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Macy's Found a Single Employee Hid Up to $154 Million in Expenses; Israeli Cabinet to Vote on Hezbollah Ceasefire Tomorrow; World Agrees to Climate Deal, Financial Aid After Summit Nearly Implodes; YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki's Final Message is Posted After Her Death. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired November 25, 2024 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Macy's is delaying its quarterly earnings report, which was due to be released tomorrow after discovering that a single employee hid up to $154 million in expenses over several years.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The retail giant says the employee intentionally made accounting errors related to small package delivery expenses. It's a person that's no longer with the company. We have CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich joining us on this story.

Vanessa, that's a lot of money. Where is it?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That is what Macy's has been trying to find out. They were putting together their third quarter's earnings report, and they realized that the numbers simply were not adding up. So they launched this independent investigation and found that a single employee was fudging the numbers in the accounting of their small packages delivery expenses to the tune of $154 million.

Now, Macy's is still investigating, which is why the company is saying that they are pushing their full earnings report and conference call that they normally hold to December 11th.

Now, we do not know why this individual was doing this. We do not know how this individual was doing this. But Macy's says that the hiding of $154 million has had no impact on their cash management or their vendor payments. Macy's also says that this was going on for three years. During that time, the expenses totaled $4.3 billion for the total company. So $154 million is a fraction, but it's still over $100 million of money that was not accounted for.

Now, the CEO of Macy's saying in a statement this morning, quote: At Macy's Inc., we promote a culture of ethical conduct while we work diligently to complete the investigation as soon as practicable and ensure this matter is handled appropriately, our colleagues across the company are focused on serving our customers and executing our strategy for a successful holiday season.

[15:35:04] Now, this raises a lot of questions, particularly among investors who are wondering why the auditing within Macy's did not work correctly, how they could have just figured this out now that $154 million over three years was being hidden from the company. Also, investors on Wall Street wondering if this is a sign of bad management. And we know that in their preliminary earnings report, Macy's reported that sales slipped 2.4 percent. So that with this strange news about this single employee who's no longer with the company, shares of Macy's falling about 3 percent today. But the investigation at Macy's still ongoing to exactly how $154 million was just hidden.

KEILAR: Yes, we have so many questions. We know that you'll get to the bottom of them. Vanessa, thank you so much.

YURKEVICH: I'm trying.

KEILAR: Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you.

So when we come back, Israel says it's closer to a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah. So what we know about this U.S.-backed proposal. We'll have more details ahead.

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KEILAR: A potential breakthrough to end at least some of the fighting in the Middle East. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman saying the Israeli cabinet is voting tomorrow on a ceasefire deal for Hezbollah in Lebanon, potentially ending Israel's military offensive that began there in September.

SANCHEZ: According to one source, Netanyahu has already approved the proposal in principle. CNN's Nic Robertson is live for us in Jerusalem. Nic, what are you hearing about this potential deal?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, I'm also hearing from a Lebanese official who's close to the ceasefire process there saying that they expect the deal to be signed in the next 24 hours. So it seems that both sides here think they're close. Look, the Israeli side does have reservations, and one of those reservations is that they want the ability, the right to strike back at Hezbollah if they break this ceasefire deal.

It's supposed to be a 60-day ceasefire initially. As the Israeli foreign minister said today, the Hezbollah have to pull back about 30 miles north of the border, north of a place called the Litani River. The IDF pull back inside of Israel.

But the thing that the foreign minister said that seems to be hard to achieve is he said that over time Hezbollah must not be allowed to grow back into the military force that it once was. How that happens, what's the mechanism for that and how they would ever agree to that really isn't clear. But it does seem that both sides are headed towards this. Look, the vote tomorrow in the cabinet, it's not a done deal. It's not in the bag for the prime minister yet. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, really one of the hard right-wing members of Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet has said today, he said, I told the prime minister Hezbollah is losing. We should continue to press on. He said, continue, continue, continue. He wants the IDF to continue taking the fight to Hezbollah.

Tomorrow morning before the prime minister (INAUDIBLE) with the individual parties that make up his coalition. So that will be his opportunity to give the hard sell to people like Itamar Ben-Gvir and the others who are reticent about this. But the momentum seems to be there.

I don't get a sense of big support coming from the people who live in the north. I was talking with somebody I know lives very close to the border in the north and he feels that the government's selling them out. He feels that the terms of this deal are really like the terms of the deal in 2006 where it'll be quiet for a while, but eventually Hezbollah will make their way back to the border and become as big a threat again.

So I think there's a level of disappointment, certainly in the north of Israel, the 60,000 people that were evacuated from there. But nevertheless, we do seem to be moving in that direction. Not a done deal, then there's the implementation. But closer and closer, yes.

SANCHEZ: Nic Robertson, live for us from Jerusalem. Thank you so much for the update.

Staying focused on international news, countries have come together for the COP29 summit and finalized a new climate deal after days of contentious negotiations.

In the agreement, developed nations, including the United States, are pledging $300 billion annually so poorer countries can negotiate or rather mitigate the effects of extreme weather. It'll also help them develop clean energy economies.

KEILAR: President Biden praised the agreement as a historic outcome, while others are calling it an insult and a betrayal. CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir is with us now. Those are a variety of responses here. Where does this deal fall short, Bill?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it depends on where you live in the world, to be honest, Brianna. These are the developing countries. India's negotiator was the first to stand up after the gavel came down and says, this is stage-managed sham. This is a paltry sum. We're not going to accept it. Then leaders from Fiji and Bolivia and African nations all saying the same thing.

Let me give you some context. All the world came to this conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. And economists are saying the actual amount, given the scale and speed of the climate crisis, needs to be about $1.3 trillion a year. This pledge, while it triples previous promises, is less than a quarter of that amount. And it really gives the impression that the rich countries that built the modern world and put so much pollution in the sky are walking away from that.

[15:45:04]

Saudi Arabia continues to not only backpedal on their pledge to help with the energy transition, they're now actively blocking it at every turn, sort of fortifying a fossil fuel future for the world, probably emboldened by the Trump win, the presidency. And while China leads the world in pollution and in renewable energy, they're putting solar and wind online at a staggering pace. They still insist on being considered a developing nation. So don't want to kick into sort of this loss and damage fund.

Those are the big, big politics. But I tell you, everybody left with a reason to be angry at this one. And the fact that these negotiations are still holding up, I guess, can be considered the one bright spot.

SANCHEZ: Yes, because, Bill, this was a largely chaotic COP 29 conference. You kind of described some of the reasons it was so divisive. But ultimately, why was it so combative?

WEIR: It's just that we've really seen a pendulum swing. There's four years ago, even petrostates were saying, we have to get off of the fuels that burn. It's literally burning the planet. And we have to transition. Last year was the first year after 28 of these, where the transition was spelled out. Fossil fuels are in the past.

We've got to move forward. But now the economy has shifted. And investors are trying to get in on this. And countries like Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan saying, no, not so fast. Maybe we'll go for a while. Of course, Donald Trump is saying, drill, baby, drill.

But what's interesting, for an example, right now in Pakistan, they're having a huge solar boom. It's everywhere. They talk about it at cricket matches. It's on TV. They've got so much solar power coming online they need technology to manage the grid so it doesn't crash.

A perfect opportunity for the Western world to come in and help them transition and not go back to fossil fuels. But now you've got to imagine fossil fuel lobbyists will be trying to sell oil and gas in Pakistan and undo that sort of sustainable, renewable wave that's happening right now. And it's happening all around the world. So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

KEILAR: Yes, we'll be watching with you. Bill Weir, thank you for the report.

And up next, a moving message from the late YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is posted after her death. What she wanted the world to know about lung cancer is the rates among non-smokers surge.

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SANCHEZ: YouTube is sharing a touching final message from their late CEO, composed just weeks before she passed away of lung cancer in August. The social media platform is releasing it now to coincide with Lung Cancer Awareness Month.

KEILAR: Susan Wojcicki lived two years with cancer. She was 56 and she was a non-smoker.

CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard is here with more on what she wrote in her blog post. Tell us what she revealed, Jacqueline.

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Boris and Brianna, she revealed that she was shocked when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She says that she was healthy. She ran a few miles a day. She had never smoked. And yet she was diagnosed with this disease. And she says that she is not alone.

We have seen here in the United States a rise in lung cancer diagnoses among people who do not have a history of smoking. When you look at the numbers in the past 42 years, there has been an 84 percent increase in lung cancer diagnoses among women, but a 36 percent decrease among men during that same time period.

And I will say just in general, we have seen an overall decline in lung cancer in the U.S. because we have seen fewer people smoking cigarettes. But at the same time, we've seen a rise among non-smokers. And women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with lung cancer. When you look specifically at men and women who have never smoked. So this is among non-smokers.

And that's the takeaway message from Susan Wojcicki's blog, that we need to take a closer look into this trend of lung cancer among non- smokers, otherwise healthy, young and middle-aged adults.

SANCHEZ: Jacqueline, do we have any inclination as to what's leading to this trend?

HOWARD: It's still a mystery. Some researchers point to environmental causes, asbestos. Other researchers say we're seeing more genetic mutations that are putting women at an increased risk of lung cancer.

But again, it's still unclear. And in Susan Wojcicki's blog post, she does highlight that lung cancer is underfunded and under-researched. We also have guidelines, as you see on the screen here, for screening among people with a history of smoking.

But some advocates say maybe we should consider guidelines for screening among non-smokers to really get at what's behind this trend. So again, it's an ongoing conversation that's happening here.

SANCHEZ: And there's research being done that we're definitely going to keep an eye on. Jacqueline Howard, appreciate the update. Thanks so much.

Stay with CNN. We'll be right back.

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KEILAR: So Thanksgiving week, not exactly known for portion control. Just want to put that out there. Right now, folks in Chicago are getting a health message, but it's not for them. It's for their pet. Cue a giant dog balloon stuck between buildings in the downtown area. Turns out it's not a rogue Thanksgiving parade balloon. It's a prop aimed at raising awareness about, yep, dog obesity.

SANCHEZ: Yep. The folks at the IAMS Pet Food Company launched this plump canine. The company knows that more than 59 percent of American dogs are overweight.

And this portly pup was inspired by a real life dog named Waylon with his own weight loss story to tell on the company's website. I've watched the story of Waylon who bears a striking resemblance to the inflated dog. And I have to say, it made me open my eyes because Waylon seemed perfectly healthy and happy in the before photos of him.

KEILAR: And what happened?

SANCHEZ: Well, they put him on this dog food. They put him on like a rigorous exercise routine and he seemed to get healthier. But my question is, how do you treat a good dog? You got to give them a treat. And if they're really good, you give them a lot of treats. So then you wind up in this awful conundrum.

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KEILAR: Rub them behind their ears.

SANCHEZ: That's not enough.

KEILAR: No, it's not.

SANCHEZ: My dog will not move from places where I need to sit from the doorway from any location unless they're treated. And so you got to incentivize. So how do you treat them? You know, you give them a piece of cheese.

KEILAR: I think it's --

SANCHEZ: Makes them really happy.

KEILAR: I think this is the problem you've created for yourself.

SANCHEZ: They lead a good life. I would never negate her some cheese. I love you, Harlan.

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

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