.S., said payrolls at private employers declined by 32,000 jobs in September.

At the same time, recent reports suggest layoffs have accelerated in October, Grace Zwemmer, associate economist with Oxford Economics, said in a report Wednesday. State-level data also shows jobless claims by federal employees topped 10,000 in the week ended Oct. 18, a sign the stalemate in Congress is taking a toll, the investment advisory firm said in a separate research note.

To be sure, the nation’s unemployment rate remains low by historical standards, edging up to 4.3% in August from 4.2% in July. The latest layoffs are unlikely to dramatically drive up joblessness, experts say.

“When we look at the scale of the announcements vis-à-vis the broader economy and the data we have from unemployment claims, we don’t see them yet at a scale where the unemployment rate is going to shoot up,” said Andy Stettner, director of economy and jobs at the left-leaning Century Foundation. 

But, he added, “These larger corporate downsizings are happening at a time when there aren’t many job openings.”

That means some workers who lose their jobs could struggle to find new employment, experts say. As a result, the ranks of long-term unemployed people, or those who have been searching for work for more than six months, are predicted to rise even higher from its August figure of almost 2 million, the highest level since 2022.

What’s impacting the labor market?

Employers are cutting jobs due to several factors, experts say, ranging from artificial intelligence to economic uncertainty. Earlier this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the e-commerce giant’s investment in AI tools would allow the company to trim its human workforce as the business becomes more efficient.

“Amazon really pointed to robotics, AI and new technology — and being on the cutting edge of that technology — for shifting jobs,” Challenger said. 

About one-quarter of technology industry workers said they had experienced layoffs or role eliminations due to AI adoption during the past two years, according to a new study from career site Indeed.

Other companies are holding off on hiring or are cutting jobs for other reasons. UPS cited the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs, as well as shipping declines from Amazon, its biggest customer, on its business. Amazon has been building its own delivery infrastructure, leading it to cut back on its use of UPS.

On Monday, children’s clothing brand Carter’s said it is cutting 300 jobs, or 15% of its workforce, and closing 150 stores over the next three years due to higher costs from tariffs, which are import duties paid by U.S. companies to the federal government. 

The Trump administration has said that its tariffs would help protect U.S. manufacturing and boost domestic production as businesses move their operations stateside. 

In the meantime, Americans are growing more pessimistic about the job market, according to recent CBS News polling. About 52% of Americans describe the labor market as “bad,” up seven percentage points from April, the poll found.

“We are moving more into a time where job security might be more precarious,” Challenger said.

Edited by

Anne Marie D. Lee

GENEVA (AP) — A U.N. expert monitoring human rights in Russia said Monday that “repression is escalating,” targeting civilians, journalists and even Ukrainian prisoners of war in an attempt to silence dissent and opposition to the war in Ukraine.

Mariana Katzarova, the U.N. special rapporteur focusing on human rights in Russia, presented her latest report that said Russian authorities have stepped up their use of “criminal prosecution, long-term imprisonment, torture and ill-treatment” to quell opposition to the war ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

UPS on Tuesday announced it is planning to cut 20,000 jobs this year, part of a cost-cutting effort that’s linked to fewer deliveries from Amazon, its biggest customer. 

The shipping company, which operates in over 200 countries, currently has around 490,000 employees. The layoffs will impact slightly over 4% of its workforce.

The move is part of the company’s plan to consolidate UPS’s facilities and workforce. Along with the job cuts, the company announced it will also close 73 of its buildings by the end of June 2025 and said that it may target additional buildings for closure. 

“These actions will enable us to expand our U.S. Domestic operating margin and increase profitability,” Brian Dykes, the chief financial officer of UPS said during an earnings call on Tuesday morning.

In a Tuesday regulatory filing, UPS said the cuts are in “connection with our anticipation of lower volumes from our largest customer.” The company expects to save $3.5 billion this year as a result of its consolidation plan. 

The company in January said it had reached an agreement with Amazon to decrease its delivery volume by more than 50% in the second half of 2026. 

“The reduction of package volume from Amazon is something UPS chose to do as we focus on revenue quality, and increase domestic operating margin and profitability,” a UPS spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch in an email.

UPS shares slipped 1.13 cents, or 1.16%, in early trading.

In its quarterly earnings statement, the company also mentioned the risk that shifts in global trade policy could have on business. The Trump administration has introduced sweeping new tariffs in recent months that have already began to impact the flow of goods in and out of the country, and around the world. 

UPS is keeping customers abreast of tariff developments on its website. It has also introduced a tool called UPS Global Checkout that shows online shoppers the upfront costs they will have to pay in duties, fees and taxes.

The Irvine Police Department identified a UPS driver who was fatally shot while sitting in his van in Irvine, as well as the driver’s alleged assailant, who also worked for the same company.

In a written statement released Friday, the department identified the driver as 50-year-old Expedito Cuesta De Leon of Aliso Viejo. The man arrested in connection with his killing was identified as 46-year-old Rhean Fontanoza, of the same city.

Irvine Police Sgt. Karie Davies said the two men were acquaintances and worked for the same company, but no motive for the shooting was known.

De Leon was fatally shot Thursday afternoon while sitting inside his parked van near the intersection of Chrysler and Bendix streets.

Surveillance video from nearby buildings showed a male assailant in a silver Honda Ridgeline four-door truck drive alongside the UPS driver and fire multiple times into his van, Davies said. Neither the driver nor the shooter got out of their vehicles. The silver truck is shown leaving the area on Goodyear toward Jeronimo Road.

Police said there was no evidence of a robbery.

“He literally pulled up next to the UPS truck, shot him and drove away,” Davies said. “It looks like it was targeted, but we don’t know the relationship yet.”

Davies said authorities found De Leon slumped over in the driver’s seat. Officers pulled him out of the van and began lifesaving measures. Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene.

Witnesses told authorities they recognized the UPS driver and that he was on his regular route. The spot where he was parked was where he would stop and have his lunch break, they said.

In a statement, UPS said it was shocked and saddened by the killing.

“These are highly unusual circumstances and do not represent the culture of our company and the camaraderie among our employees around the world,” the statement read. “Our focus now is on supporting our people and their loved ones during this extremely difficult time.”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department found Fontanoza in his silver pickup in the area of Santiago Canyon and Jamboree roads.

Aerial video of the arrest on KABC-TV showed a SWAT team boxing in the truck. A K-9 dog was released to try to get the suspect, who was in the back seat, out of the vehicle. The man was eventually pulled out by officers before being taken into custody.

“They ultimately had to force him out of the vehicle with SWAT techniques,” Davies said.

Art helps female Afghan army veterans heal

With Veterans Day falling on a Saturday this year, some banks weren’t open on Friday and others will be closed on Saturday in observance of the federal holiday that honors Americans who served in the military. Post offices will be closed for the holiday.

Are banks open today?

Capital One branches observed Veterans Day on Friday and will be open for their normal hours on Saturday, according to a spokesperson.

Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank are among the banks that were open for normal hours Friday but will be closed Saturday for the holiday, according to representatives for each institution.

Customers can check with their bank’s website to find operating hours for local branches.

Is the post office closed today?

The U.S. Postal Service operated normally on Friday, according to a spokesperson. On Saturday, post offices will be closed, and regular mail won’t be delivered.

Express mail will still be delivered on Saturday. Regular mail service will resume on Monday.

FedEx offices will be open on Friday and Saturday, but on Friday, its express service had early on-call pickups in some areas and its ground economy deliveries may have been delayed because of the Postal Service’s observance of the holiday. On Saturday, its ground and ground economy services will be closed.

UPS stores will also be open on both days. Some deliveries will be delayed due to the Postal Service holiday.

Is the stock market closed for Veterans Day?

The Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange are closed on Saturdays. The markets were open for trading as usual on Friday.

Later this month, the markets will be closed for Thanksgiving, which falls on Nov. 23 this year. The markets will also close early on Black Friday, which is on Nov. 24.

Alex Sundby

Alex Sundby is a senior editor for CBSNews.com.

A Texas UPS driver fell ill while working during a scorching heat wave and later died.

According to a statement from UPS, Christopher Begley, 57, died this week shortly after becoming sick earlier this month while on his route in North Texas, where the high temperature at the time topped 100 degrees. The exact cause of death has yet to be determined, and authorities are investigating,

“We train our people to recognize the symptoms of heat stress, and we respond immediately to any request for help,” the delivery giant told CBS MoneyWatch. “We are cooperating with the authorities as they continue to investigate the cause of death.”

The death comes roughly a month after UPS struck an agreement with the Teamsters Union that would require the company to install air conditioning in its delivery vans, among other improvements to drivers’ working conditions.

Begley, who worked at UPS for 27 years, first told managers that he was feeling sick on August 23 and was removed from service that same day, according to UPS. Begley later requested and received several days off from work, the company added. 

UPS “immediately responded” to the driver’s call and “made sure he had water and was resting in a cool environment,” the company said. Begley denied medical assistance “multiple times” after falling ill, telling the company he had recovered, according to UPS.

UPS managers found out several days later that Begley was in the hospital, where he died shortly afterward, the package carrier said in its statement. 

Installing AC units in UPS’ delivery trucks was a major issue for union members as they threatened to strike this summer before ratifying a new contract on August 22.

Last year, photos taken by UPS drivers showed thermometers in the company’s trucks were reading temperatures of up to roughly 120 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a post from a Teamsters group on X (formerly known as Twitter). Last summer, a video of a UPS driver collapsing from apparent heat exhaustion also sparked public outrage. 

Union to announce result of UPS contract vote

UPS workers on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to ratify a new contract that includes higher wages for workers, effectively eliminating the risk of a strike that would have been the biggest in 60 years.

About 86% of voting members approved the contract, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said in a press release announcing the vote results. The agreement, which will also create more full-time jobs and will secure air-conditioning in new trucks, covers about 340,000 UPS workers in the U.S.

“Our members just ratified the most lucrative agreement the Teamsters have ever negotiated at UPS. This contract will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers,” Teamsters general president Sean M. O’Brien said in the Tuesday statement.

O’Brien said the new contract “raised the bar for pay, benefits, and working conditions in the package delivery industry.”

Teamsters general secretary-treasurer Fred Zuckerman called the new five-year contract the “richest” he’d seen in 40 years. 

Here’s some of what UPS workers are getting in the new contract:

• Both full- and part-time UPS workers who are union members will get $2.75 more per hour in wages in 2023
• New part-time hires at UPS will start at $21 per hour and advance to $23 per hour
• Protections including in-vehicle air conditioning and cargo ventilation
• Martin Luther King Day as a full holiday for the first time
• No forced overtime

UPS drivers will earn an average of $170,000 in annual pay and benefits at the end of a five-year contract agreement, UPS CEO Carol Tomé said during an earnings call this week.

The executive’s comments punctuated the end of a weekslong struggle between UPS and the Teamsters Union which negotiated with the carrier last month to avert a strike and secure a new contract for 340,000 union employees. More than 70% of UPS’ 443,000 employees are represented by the Teamsters’ Union, the company’s website shows. 

“We expected negotiations with the Teamsters to be late and loud, and they were,” Tomé said during the call. As a result, UPS slashed its full-year revenue forecasts “primarily to reflect the volume impact from labor negotiations and the costs associated with the tentative agreement,” she added.

The deal, which was reached on July 25, will increase full-time workers’ compensation to $170,000 from roughly $145,000 over five years, according to UPS’ calculations. It will also boost part-time workers’ salaries to at least $25.75 per hour, and end mandatory overtime, Tomé told investors on Tuesday.

Online searches for jobs with “UPS” or “United Parcel Service” in the title jumped 50% in the week after the new pay deal was announced, Bloomberg News reported, citing data from Indeed. 

Higher six-figure pay for UPS drivers

By the end of the new contract, full-time UPS delivery drivers will make an average of $49 per hour, which works out to nearly $102,000 per year, assuming a 40-hour workweek, 52 weeks a year. Those employees are guaranteed an eight-hour workday, a UPS spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch.

Drivers also receive $50,000 in benefits “that include health, welfare and pension contributions,” the spokesperson said. 

That places UPS drivers near the same pay grade as software developers, finance directors and physician assistants, who all earn average salaries in the $108,000 – $115,000 range, according to Indeed.

How to become a UPS driver

The first step is to look for jobs at the UPS website, where you can search by state, county or city.

UPS drivers must be able to lift up to 70 pounds, have a valid driver’s license (although a commercial driver’s license isn’t required) and pass the Department of Transportation physical. You’ll also need “excellent customer service and driving skills” and the legal right to work in the U.S., UPS notes.

After that, applicants can expect to do an interview and background check with the company, according to Insider. If hired, they’ll then go through training and then a probation period.

When will the contract be ratified?

The new labor contract should “be ratified in two weeks,” with voting ending on August 22, Tomé said. 

UPS’ deal with the Teamsters is the “single largest private-sector collective bargaining agreement in North America,” the union group said in a blog post last month. It comes as unions notch wage increases for aviation workers and less than a year after a court reaffirmed union workers’ win at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse.