.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."
As the partial government shutdown spans its 18th day, furloughed federal workers like Sam Shirazi who have been placed on unpaid leave are struggling with both an immediate financial reality and a more amorphous sense of uncertainty. "We don't know when it's going to end, and it doesn't seem like it's going to end anytime soon," Shirazi told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin on Tuesday.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2018.
When freshman Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez floated the idea to Anderson Cooper on "60 Minutes" Sunday that the very wealthy pay a marginal tax rate as high as 70 percent, it got pundits and politicians all worked up. What exactly was the newly-elected, self-proclaimed radical proposing?
The head of security for Huawei, the embattled Chinese tech giant that has been accused of working as a front for Chinese intelligence services, told Cheddar's Hope King on Monday that "no government has ever asked us to spy" and that those accusations were part of a "drumbeat of anti-Huawei criticism."
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Jan. 7, 2019.
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.
For the vast majority of Americans, the partial shutdown of the federal government is felt in small ways. For Native Americans, a prolonged shutdown could mean life or death. Aaron Payment, chairman of the Sault Ste. Marie tribe, told Cheddar that he's focused on one date: Jan. 15. That's when the tribe's next drawdown of federal funds is scheduled.
Markets soared on Friday ー the Dow Jones Industrial Average leading gaining more than 670 points ーfollowing comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell on monetary policy and reports that the jobs market is not slowing.
New York is getting into a crypto state of mind with plans to create the nation's first Crypto Task Force. "New York State is the financial capital of the world, and we must have the proper regulations and proper balance to be able to figure out how to regulate in this space," N.Y. Assemblyman Clyde Vanel told Cheddar.
Rep. Harley Rouda, the newly elected Democrat from California's 48th district, doesn't want to waste any time getting legislation to the floor that will stimulate wage growth, which showed better-than-expected strength in Friday's blowout jobs report but remains a concern for economists.
