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Oct. 28 (UPI) — Delivery company UPS reported on Tuesday higher-than-expected earnings but bigger job cuts in its business turnaround goals.

United Parcel Service revealed its workforce had been cut this year by some 34,000 jobs, about 14,000 more than its estimated reduction of 20,000. In addition, UPS eliminated around 14,000 corporate and management roles.

“We are executing the most significant strategic shift in our company’s history, and the changes we are implementing are designed to deliver long-term value for all stakeholders,” according to UPS CEO Carol Tome.

The cuts have already begun, UPS told CNBC in a statement.

Tome added that with the holiday shipping season quickly approaching, the 118-year-old UPS was “positioned to run the most efficient peak in our history while providing industry-leading service to our customers for the eighth consecutive year.”

Meanwhile, Wall Street saw UPS shares rise about 8% during early morning trading.

UPS, with its headquarters in Georgia, initially planned to shutter around 70 facilities.

However, around 93 leased or owned buildings closed in the first nine months of this year year.

Over the summer UPS offered buyouts to full-time drivers as part of its execution of “the largest network reconfiguration” in the company’s history.

According to UPS officials, its turnaround resulted in savings to the tune of $2.2 billion by end of third quarter and an estimated $3.5 billion in year-over-year total savings this year.

The UPS chief said the shipping conglomerate planned to incorporate artificial intelligence into its daily operations.

“The third quarter brought a wave of tariff changes, some expected, others unforeseen, and our team navigated these complexities with exceptional skills and resilience,” Tome says.

Paramount, backed by billionaire Larry Ellison and his family, has officially opened the bidding for rival Warner Bros. Discovery — a potential massive merger that would dramatically change Hollywood.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s board rejected Paramount’s initial bid of about $20 a share, but talks are continuing, according to two people close to the companies who were not authorized to speak publicly.

One of the knowledgeable sources said Paramount was preparing a second bid.

Warner Bros. Discovery owns HBO, CNN, TBS, Food Network, HGTV and the prolific Warner Bros. movie and television studio in Burbank.

Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, is committed to helping his 42-year-old son, David, pull off the industry-reshaping acquisition and has agreed to help finance the bid, two people close to the situation said.

The younger Ellison, who entered the movie business 15 years ago by launching his Skydance Media production company, was catapulted into the major leagues this summer with the Ellison family’s purchase of Paramount’s controlling stake.

Since then, David Ellison and his team have made bold moves to help Paramount shake more than a decade of doldrums. Buying Warner Bros. Discovery would be their most audacious move yet. The merger would lead to the elimination of one of the original Hollywood film studios, and could see the consolidation of CNN with Paramount-owned CBS News.

Representatives for Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment.

CNBC reported Friday that two companies have been in discussions for weeks following last month’s news that Paramount was planning a bid. Bloomberg reported Saturday that Warner Bros. Discovery had rejected Paramount’s bid of about $20 a share.

Industry veterans were stunned by the speed of Paramount’s play for Warner Bros. Discovery, noting that top executives had begun working on the bid even as they were putting finishing touches on the Paramount takeover.

One of Paramount’s top executives is a former Goldman Sachs banker, Andy Gordon, who was a ranking member of RedBird Capital Partners, the private equity firm that has teamed up with the Ellisons and has a significant stake in Paramount.

Paramount’s interest prompted stocks of both companies to soar, driving up the market value for Warner Bros. Discovery.

Paramount’s offer of $20 a share for Warner Bros. Discovery was less than what some analysts and sources believe the company’s parts are worth, leading the Warner Bros. Discovery board to rebuff the offer, sources said.

But many believe that Paramount needs more content to better compete in a landscape that’s dominated by tech giants such as Netflix and Amazon.

Paramount has reason to move quickly.

Warner Bros. Discovery had previously announced that it was planning to divide its assets into two companies by next April. One company, Warner Bros., would be made up of HBO, the HBO Max streaming service and the Burbank-based movie and television studios. Current Chief Executive David Zaslav would run that enterprise.

The other arm would be called Discovery Global and consist of the linear cable television channels, which have seen their fortunes fall with consumers’ shift to streaming.

The Paramount bid was seen as an attempt to slip in under the wire because other large companies, including Amazon, Apple and Netflix, may have been interested in buying the studios, streaming service and leafy studio lot in Burbank.

However, Netflix’s co-chief executive Greg Peters appeared to downplay Netflix’s interest during an appearance last week at the Bloomberg Screentime media conference. “We come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers,” Peters said.

Some analysts believe Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery could ultimately prevail because Zaslav and his team have made huge cuts during the past three years to get the various businesses profitable after buying the company from AT&T, which left the company burdened with a heavy debt load. The company has paid down billions of dollars of debt, but still carries nearly $35 billion of debt on its books.

Others point to Warner Bros.’ recent successes at the box office as evidence that Paramount is offering too little.

Despite the tumult at the corporate level, Warner Bros.’ film studio has had a successful year. Its fortunes turned around in April with the release of “A Minecraft Movie,” which grossed nearly $958 million worldwide, followed by a string of hits including Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” James Gunn’s “Superman” and horror flick “Weapons.”

Meanwhile, Paramount has been on a buying spree.

Just in the last two months, Paramount made a $7.7 billion deal for UFC media rights and closed two deals that will pay the creators of “South Park” more than $1.25 billion over five years to secure streaming rights to the popular cartoon.

Last week at Bloomberg’s Screentime media conference, Ellison declined to comment on Paramount’s pursuit of Warner Bros. or even whether his company had already made a bid. But he did touch briefly on consolidation in Hollywood, saying, “Ironically, it was David Zaslav last year who said that consolidation in the media business is important.”

“There are a lot of options out there,” he added, but declined to elaborate.

After news of Paramount’s interest surfaced, Warner Bros. Discovery‘s stock jumped more than 30%. It climbed as much as $20 a share, but closed Friday at $17.10, down 3.2%.

Paramount also has seen its stock surge by about 12%. Shares finished Friday at $17, down 5.4%

Warner Bros. Discovery is now valued at $42 billion. Paramount is considerably smaller, worth about $18.5 billion.

Los Angeles firefighters were hampered by a lack of resources for red flag weather conditions in their initial response to the Palisades fire, an internal after-action review report found.

The long-awaited 70-page report, produced by the Los Angeles Fire Department, was released late Wednesday afternoon on the heels of an announcement by federal prosecutors that they had arrested and charged a man with intentionally setting a fire on Jan. 1 that later reignited and became the Palisades fire.

Federal investigators determined that the Jan. 7 fire was a so-called holdover from the Jan. 1 fire, continuing to smolder and burn underground after firefighters thought they had extinguished it. The investigators said that heavy winds six days later caused the underground fire to surface and spread above ground in what became one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history.

In its after-action report, the Fire Department listed almost 100 challenges that firefighters faced during the Palisades fire, including an inability to secure the origin of the fire, an ineffective process for recalling firefighters who were off-duty to come back into work, and fire chiefs with little to no experience handling such a major incident. During the initial attack, the report said, most firefighters worked for more than 36 hours without rest.

The report cited a delay in communicating evacuation orders, which resulted in spontaneous evacuations without structured traffic control, causing people to block routes to the fire, the report said. The initial staging area, which was in the path of the evacuation route and the fire, was consumed by flames within 30 minutes, the report said.

The Palisades fire, which started at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 7, was one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history, leveling thousands of homes and killing 12 people.

A Times investigation found that LAFD officials did not pre-deploy any engines to the Palisades ahead of the fire, despite warnings about extreme weather. In preparing for the winds, the department staffed up only five of more than 40 engines available to supplement the regular firefighting force.

Those engines could have been pre-positioned in the Palisades and elsewhere, as had been done in the past during similar weather.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Israeli military says city in northern Gaza is now a ‘combat zone’, suspends daily pauses in fighting there that allowed delivery of humanitarian aid.

The Israeli military says it has begun the “initial stages” of its offensive on Gaza City, as it declared the largest urban centre in the besieged territory a “combat zone” and announced the suspension of daily pauses in fighting there that allowed the entry of humanitarian aid.

“We are not waiting. We have begun preliminary operations and the initial stages of the attack on Gaza City,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X on Friday.

“We are currently operating with great force on the outskirts of the city,” he said.

The announcement came as the Israeli military confirmed it suspended so-called “tactical pauses” in its attacks on the city in northern Gaza that had previously allowed limited humanitarian operations there.

“Starting today at 10:00am (07:00 GMT), the tactical-local ceasefire of military activity will not apply to the Gaza City area, which constitutes a dangerous combat zone,” the military said on X.

Israeli forces have launched a sustained bombardment on Gaza City since early August, as the military prepares for a larger assault to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre – in an operation that could forcibly displace a million Palestinians to concentration zones in southern Gaza.

The relentless bombardment from the air and land has forced residents to flee to the western parts of the city, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has told Al Jazeera.

Gaza’s Civil Defence estimates that more than 1,000 residential buildings in the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods of Gaza City have been flattened since August 6.

Residents described relentless bombardment and attacks from helicopters. “They launched a firebelt attack only 150 metres (500ft) away from us. They scorched the entire area,” said Nihad Madoukh from Sheikh Radwan in northwestern Gaza City, speaking to Al Jazeera. “It was very scary bombardment.”

Displaced resident Ahmed Moqat said he had been moving constantly to escape Israeli attacks. “Here’s the debris that fell last night next to my head,” he said. “Now I will go out in the street, only God knows where I will go.”

Dozens killed across Gaza

At least 41 Palestinians, including six aid seekers, were killed in attacks across Gaza on Friday, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Palestinian health workers told Al Jazeera that three of the aid seekers were shot dead by Israeli forces near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza on Friday.

Medical sources said Israeli air strikes hit the so-called “safe zone” of al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, killing at least five people and wounding dozens as they slept in tents.

“We were sleeping when the bombing happened,” said a man caring for his grandchildren, whose father was killed two months ago. “The strike hit our area … We took the wounded ourselves to Nasser Hospital before the ambulances arrived. Stop this war against us. Have mercy on the children.”

More than 62,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israel in its nearly two-year war on Gaza, and at least 157,600 have been wounded, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Everton have signed Tyler Dibling from Southampton in a deal worth an initial £35m plus £5m in add-ons.

The 19-year-old midfielder has agreed terms on a four-year contract until June 2029.

Dibling becomes Everton manager David Moyes’ eighth signing of the summer transfer window.

“I think it’s the perfect match because of where the club is right now,” the England Under-21 international told Everton’s website., external

“Obviously with the new stadium, the fans here are unreal, and it has a family feel to it. I think it was the perfect fit and was a no-brainer to join.”

The film is based on Richard Osman’s 2020 novel of the same name, but not everything has made it into the adaptation.

The Thursday Murder Club, which now has a full trailer, airs on Netflix on August 28 and fans of Richard Osman’s novel are desperate to see how it has been adapted for the small screen.

Boasting a star-studded cast, the movie follows four retirees who spend their time solving cold case murders for fun, but they end up with a real whodunit on their hands.

The film stars Helen Mirren as Elizabeth, Pierce Brosnan as Ron, Ben Kingsley as Ibrahim and Celia Imrie as Joyce, and it was directed by Chris Columbus.

Chris said of the film: “There’s a wonderful mystery at its core, so fans of detective and thriller films will not be disappointed.

READ MORE: Thursday Murder Club’s Celia Imrie drops news on adapting Richard Osman bookREAD MORE: Netflix makes huge Thursday Murder Club announcement and fans won’t want to miss it

“Thematically, I found it interesting that at the heart of the novel, there are four elderly people, living in a retirement community, who are obsessed with death and murder.

“They are in the last act of their lives, facing their own mortality, yet they are somehow obsessed with studying cold cases that deal with violent murders. I fell in love with that concept. It’s darkly comedic and deeply emotional.”

Translating the complex 350 page novel, which is full of plot twists, into a screenplay was actor and comedian Katy Brand’s responsibility.

“I remember thinking ‘there’s so much to play with here – it’s such an explosion of ideas.’ My immediate sense regarding adapting the book was that I wanted to draw out the emotion and Chris Columbus seemed to respond to that when we first met,” she said.

Chris opened up about how he initially became involved in the project, admitting the first scripts were not to his liking.

He said: “I was a fan of the books, but the initial scripts I read veered far from the novel. I felt that this was a mistake and I wanted to preserve what everyone loved about the book.

“When I first met with the writer, Katy Brand, I was convinced that she not only understood what made the novel so incredibly popular with readers around the world.

“But she also had the vision to write a film that was faithful to the source material. Katy’s draft was wonderful.

“And it was because of that draft that we were able to get so many British acting legends to commit to our film.”

The film also stars Naomi Ackie as PC Donna De Freitas, Daniel Mays as DCI Chris Hudson, Tom Ellis as Jason Ritchie, Jonathan Pryce as Stephen Best and David Tennant as Ian Ventham.

The Thursday Murder Club airs on Netflix on August 28

Noel Sliney, BBC Sport

Arias is older than most South American players who cross the Atlantic Ocean to try their luck in Europe.

Nonetheless, Wolves’ new signing has been the creative force for Fluminense for several years and is affectionately known as ‘the Colombian Pele’ by the club’s supporters.

During the Club World Cup, former Brazil playmaker Kaka described the stocky Arias as “an extremely dangerous player who can decide a match at any moment”.

Arias showcased his trickery and relentless running in that competition, creating an unrivalled 18 chances in six games.

He won the man-of-the-match award three times and earned a place in the team of the tournament.

Arias switched position to play up front for the latter half of Fluminense’s run to the semi-finals but still led the side overall for most touches per 90 minutes (68).

He was involved in 40 open-play moves that led to a shot, double that of any team-mate.

Arias also won possession more than any other Fluminense player.

He scored 47 goals in 229 games and his tally of 55 assists is the second highest of any Fluminense player this century.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Sanctions were levied during the rule of Bashar al-Assad, who was toppled in December.

European Union countries have given a green light to lifting all economic sanctions on Syria in a bid to help the war-torn country recover after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, according to diplomats speaking to news agencies.

Ambassadors from the EU’s 27 member states struck a preliminary agreement for the move, which should be formally unveiled by foreign ministers meeting in Brussels later on Tuesday, diplomats said, noting that the final decision is up to ministers.

This follows an announcement by the United States last week that it is lifting sanctions on Damascus.

Reporting from the EU headquarters, Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra described the reported agreement to lift the sanctions as a “really significant” development.

“It’s first of all an acknowledgement that the EU recognises the authority which is operating now in Syria, and that there need to be more financial transactions to pave the way for the creation of financial stability and improve the living standards of the people in Syria,” he said.

Sanctions were levied during the rule of al-Assad in 2012 and 2013 and concern the transport, energy and the banking sectors, Ahelbarra said.

The country’s new leadership has urged the West to ease the restrictions to help Syria recover from years of despotic rule and civil war.

EU diplomats told AFP the agreement should see sanctions cutting Syrian banks off from the global system and freezing central bank assets lifted.

But diplomats said the bloc was intending to impose new individual sanctions on those responsible for stirring ethnic tensions, following deadly attacks targeting the Alawite minority.

Other measures targeting the al-Assad regime and prohibiting the sale of weapons or equipment that could be used to repress civilians were set to remain in place.

The latest move from the EU comes after its first step in February, suspending some sanctions on key Syrian economic sectors.

Officials said those measures could be reimposed if Syria’s new leaders break promises to respect the rights of minorities and move towards democracy.

This is a developing story, more to come…