.By Mary Clare Jalonick and Eric Tucker
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., stepped aside as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday after the FBI served a search warrant for his phone as part of an ongoing insider-trading investigation tied to the coronavirus pandemic.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the move, saying he and Burr had agreed it was in the Senate's best interests.
FBI officials showed up at Burr's home with the warrant on Wednesday, marking a significant escalation into the Justice Department's investigation into whether Burr broke the law with a well-timed sale of stocks before the coronavirus caused markets to plummet,
The Justice Department declined to comment. His attorney did not respond to phone and email messages, but said last month that the law is clear that any senator can participate in stock market trading based on public information "as Sen. Burr did."
The number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits slid last week, another sign that the job market continues to recover rapidly from the coronavirus recession.
Fed-watchers had their ears peeled after Wednesday's meeting of the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee for any signal of when the central bank might start tapering its $120 billion in monthly assets purchases.
President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators have reached a deal over major outstanding issues in a $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
man accused of killing eight people, most of them women of Asian descent, at massage businesses in Georgia pleaded guilty to four of the murders.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reversing course on some masking guidelines. The agency announced new recommendations Tuesday that even vaccinated people should return to wearing masks indoors in parts of the U.S.
Four officers who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection are giving emotional and angry accounts of the attack.
Vaccine Mandates, Osaka Out & LeVar Burton Takes Jeopardy!
New York City will require all municipal workers to get coronavirus vaccines by mid-September or face weekly COVID-19 testing.
President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi are set to announce that they’ve come to an agreement to end the U.S. military’s combat mission in Iraq by the end of the year.
Team USA's Uneven Start, Optimism Plummets & 'Old' Stuns Box Office
