.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."
Stocks are inching higher on Wall Street Monday in more volatile trading as investors try to assess whether global authorities can do enough to nurse the economy through the damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
Bracing the nation for a coronavirus death toll that could exceed 100,000 people, President Donald Trump extended restrictive social distancing guidelines through April, bowing to public health experts who presented him with even more dire projections for the expanding coronavirus pandemic.
Trump said that the order will “require General Motors to accept, perform, and prioritize Federal contracts for ventilators." In a statement, he said the contracting process with the automaker was not moving quickly enough.
President Donald Trump has signed an unprecedented $2.2 trillion economic rescue package into law, after swift and near-unanimous action by Congress this week.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Stocks are moving lower on Wall Street as the market gives back some of the gains it piled up over the past three days. Major indexes are down more than 2% in afternoon trading Friday.
Restaurants are getting creative with private solutions as they hope to continue doing business, even while most of them are physically closed to the public, but the potential for saving most of these businesses may be a long shot.
Healthcare workers have launched their own campaigns for gathering personal protective equipment as they fight the coronavirus on the frontlines, with #GetUsPPE trending across social media.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the $2.2 trillion coronavirus aid package Friday afternoon, but what was expected to be a smooth confirmation process devolved into a mad dash in the Capitol after one of the House’s own threatened to derail the vote with a procedural objection.
Despite President Donald Trump’s call to put the economy back to work by Easter, one Johns Hopkins physician says there may have to be “variability” in when states and cities restart their economies.
