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A helicopter crash on top of a Manhattan office building that killed the pilot and plunged midtown into chaos on Monday afternoon is raising safety questions about choppers flying in the densely populated city.

Federal officials said they are investigating whether the pilot, who was killed after his Agusta A109E helicopter crashed on the roof of 787 Seventh Ave. in heavy fog, violated any flight rules. The pilot was the sole fatality and only person on board the private helicopter.

Helicopter pilots usually contact the tower at LaGuardia Airport in neighboring Queens when they take off from the East 34th Street Heliport, where the helicopter that crashed reportedly took off. But the pilot did not make that contact and there isn't a requirement to do so, according to a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman.

The helicopter was also flying in a restricted area, about a half mile from Trump Tower, according to the New York Police Department. The FAA had put restrictions on flights in that area after Trump's election in 2016.

Following Monday's crash, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat whose district includes a large swath of midtown Manhattan, renewed calls for a ban on "non-essential" helicopters over New York City.

"Today, New York City experienced yet another deadly helicopter crash, this time, with our nightmare of having a helicopter crash into a building," Maloney said in a statement. "We cannot rely on good fortune to protect people on the ground. It is past time for the FAA to ban unnecessary helicopters from the skies over our densely-packed urban city. The risks to New Yorkers are just too high."

The pilot on Monday was flying in low visibility when most other choppers around the city had remained grounded.

"This was not a normal flight," said John Goglia, former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. "I think he was struggling for control and to put it down but he couldn't."

The building does not have a helipad, according to officials. Helipads on buildings have been largely banned from New York rooftops after a helicopter's rotor blade snapped off in 1977 atop what was then the Pan Am building, killing five people. Public helipads in Manhattan, of which there are now three, have been confined to the coasts of the island.

Helicopter accidents are relatively uncommon compared with other modes of transportation, but recent incidents have sparked calls for tighter restrictions.

After a tour helicopter crashed in the East River in March 2018, killing five passengers on board, Maloney and six other lawmakers wrote a letter to the FAA and NTSB to tighten safety regulations for tourism flights.

New York City officials in 2016 announced a plan to halve the number of helicopter tourism flights in the city to 30,000.

New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor were killed in 2006 when Lidle's small plane crashed into a 42-story building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Eighteen people were injured in the crash.

Barnes & Noble said on Friday it had not received any other offers from prospective bidders before Elliott Management's "keep-shop" deadline.

Elliott, which offered $475.8 million to take the bookstore retailer private, had a provision that allows the hedge fund to be entitled to a payment of up to $4 million if the retailer struck a deal with a third party before the deadline. Thereafter, the breakup fee will be $17.5 million.

"I can confirm that we received no other bids before last night's (Thursday) 11:59 PM (ET) deadline," a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble said.

Barnes & Noble investor Richard Schottenfeld said on Thursday the bookstore chain is worth more than Elliott's recent offer and he may engage in discussions with the company's board for its sale.

The U.S. bookstore chain has been exploring options for a buyout since last October, with multiple parties showing interest, including founder-chairman Leonard Riggio.

Barnes & Noble has been struggling to grow sales at its bookstores, as consumers shift to other hobbies or prefer to order books from online stores like Amazon.

Shares of the bookstore chain were down 2.6% at $6.7 in morning trading.

CBS and Viacom are expected to begin seriously discussing a merger next week, culminating months of speculation about an eventual combination, according to people familiar with the matter.

CBS is holding a meeting of board members tomorrow, and though no formal announcements are planned, the board of directors is expected to decide to increase the level of seriousness around discussions with Viacom, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.

CBS and Viacom know each other well, which could speed along discussions over the next few weeks about an exchange ratio, board composition and management leadership positions.

Still, there are still unknowns that could bog down the talks.

Bob Bakish, the Viacom CEO, is expected to be the head of a combined company, said the people. In a typical deal, the combined company would pick a CEO then let that person fill out the rest of the management team. But here, there are several reasons why the combined company would appoint and name several other top execs at the same time as picking a CEO.

First, the CBS board lacks confidence in Bakish's team, given their dearth of experience running a broadcast network and a premium movie channel, said two of the people. (CBS owns Showtime and has help preliminary talks to acquire Starz from Lions Gate. Talks about acquiring Starz are expected to continue but may not happen until after a CBS-Viacom agreement, said people familiar with the matter.)

The CBS board particularly wants David Nevins, who was named CBS's new chief creative officer in 2018, to get a high-profile job in the new regime, said the people.

While current CEO Joe Ianniello is well-liked at CBS, his ties to former CEO Les Moonves may hurt his chances to stay at a combined company, the people said. Ianniello was first Moonves's chief financial officer and later chief operating officer.

Further, the CBS board is bracing for a possible shareholder lawsuit if a deal is consummated. Some members of the board are worried that paying a premium for Viacom and taking its CEO will be seen as overpaying for an underperforming company, one of the people said. Viacom shares are down about 58 percent over the past five years.

Taking Viacom execs along with Bakish could strengthen any such lawsuit -- the reasoning being that CBS should not take the management team of a company that has long underperformed. So CBS executives could win out over their Viacom equivalents for jobs underneath Bakish, the people said.

If Nevins becomes the chief creative officer for the combined company, Bakish could look outside CBS for a chief operating officer, two of the people said.

So -- a complicated leadership situation overall.

While Moonves's departure created a leadership vacuum at CBS, the company's streaming services have surpassed internal signup goals, with 8 million people signing up for CBS All Access and Showtime. CBS said earlier this year that its next goal is to reach 25 million domestic subscribers by 2022. That could be good news for the CBS interactive team, led by Jim Lanzone.

CBS has no plans to combine its Showtime and CBS All Access streaming services like WarnerMedia is doing with HBO and its Turner and Warner Bros. content, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Spokespeople for CBS and Viacom declined comment.

Facebook, Google and Twitter ramped up their efforts to fight fake news ahead of elections last month but "more needs to be done" in the face of ongoing threats from Russia, EU officials said Friday.

In a joint statement and report, the EU reported evidence of "coordinated inauthentic behavior" such as bots and fake accounts trying spread divisive content on online platforms ahead of the European Parliament elections at the end of May. The EU added it found "continued and sustained disinformation activity" by Russian sources aiming to influence voter preferences and suppress turnout.

"The tactics used by internal and external actors, in particular linked to Russian sources, are evolving as quickly as the measures adopted by states and online platforms," the statement said.

The EU report found it was too early to identify whether there was a "distinct cross-border disinformation campaign" targeting the European elections.

Social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have faced backlash from lawmakers around the world for failing to contain the spread of fake information in election campaigns. The EU said the companies have made progress in some of their efforts to fight disinformation, like hiring fact-checking teams and tightening restrictions around political advertising. But European officials added they expect the firms "to maintain momentum and to step up their efforts."

The EU said that in the days preceding elections, more than 600 groups and Facebook pages across Germany, France, Italy, the U.K., Poland and Spain were reported to have spread disinformation and hate speech. It said these pages generated 763 million user views.

Facebook has been stepping up its fight against fake accounts in recent months. In May, the company reported it removed 2.2 billion fake accounts in the first quarter of 2019, nearly double the amount from the prior quarter. Facebook also toughened its requirements around political advertising on the platform ahead of EU elections.

"Although Facebook extended its transparency to issue-based ads and Google and Twitter did not, questions remain about the effectiveness of the transparency measures taken by all signatories," the EU report said. "Furthermore, the platforms did not make sufficient progress in increasing the transparency of websites hosting ads, partly due to the lack of engagement from the advertising industry."

Facebook, Google and Twitter agreed to an EU "Code of Practice on Disinformation " in 2018, making commitments to submit monthly reports on their efforts to remove fake news ahead of the election.

"People want accurate information online and the work undertaken under the Code shows how Governments, tech companies and trade bodies can work together to tackle online misinformation. But the fight against false news will never be over. That is why we are making significant investments to remove fake accounts and clickbait and to promote high-quality journalism and news literacy," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement Friday.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Twitter told CNBC in a statement that it is "deeply committed to protecting and supporting the public conversation. During the EU Elections, Twitter took proactive steps to encourage healthy democratic debate and ensure EU citizens could access credible, quality information on the service."

It further added: "We established a high-level cross-functional elections team, introduced a political campaign ads policy, and launched a new tool which enables users to report deliberately misleading election-related content. As with every election around the world, we'll continue to enforce our policies in line with our singular priority: to improve the health of the public conversation."

The European parliamentary election is the second-largest democratic election in the world, following India. The EU reported 51% of voters turned out for elections this year, the highest level in two decades. Top EU jobs – including that of the head of the European Union – are still up for grabs with a decision expected on June 18.

Google did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment.

Even as analysts have called the doom of retail as Amazon's might and influence grows stronger, some have bounced back — often with the help of their online business.

A number of retailers and restaurants over the past few weeks have reported explosive growth of e-commerce sales. Lululemon on Wednesday said online sales this past quarter grew 35%. Target's online sales were up 42%, and Walmart reported 37% digital growth. Dick's Sporting Goods' online sales were up 15%. Best Buy's digital business in the U.S. grew 14.5%.

Investors have been rewarding this growth. Walmart and Lululemon shares both hit a 52-week high Thursday. Walmart's stock has gained 16% so far this year, while Lululemon's stock is up more than 42% since January. Starbucks is up nearly 30%, while Chipotle has gained 70% this year.

"Now, it's easier in some ways to be a late mover," in retailing online, Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester Research, said in an interview.

Timing could be what's giving companies such as Lululemon and Walmart a leg up. They didn't have to "reinvent the wheel" online, she said, but instead have been able to take "best practices" from other companies such as Amazon, which started as an online bookstore in 1995. In Walmart's case, that's included acquisitions of start-ups such as Jet.com that have given it a bench of young and experienced tech talent.

Meanwhile, what's giving these retailers such a strong muscle online is something Amazon can't match, at least today: bricks-and-mortar stores. Traditional retailers are finally getting the hang of offering services such as curbside pickup and buy online pick up in store, helping boost online sales but also cutting back on shipping costs for the company.

Lululemon, for example, spoke this quarter about expanding buy online pick up in store options. About 150 of its roughly 440 stores now offer the service, the company said, and it plans to expand the option across its entire store base by the end of the third quarter.

Much of Target's growth online has also stemmed from these services.

During the first quarter of fiscal 2019, Target said its same-day delivery service with Shipt, curbside and in-store pickup drove more than half of its 42% e-commerce sales growth and 25% of same-store sales growth. Sales at stores open at least a year were up 4.8% during the period, outpacing estimates.

The financial benefit of all this for Target is that when customers pick items up in stores, it's 90% cheaper for the retailer than when it has to ship something from a warehouse, the company has said.

"Even today, on any given day, upwards of 50% of our orders are delivered next-day and it's using our stores and their proximity as that advantage in our overall strategy," Target CEO Brian Cornell told analysts last month. "We're leveraging the fact that we're so, so close to the guest ... and convenience is a big part of our strategy."

For Walmart, much of its recent online efforts have been centered around grocery. The retailer is planning to have 1,600 stores equipped for grocery delivery and 3,100 hubs for in-person grocery pickup by the end of this year. It's said 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of at least one of its stores.

"Clearly, we think our stores are a competitive advantage," Walmart CFO Michael Dastugue told analysts at a UBS-hosted conference in March.

The best "omnichannel" retailers in the country today, meaning the companies that are best utilizing their stores to help with their e-commerce businesses and vice versa, are Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, Macy's, Dick's Sporting Goods, Kohl's, Nordstrom, Lowe's and J.C. Penney, and in that order, according to a study by Internet Retailer.

It looked at things such as which retailers allowed shoppers to return online orders to a store, showed in-store stock status on the web, priced matched in-store offers with online promotions and even offered free, in-store Wi-Fi.

"Retailers that aren't making omnichannel a priority do so at their peril, as shoppers are demanding these services," the report said. Seventy-eight percent of shoppers check inventory online for a certain store before heading there, and 68% of all shoppers say they'll do more of this in 2019, the firm found in surveying 1,100 consumers.

Many restaurants' online businesses have also rebounded.

Restaurant digital orders have grown by 23% over the last four years, according to The NPD Group — and they're expected to keep growing. Digital sales typically result in higher average checks for restaurants. Domino's Pizza, which sees two-thirds of its orders come through digital channels, has reaped the rewards of being an early adopter.

Mobile apps represent 60% of digital orders, NPD found. Some restaurants, such as Starbucks, encourage customers to order via app through loyalty programs. About 40% of Starbucks transactions come from loyalty members.

Early on, Starbucks said mobile orders had hurt sales after they caused bottlenecks at the pickup line, but the company has since resolved these issues.

Convenience is definitely a factor propelling restaurants' digital ordering. Chipotle Mexican Grill's digital sales accounted for 15.7% of sales last quarter and doubled from a year ago. To smooth the process, the burrito maker has invested in digital pick-up shelves and special drive-thru lanes for digital orders.

The rise of third-party delivery services has also played a role in the increased number of digital restaurant orders. For once, Amazon played a relatively small role in this trend, outpaced by first movers such as GrubHub, DoorDash and UberEats. Most major restaurant chains have partnered with one or more delivery platforms to bring their food to customers' doorsteps. But earlier this week, Amazon said that it would discontinue the service to focus on grocery delivery.

AT&T said Thursday it has canceled preorders for Samsung's $2,000 Galaxy Fold and is offering $100 to customers who ordered it early.

Samsung's Galaxy Fold is one of the first folding phones and was supposed to launch on April 26, but that date was pushed back indefinitely after review units, including one tested by CNBC, broke during testing. The screen on CNBC's unit began flickering before the phone's screen stopped working entirely. Samsung says it is working on "further improvements" that will help protect the display from damage.

Samsung automatically canceled early orders that were placed through its website once it confirmed it was unable to ship the folding phone by May 31. Best Buy also canceled orders.

"While we continue to make progress in enhancing the Galaxy Fold, a new release date has not yet been announced. Because of this, we have recently contacted our pre-order customers to provide them information on their options as we move forward," Samsung told CNBC in May.

A report from Korea's Yonhap News Agency in May said Samsung was aiming to launch the phone in June. Samsung said at the time that it would announce a new release date "in the coming weeks."

Samsung was not immediately available to comment on AT&T's cancellation or to confirm a new launch date for the Galaxy Fold.

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A reading of the economy from Morgan Stanley is signaling "June gloom."

Morgan Stanley's Business Conditions Index, which captures turning points in the economy, fell by 32 points in June, to a level of 13 from a level of 45 in May. This drop is the largest one-month decline on record and the lowest level since December 2008 during the financial crisis, according to the firm.

"The decline shows a sharp deterioration in sentiment this month that was broad-based across sectors,' economist Ellen Zentner said in a note to clients. "Fundamental indicators point to a broad softening of activity, but analysts did not widely attribute the weakening to trade policy."

Fears of a possible economic slowdown were raised last week after a much worse than expected jobs report. The economy added just 75,000 jobs in May, according to the Labor Department last Friday. A report Thursday showed a spike in jobless claims last week. Manufacturing activity last month grew at the slowest pace in two years.

Worries about a trade deal getting passed between the U.S. and China weighed on stock markets in May. Perversely, that weak sentiment actually boosted equities this month because traders are hoping the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates. But some investors are starting to worry that the economy could fall into an outright recession.

June's conditions index reading showed notable declines in hiring, hiring plans, capex plans and business conditions exceptions, Morgan Stanley said.

The manufacturing subindex business conditions fell sharply to zero, "a decline that was likely exaggerated by the recent turn lower in oil prices, while marking the lowest level for the subindex on record," Zentner said.

The services subindex also fell to 18 from 35.

Apple's new iPhone software, iOS 13, includes a feature that will help extend the life of your battery.

This is important.

People are keeping their phones longer, often for three or four years, instead of upgrading every two years as was common when smartphones were new and improved more dramatically with every release.

But batteries start to lose their ability to hold a charge as effectively when the phones age, which means that your battery life starts to get worse.

Apple launched a battery replacement program in 2018 after it was criticized for slowing down older iPhones to maintain performance. Since then, it added an option that allows users to see if their battery is running at maximum capacity. If it isn't, users can take in their phone to get the battery replaced by Apple.

The new iOS 13 builds on this even further with a built-in feature to help your battery last longer in the first place.

The new feature, called "optimized battery charging," will launch for iPhones this fall in the iOS 13 update but is already available for developer testing ahead of a public preview launch next month. I found it on my iPhone under battery settings, which is running the developer preview of iOS 13. It was turned on by default, which means you may not even need to turn it on when the software is available this fall.

Apple's iOS 13 website explains what it does:

"A new option helps slow the rate of battery aging by reducing the time your iPhone spends fully charged. iPhone uses on-device machine learning to understand your daily charging routine so it can wait to finish charging past 80% until you need to use it."

Apple's battery website explains that the lithium ion batteries inside of an iPhone can quickly charge up to 80 percent. The remaining 20 percent uses a "trickle charge" that "eases the electrical current to extend battery lifespan."

But, when your phone is plugged in, this trickle charge continues to run in an effort to keep the battery fully charged. That can wear your battery out more quickly.

Apple's new feature will prevent the phone from charging up to 100 percent, and activating the trickle charge, until it thinks you're going to need it. So, if you typically pull your iPhone off the charger at 6 a.m., it'll finish juicing up the last 20 percent just before then, instead of earlier in the night when it might consistently try to keep the iPhone charged at 100 percent.

Doing this is supposed to reduce battery aging and allow you to use your iPhone at peak performance and with a maximum battery capacity for longer. In short, it's good news for people who want to own their phone for several years without having to replace their batteries.

A coalition of chief executives is trying to get more corporate boards to create diversity plans at U.S. companies, a senior official with the group said Wednesday.

"We're asking CEOs and their boards to commit to annually doing a diversity and inclusion strategic plan," Tim Ryan, chair of the steering committee for the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion, told "Squawk Box" Wednesday. "They'll actually prepare a plan, that has everything from measurement, to programs that you have in place, to accountability. And that plan is reviewed not only by the CEO, but by the board as well, and there's oversight around it."

Previous pledges from the group, which so far has 650 CEOs in over 85 industries supporting its efforts, were centered around commitments to making workplaces trusting places to have difficult conversations about diversity, to implement and expand education surrounding unconscious bias, and to share both best and unsuccessful, practices.

Notable companies that have signed onto the CEO Diversity pledges include Bain & Company, Morgan Stanley, and McKinsey, as well as entertainment companies 21st Century Fox, CBS, and Vimeo. Even presidents of academic institutions like Georgetown and Penn State have signed on.

CEO Action recently surveyed its signatories and found that 89% are implementing or have implemented unconscious bias education, and 78% feel that CEO Action has had a positive impact on diversity and inclusion in their workplace.

Ryan, who is also the chairman of PwC U.S., says this achieves the goal of CEO Action: To reach as many companies as possible. "In the early days, what we said was, this has to be a group effort…what we know is, when you get inclusion to be part of the reality, we all win."

And to the argument that a lack of diversity is caused by a lack of talented applicants, Ryan has an easy answer:

"Without a doubt we believe that's a false statement."

For John Rogers, Chairman, CEO, and CIO of Ariel Investments, diversity is top of mind when he is thinking about companies to invest in.

"We want to invest in 21st century companies that are growing," Rogers told "Squawk Box." "If their management teams, their boards, look like 1940s companies, we can't invest in those types of companies."

"It means they're backward-looking, not forward-thinkers."

CEO Action's pledges are available on their website, CEOAction.com, where their free resources are also available.

A group of at least 10 state attorneys general are preparing on Tuesday to file a lawsuit to stop the $26 billion merger of Sprint and T-Mobile, a deal that would reduce the number of nationwide wireless carriers from four to three, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

New York's state attorney general is leading the lawsuit, one source said. New York's attorney general's office has announced a press conference for this afternoon.

The lawsuit is to be filed in New York, according to one source.

T-Mobile, whose parent company is Deutsche Telekom AG , and Sprint, which is controlled by Japans SoftBank Group Ltd, did not immediately comment. A spokeswoman for the New York attorney general declined to comment.

Sprint Chief Executive Marcelo Claure and his counterpart at T-Mobile, John Legere, met with the Justice Department on Monday, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The companies have offered to sell prepaid brand Boost Mobile, to reduce the combined company's market share in the prepaid wireless business. They have also indicated that they were considering divesting wireless spectrum.

The deal has won the backing of a majority of the Federal Communications Commission. The U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division staff has recommended that the agency block the deal, but no final decision has been made.

WATCH: Trump talks to CNBC about 5G, Sprint T-Mobile merger

NASA has opened up the International Space Station (ISS) to tourists and already companies are buying rides to fly so-called "private astronauts" up to the laboratory in the sky for a visit.

For approximately $52 million per person, you can purchase a seat to fly with SpaceX – once Elon Musk's space company begins flights to the ISS.

Bigelow Aerospace, a company that is developing space stations that expand, announced on Tuesday that its subsidiary Bigelow Space Operations has "paid substantial sums as deposits and reservation fees" to SpaceX for four launches to the space station. Bigelow said each launch will fly as many as four people to the ISS in a SpaceX "Crew Dragon" capsule.

The announcement comes after NASA on Friday said it would open the ISS for "private astronaut missions of up to 30 days, " with the first mission as early as 2020. SpaceX and Boeing have been developing capsules with NASA funding to carry astronauts to the ISS. In turn, NASA will buy seats on those flights but will not necessarily take up all of the seats on each launch, therefore allowing the companies to sell those seats to tourists.

Allowing tourists on the ISS is a major shift for NASA, as the agency used to prohibit private astronauts from flying to the station. Previously, private astronauts would have to fly on Russia rockets and capsules to reach the station.

NASA will get $35,000 for each night a tourist spends on the ISS, according to agency officials. Pricing details on NASA's website reveal those costs largely go toward things such as life support, food, air, energy and data.

Both Boeing and SpaceX are in the late stages of developing their respective capsules, with NASA aiming to certify both vehicles to carry people within the next year. Bigelow's flights are contingent upon that certification.

President Donald Trump's use of tariffs as part of a political agenda is a potential drag on markets, according to Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon.

"The issue is that the president is using tariffs as a broader agenda," Solomon said in a CNBC interview at Recode's Code Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. "There's no question if the president continues to use tariffs for a broader, political agenda, it can have an impact on market activity."

The Wall Street CEO agreed with the president that there are "very significant" fundamental disagreements between the U.S. and China. But Solomon said he would rather see a "more focused approach" on resolving larger trade issues.

"I agree with the president in pushing this, that we have to rebalance," Solomon said. "The question is, how will it happen, and over what period of time? I think we can make progress on narrow issues around trade."

Still, the Goldman chief executive said "uncertainty" and "dislocation" that comes with tariffs and a trade war is "bad for risk assets." But he also said it's weighing on the economy.

"I am not a big fan of the economic cost of tariffs and I think there is a real economic cost to the U.S. economy and to consumers," Solomon said.

The president warned Mexico on May 30 that he would put a 5% tariff on all Mexican goods if they did not take actions to help curb undocumented immigrants from coming across the border. On Friday, the president called off the Mexico tariffs and said the U.S. and Mexico had agreed on some concessions surrounding immigration.

Tariffs on China are still in place though. In May, the president increased tariff rates on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and threatened to put levies on another $300 billion — which effectively includes the rest of China's imports in the United States. Trump told CNBC on Monday he would place additional tariffs on Chinese goods if Xi does not attend the G-20 meeting later this month.

WATCH: CNBC's full interview with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon

Raytheon and United Technologies on Sunday announced they would merge in an all-stock deal, a tie-up that would create a behemoth in the fast-growing defense and aerospace sectors.

The combination would bring together United Technologies booming aerospace business that makes everything from jet engines, cockpit controls and airplane seats with Tomahawk missile maker Raytheon.

The companies would have combined annual sales of around $74 billion, the companies said. That would make the new company, which they are planning to call Raytheon Technologies, the second-largest aerospace and defense company in the U.S. by revenue, behind Boeing.

"The combination of United Technologies and Raytheon will define the future of aerospace and defense," United Technologies chairman and CEO Greg Hayes said in a release. "By joining forces, we will have unsurpassed technology and expanded R&D capabilities that will allow us to invest through business cycles and address our customers' highest priorities."

United Technologies has reaped the benefits from searing global aircraft demand and has been beefing up its commercial aerospace business, which includes jet engine maker Pratt and Whitney. In November 2018, it closed its acquisition of Rockwell Collins.

The two companies have little overlap and may not face strong regulatory push-back to their deal, said Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst at Teal Group.

The new company would be headquartered in the Boston area, the two firms said in the release. Raytheon is based in Waltham, Mass., a Boston suburb.

If completed, shareholders in Farmington, Conn.-based United Technologies would own 57% of the new company while Raytheon's would own 43% on a diluted basis.

The deal, which the two companies called a "merger of equals," is expected to close in the first half of 2020, they said.

Like other industrial conglomerates, United Technologies shedding businesses to focus on highly profitable units. It is the middle of spinning its Otis elevator business and its Carrier air conditioning unit into separate companies. The merger with Raytheon wouldn't affect that process and it is still on track to close in the first half of 2020, the companies said Sunday.

United Technologies' chief executive Hayes would become CEO of the combined company, and Raytheon's CEO Thomas Kennedy would become chairman. Two years after the deal closes Hayes would become chairman.

Raytheon and United Technologies have a combined market value of nearly $166 billion. Raytheon shareholders will get 2.3348 shares in the new company for each Raytheon share, the firms said.

Salesforce announced plans to buy data intelligence giant Tableau Software for $15.3 billion early Monday morning, and released a slide deck for investors to help explain the deal.

The last slide of that deck, which was filed to the SEC, has a big "Thank You" above a picture of several cartoon characters, including one that looks like Albert Einstein, in a forest:

If you don't follow Salesforce closely, you might be puzzled.

The company offers an explanation for most of these characters in a 2017 blog post. They're called the Trailhead Crew, and they're meant to represent "the fun side of our company and inspire our Ohana to blaze new trails." (Ohana is a Hawaiian word meaning "family" and, in Salesforce parlance, refers to employees, customers or other stakeholders. Co-founder and co-CEO Marc Benioff is a big fan of Hawaiian culture and the islands.)

The characters are, from left to right:

• Cloudy the goat, who is meant to represent people building apps on Salesforce's cloud as well as general inspiration — she "brings out the best in everyone and encourages you to tap into your own unlimited potential."
• Appy the cat, who is a guide to the apps available on Salesforce's AppExchange.
• Codey the bear, who represents coders — "tackling projects and getting his paws dirty."
• Astro the small person, is a guide to all things Salesforce.
• Max the Mule was inherited during Salesforce's last big acquisition, application integration company MuleSoft, which it bought for $6.5 billion in 2018.
• Einstein refers to Salesforce's artificial intelligence technology, which is meant to help users discover insights stored in the system.

They're all on a trail in the woods as a reference to Trailhead, the company's platform for training users so they can get more out of the company's services.

Not included in the picture is SaaSy, the company's dancing cloud mascot, representing the company's emphasis on cloud services instead of software that runs locally in company data centers.

No word yet from Salesforce if Tableau will get its own mascot through the deal.

WATCH: Salesforce to buy Tableau in stock deal

Beyond Meat's stock continues to skyrocket and even the most optimistic Wall Street analysts are lagging far behind.

Shares of the alternative meat company jumped more than 600% from the initial public offering price of $25 a share during intraday trade Monday, hitting a high of $186.43 a share. It finished the day up 21.2% at $168.10, up about 570% from its IPO price. Beyond Meat reported first-quarter results Thursday that were stronger than expected, telling investors that it expects revenue to more than double over the next year.

There are eight Wall Street firms covering Beyond Meat's stock and, after the company's earnings, five of them raised their price targets.

But even the highest price target – Credit Suisse at $125 a share – was immediately outpaced when Beyond Meat's stock began tradingMonday. Beyond Meat shares soared toward its third best day of trading ever, climbing more than 25% at one point.

Beyond Meat's stock is over 65% above the average Wall Street 12-month price target of $103.85 a share.

Beyond Meat "issued revenue guidance for 2019 that exceeded our estimate by 11% due to distribution gains and velocity growth," Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow told investors Friday. His firm's price target nearly doubled, as Credit Suisse raised it from $70 a share to $125 a share.

"At some point, the extraordinary revenue and profit potential embedded in [Beyond Meat] will be priced in," J.P. Morgan analyst Ken Goldman told investors Friday. Goldman's forecast is $120.

But "as long as Street forecasts fail to properly reflect BYND's remarkable potential, we remain Overweight," Goldman added.

Here is the full list of analysts covering Beyond Meat's stock and their price targets in descending order:

• Credit Suisse - Robert Moskow: neutral rating, $125 price target
• J.P. Morgan - Ken Goldman: overweight rating, $120 price target
• Bernstein - Alexia Howard: outperform rating, $107 price target
• Jefferies - Kevin Grundy: hold rating, $105 price target
• Bank of America Merrill Lynch - Bryan Spillane: neutral rating, $101 price target
• Consumer Edge - Chase West: equalweight rating, $91 price target
• Goldman Sachs - Adam Samuelson: neutral rating, $76 price target
• William Blair - Jon Andersen: market perform rating, no price target

— With reporting by CNBC's Michael Bloom.

Italy is on the brink of being scrutinized further by European authorities, given its massive debt pile.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said last week that Rome had not reduced its public debt levels in 2018. The commission stated that the current Italian government spending shows the debt levels could rise to 135% by 2020 – breaching the EU's fiscal rules.

As a result, European finance ministers are due to decide whether the European Commission needs to step up its oversight on Italy in a process that could ultimately lead to fines.

CNBC looks at how the process works and whether the risk of sanctions is likely to materialize soon.

Euro zone countries are expected to maintain their deficit levels below 3% of their growth and a public debt threshold above 60% of GDP, according to the European Treaties.

However, the rules are flexible. If a country did not respect the EU Treaty due to "exceptional and temporary" reasons, then the European Commission takes no action against the member state.

If the deviation from the fiscal rules seems an ongoing matter – as the European Commission deemed to be the case for Italy – then Brussels opens an Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP).

It is essentially a step-by-step process that tracks whether a country is taking actions to bring down its deficit and/or public debt level. The process becomes official when European finance ministers give their green light.

During the step-by-step process, the European Commission helps the member state by suggesting ways to change its fiscal position.

If there is no willingness from that country to change its finances, this procedure then states that European funds given to that capital be suspended as well as a fine of up to 0.2% of the country's growth be applied.

The latter has never taken place since the establishment of the rules in 1993.

"They (Italy) must demonstrate that in 2019 and 2020, they are going to lead a sound fiscal policy which is compatible (and) compliant with our rules," Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for economics, told CNBC in Japan on Sunday.

"I think (Giovanni Tria, the Italian finance minister) is conscious. Now he needs to move from consciousness to action."

"An ongoing standoff with Brussels might pay off politically in Italy, especially for Matteo Salvini's Lega. This, in conjunction with the drawn-out timeline for next steps, lends itself to a prolonged confrontation rather than a quick escalation towards sanctions and fines," Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of the research firm Teneo Intelligence said in a note last week.

The job of the European Commission is particularly limited this year, given that a new set of policymakers is due to take power in November.

Matteo Salvini, the country's deputy prime minister and a vocal opponent of the EU's fiscal rules, said last week that the only way to cut the debt from previous administrations is by cutting taxes. He has also made previous remarks noting that the current executive in Brussels would be changing soon.

"The fines are in the end of a very long procedure… It can be several months… the fines are not the question," Moscovici told CNBC's Nancy Hungerford.

He added that Italy "must be conscious that their future is not combatting the euro zone with some extreme right ideas."

In most public and private schools across the nation, Chromebooks, iPads or Windows devices are everywhere.

But things look very different at Waldorf Schools, where technology and screens aren't used at all through 8th grade, and are scarce even in high school. The Waldorf teaching philosophy is used at more than 1,000 institutions in 91 countries, including 136 schools in the U.S.

Watch the video to see what a Waldorf School is like, and why parents are seeking them out in places like Silicon Valley.

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Friday applauded the quarterly results that Beyond Meat and Zoom Video — two stocks he has been skeptical about — posted Thursday as "things of beauty."

The newly-public companies saw their stocks rally by double-digits after beating Wall Street expectations in their first earnings reports since their recent IPOs. Zoom spiked more than 18% and Beyond Meat catapulted nearly 40% during Friday's session.

"I say two cheers for Zoom and Beyond Meat," the "Mad Money" host said. "They may be too rich now, but they made you rich if you stuck with them."

Since listing on the Nasdaq in early May, Beyond Meat's stock is now worth less than $139 — nearly six times its debut price. The faux meat company, which produces plant-based burgers, reported $40.2 million in revenue for the quarter — Wall Street expected less than $39 million — and boosted gross profit margin by more than 1,000 basis points year-over-year.

Beyond Meat has vegan burger competition in the privately-held Impossible and Nestle, but Beyond has potential deals in the works with fast food chains, Cramer said. Competitors in the vegan burger space, according to Beyond Meat's management, have made some missteps and given the company a head start, Cramer added.

"They're adamant that they make a better burger, and they believe that there's still a ton of room to grow as the meatless category is still just at 2% household penetration," he said. "No wonder the stock exploded higher."

Zoom's share price has surged from its $36 April IPO to $94.05 as of Friday's close. The video conferencing company delivered a big revenue beat in its first public report. The company reported about 7,700 new customers and four deals that will bring in more than $1 million each year, Cramer noted.

Zoom faces competition from Cisco, but Cramer highlighted that it landed a positive note from J.P. Morgan saying the quarterly results "underscore our confidence in Zoom as our favorite stock even with the current valuation level."

With Zoom's share price jumping more than 161%, and Beyond Meat's nearly 455%, since going public, the host said "these stocks are absolutely trading at stratospheric levels ... both could be easily imperiled."

In the case of these two IPOs, however, Wall Street got it right and everybody wins, he said.

"I've been warning you for months that the recent flood of IPOs was creating a situation where we had a too much supply on hand, especially after the Uber deal, " Cramer said. "But some of these deals really were fantastic for investors, and I wish I'd been more bullish about them."

Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Cisco.

There are no signs that the U.S. economy may be heading into a recession, according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Speaking to CNBC on Sunday, the American official expressed nothing but optimism about the state of his country's economy. That analysis comes despite a May jobs figure that came in significantly below expectations and increasing expectations that the Federal Reserve could opt to cut interest rates multiple times this year.

"U.S. growth it still really the bright spot of the world," Mnuchin told CNBC's Nancy Hungerford.

"As it relates to the employment numbers, I wouldn't focus on any one number: There's plenty of volatility in these numbers," he added. "We still see the growth in the U.S. as really quite strong."

In fact, the Treasury secretary said his concerns are about economic falterings beyond American borders. "We are somewhat concerned about what we see as a slowdown in Europe, China and other areas of the world," he said.

And while markets may be forecasting that the U.S. central bank will initiate some easing, Mnuchin suggested that doesn't presage any economic downturn.

"I don't see any signs of a recession. I would say the bond markets are predicting ... a lowering of interest rates. We are in an environment where global interest rates are very low around the world, so I think that's what you're seeing in the U.S. bond markets," he said. "But, no, we see no signs of a recession. We see another strong quarter in the United States."

Mnuchin declined, citing the principle of central bank independence, to say whether he though the state of the U.S. economy warranted any interest rate cuts from the Fed.

Here's some unwelcome news to start the summer travel season: Your chances of getting bumped off your flight is on the rise.

After boasting record low bumping rates, U.S. airlines in the first three months of this year denied boarding to travelers at the highest rate since 2017, according to Department of Transportation data released Wednesday. The increase was partially driven by the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max, which took more than 70 of the high-capacity planes out of service.

Aviation authorities worldwide, including the Federal Aviation Administration, grounded the Boeing jets after two fatal crashes of the model, one in Indonesia and another in Ethiopia, within five months of one another. A total of 346 people were killed in the two crashes.

American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, which have 58 of the jets in their fleets combined and posted higher-than-average bumping rates, told federal officials that the 737 Max grounding hurt their results, the Department of Transportation said in its report. Bad weather added to the number of passengers who were denied boarding, said American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein.

After the violent dragging of passenger David Dao off a plane in April 2017 sparked a public-relations disaster for United Airlines, carriers have taken measures to avoid involuntary bumping. Measures include alerting passengers of oversold flights before they get to the airport so they can opt to rebook online and increasing compensation for passengers who are okay with getting bumped.

Airlines are now bracing for the busiest summer travel season on record. Southwest, American and United have canceled thousands of flights through August because the 737 Max is grounded. The FAA has not said when it will allow the jets to fly again.

The chances of getting bumped are still relatively low. In the three months ended March 31, U.S. carriers' involuntary bumping rate was 0.32 per 10,000 passengers, the highest rate since the third quarter of 2017, and up from a rate of 0.15 per 10,000 travelers in the year-earlier period, the report showed.

In the first quarter, 6,175 passengers were involuntarily denied boarding. That is nearly triple the number from the same period a year ago but small in comparison with the 195.7 million passengers who checked in for flights in those three months.

The rate refers to travelers whom airlines bump, not those who voluntarily take a different flight when theirs is oversold.

Claire Stapleton, an employee at Google's YouTube who spearheaded employee-led policy change movements, has left the company after 12 years, claiming retaliation by company leaders.

"The heads of my department branded me with a kind of scarlet letter that makes it difficult to do my job or find another one," Stapleton wrote in a note shared on Medium on Friday morning. "If I stayed, I didn't just worry that there'd be more public flogging, shunning, and stress, I expected it."

Stapleton, a YouTube marketing manager, confirmed with CNBC that she quit on Wednesday. Her departure comes as some Google employees claim they have faced retaliation for questioning the company's handling of policies spanning anti-harassment to equal rights for contractors.

Stapleton was one of seven Google employees who organized a massive protest, called the Google Walkout for Real Change, in which 20,000 Google employees and contractors in 50 cities walked off campuses last November to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment cases. That resulted in Google changing some of its policies, including ending forced arbitration.

Stapleton claimed that while Google publicly praised her and the organizers' work, it was a different story internally, alleging managers retaliated against her and a fellow Walkout organizer. Stapleton said at the time that she was demoted and told to take medical leave even though she wasn't ill.

Walkout organizers again questioned the company's public branding this week when YouTube flip-flopped its enforcement of anti-harassment policies for a far-right user who regularly featured homophobic and racial slurs, all while claiming to support LGBTQ employees for Gay Pride Month. Stapleton left that day, though it isn't clear whether the incident had a direct bearing on her departure.

"I hope that leadership listens," Stapleton continued in her Medium post. "Because if they won't lead, we will."

Google said in a statement, "We thank Claire for her work at Google and wish her all the best. To reiterate, we don't tolerate retaliation. Our employee relations team did a thorough investigation of her claims and found no evidence of retaliation. They found that Claire's management team supported her contributions to our workplace, including awarding her their team Culture Award for her role in the Walkout."

WATCH NOW: Google employees protest the company's harassment policies.

U.S. regulators slapped four e-cigarette companies with warning letters Friday for failing to follow federal advertising rules for tobacco on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

The Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission reprimanded Solace Technologies, Hype City Vapors, Humble Juice Co. and Artist Liquids Laboratories for failing to disclose the health and safety risks of vaping in postings by social media influencers who are paid to help market their products.

Regulators say the companies violated advertising rules and misbranded their products by failing to include the statement: "WARNING: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical," which the FDA has required since August.

"Given the significant risk of addiction, the failure to disclose the presence of and risks associated with nicotine raises concerns that the social media postings could be unfair or likely to mislead consumers," the agencies said in separate letters to all four companies. They also told the companies to review their marketing materials and postings by social media influencers to ensure they include the proper disclosures and warnings.

Regulators do not restrict companies from using this kind of marketing to promote e-cigarettes. However, the FDA requires them to include a warning statement saying the products contain nicotine and that nicotine is an addictive chemical.

"Years of progress to combat youth use of tobacco is now threatened by an epidemic of e-cigarette use by kids, and unfortunately research shows many youth are mistaken or unaware of the risks and the presence of nicotine in e-cigarettes," acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless said in a statement. "That's why it's critical we ensure manufacturers, retailers and others are including the required health warning about nicotine's addictive properties on packages and advertisements — especially on social media platforms popular with kids."

Influencers are individuals who have a large number of followers and are often paid to help promote products on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook where it appears to be more authentic than an advertisement. Using social media is a popular form of e-cigarette advertising, though the practice is coming under scrutiny. Market leader Juul shuttered its accounts in the fall amid pressure from the FDA, which has an ongoing investigation into the company's marketing practices.

The FDA is trying to crack down on what it's calling a teen vaping "epidemic." High school seniors' use of e-cigarettes surged 78% last year, according to a federal survey.

Public health groups have called on regulators to restrict e-cigarette advertising. Philip Morris International's use of influencers to promote its new heated tobacco product iQOS came under fire after Reuters found one of the models was 21, violating the company's marketing code, and posted seductive photos in luxurious settings. The company in response suspended its social media campaign.

The four companies cited Friday have 15 working days to respond to concerns regulators raised and specify what actions they're taking to address them.

A Solace Vapor spokesman said all of its "internal packaging, marketing and nicotine warnings are compliant with FDA standards" and it will review and terminate influencers "who may not be compliant with our marketing practices." The other three companies did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump on Friday said NASA should focus on going to Mars, not the moon, weeks after he proclaimed his support for a lunar mission.

"NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon," Trump tweeted. "We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!"

On May 13, however, he affirmed his support for NASA's moon plans.

"Under my Administration, we are restoring NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars," Trump said a few weeks ago.

Trump had tasked the agency with landing U.S. astronauts on the moon within five years, far ahead of NASA's previous deadline of 2028. In an initiative called Moon 2024, the agency accelerated its plans and shrunk timelines to meet the president's deadline.

"We've been given an ambitious and exciting goal. History has proven when we're given a task by the president, along with the resources and the tools, we can deliver," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in an April statement.

Despite Bridenstine's pledge to make the moon mission happen on time, questions remained about whether NASA would get the money to fund the plan. The current plan requires multiple missions that build upon each other's progress, culminating in the landing of a lunar vehicle with astronauts on board. A month earlier, in March, Vice President Mike Pence said NASA's lunar exploration program was "plagued by bureaucratic inertia, what some call a paralysis of analysis."

"Being told the earliest we can return to the moon is 2028 ... is just not good enough," Pence said in March.

Even Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos praised the White House's ambition during an event last month, saying "I love Vice President Pence's 2024 lunar landing goal." Bezos mentioned the plan as he unveiled Blue Origin's lunar lander model, which he said could meet the 2024 landing deadline.

Dozens of social media accounts displaying suspicious behavior have been uncovered in a new report that sees pro-Iranian messaging promoted by profiles impersonating real people, as well as journalists and activists who don't seem to exist.

The accounts, which promoted often aggressive messages and hashtags in support of the Iranian government, have also taken on the personas of Republican members of congress and ordinary Americans, according to the latest investigative report from California-based cybersecurity firm FireEye.

The firm describes their findings as a "network of social media accounts" impersonating U.S. political candidates and "leveraging U.S. and Israeli media in support of Iranian interests."

While Iranian influence campaigns carried out from within the country are not new, FireEye's findings dissect yet more individual accounts that have surfaced in various media outlets engaging in "inauthentic behavior … that we assess with low confidence was organized in support of Iranian political interests," the report's authors said.

These profiles were included in a sweep of nearly 3,000 Twitter accounts that were removed by the social media giant, who says they originated in Iran. 

Yoel Roth, head of site integrity at Twitter, posted a tweet last week saying that the accounts "employed a range of false personas to target conversations about political and social issues in Iran and globally. Some engaged directly through public replies with politicians, journalists, and others."

FireEye itself stresses the words "low confidence", adding that it has not yet been able to attribute the activity to a geographic location or to Iranian state sponsorship. But the behavior follows patterns that the company investigated last year, illustrated in its August 2018 report that uncovered an extensive network of fake news sites and associated accounts it believes were linked to the Islamic Republic and government cyber actors.

"Narratives promoted by these and other accounts in the network included anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes," the report mentioned. This included support for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and criticism of the Trump administration's designation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

While much of those positions are held by ordinary people, FireEye describes "several limited indicators that the network was operated by Iranian actors." Iran's Foreign Affairs Ministry did not reply to CNBC's request for comment, but the government in Tehran has denied accusations of offensive cyber activity.

Some accounts with American names of individuals claiming to be U.S.-based journalists — one for instance called "@AlexRyanNYC" who falsely claimed to be a Newsday journalist and had appropriated a genuine person's photo — had their under interfaces set to Persian or had posted tweets in Persian years back in their history, the report described. These individuals could not be traced to any other legitimate public profiles or company bios.

Another highlighted account in the FireEye report was a persona called "Mathew Obrien", who also claimed to be a Newsday reporter and had pro-Iranian government 'letters to the editor' published in various local U.S. newspapers in Texas.

The name would appear with slight spelling variations — also spelled Matthew O'Brien and Mathew Obrien — and claimed to be based in several different U.S. cities, while posting tweets in often faulty English, the report claimed. Several of the personas in this network falsely claimed affiliations with U.S. outlets like New York Daily News and the Seattle Times, and would often promote each other's tweets.

Lee Foster, FireEye's senior manager for information operations analysis, says the accounts are still being investigated.

"Some of (the personas) use the same headshot in different forums with different names, some submitted identical letters (to newspapers) but under different names… this leads us to suspect, with low confidence, that they're inauthentic. We do know it's possible that there is some authentic behavior there as well, but collectively, it's all very unusual."

Geographic attribution is hard to attain however, and the clues vary, he says. "You're looking for stronger technical indicators tying it to a geography, to a state, more than simply the behavior."

In previous investigations, FireEye's intelligence analysts have spotted indicators like heavy use of Persian language or Iranian phone numbers used to register accounts. Technical clues, like those found in cases of Russian-led security breaches, include forensic indicators in the malware being used. Persian has also been found in ransomware code targeting systems in different countries including Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the U.S.

Political influence campaigns, lately most associated with Russia but practiced by numerous actors, are on the rise as social media platforms and governments grapple with how to combat them.

Iran has been testing social media, influence campaigns and "temporary disruptive effects, similar to its data deletion attacks against dozens of Saudi governmental and private-sector networks in late 2016 and early 2017," officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told Congress in January.

U.S. social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly — but tentatively — cooperating with U.S. intelligence on monitoring for misinformation campaigns, ODNI director Dan Coates said at the time, but the debate over the companies' roles in policing and removing online content continues.

—CNBC's Kate Fazzini contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES — Another horse fatality was reported at Santa Anita Park in California this week, marking the 27th death since late December and bringing renewed calls for tougher regulation of the industry.

A 2-year-old colt, River Derby, suffered a catastrophic injury Wednesday during training at the track, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. The horse was euthanized at an offsite clinic but the fatality is being treated as an on-track training death by the state's horse racing regulator, the newspaper added.

Earlier this year, experts were brought in to investigate the track and examine its racing surfaces and other safety issues after 21 horses died in 10 weeks. Gov. Gavin Newsom already has moved to tighten some rules to address concerns about animal welfare, but the fatalities continued. There are also rising calls for more action, including passage of state and federal legislation to further regulate the horse racing industry.

"I believe that racing at Santa Anita should be suspended until the cause or causes of these deaths can be fully investigated," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in early April.

Feinstein supports legislation to address some animal welfare concerns. She reached out to the California horse racing regulator in April for their input on a pending bill in Congress, the Horse Racing Integrity Act of 2019.

In California, state Senate Bill 469 would give the California Horse Racing Board more authority to protect racehorses, including to suspend racing at tracks where unsafe conditions exist for horses or riders.

Last week, Newsom expressed his support for the bill and announced the state's horse racing regulator initiated special investigations into all fatalities at Santa Anita this year.

"The recent horse facilities in California are unacceptable," Newsom said last week. "We must hold the horse racing industry to account. If we can regulate horse race meets, we should have the authority to suspend licenses when animal or human welfare is at risk."

Newsom also said his administration would suspend the authorization of nearly a dozen previously lawful drugs, including therapeutic anti-inflammatories, from being present in racehorses to "prevent the masking effect such medications can have in hiding a horse's existing injuries from examining veterinarians on race day."

Newsom said new regulations going into effect July 1 would expand out-of-competition testing of horses and allow the state to prosecute offenders who abuse prescribed drugs.

The racetrack, located in the city of Arcadia, is scheduled in early November to host the Breeders' Cup World Championship, one of the sport's biggest two-day events. According to the Times, the latest horse death could cause the marquee event to be relocated to Churchill Downs, home to the Kentucky Derby.

A representative for Santa Anita and its parent company didn't respond to a CNBC request for comment.

The park, which was opened in the 1930s and played host to Seabiscuit and other famous thoroughbreds, is owned by Canadian private firm Stronach Group, which owns tracks in several other states including Maryland, Oregon and Florida.

In California, an estimated 17,000 jobs are tied to the industry, according to the state's horse racing regulator. It estimates horse wagering in the state tops $3 billion annually.

Nationwide, the horse racing business generates $15.6 billion in direct impact, according to the authors of a U.S. House bill seeking to strengthen rules on medication use. They estimate the sector supports more than 240,000 jobs in the U.S.