.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."
Megyn Kelly's exit negotiations with NBC were underway on Friday, as the network announced that the third hour of valuable morning show real estate she anchored is canceled. "Essentially and effectively she is out," Tony Maglio, TV editor at TheWrap, said Friday in an interview with Cheddar. "It's just a matter of all the legalese and what she'll walk away with."
The multi-year Women in the Workplace report, produced by Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In organization with McKinsey & Company, reveals a stubborn problem of gender diversity in corporate America. As Rachel Thomas, the president of Lean In, explained to ChedHER on Friday, that companies are clearly interested in closing the gender gap ー but they haven't done enough to make it happen yet.
Federal authorities have arrested Cesar Sayoc, Jr. in connection with a dozen packages containing likely explosives. Sayoc has a Florida address and has a criminal record, according to the Broward County Sheriff.
Two additional suspicious packages sent to prominent Democrats were intercepted earlier Friday, only hours before the manhunt appeared to close in on a suspect for the attempted mail bombings now being described as a domestic terrorism.
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Megyn Kelly is not a morning person ー at least, not anymore. Reports on Thursday morning indicated that the anchor's days as an NBC host are numbered, following her controversial on-air comments earlier this week that defended wearing blackface on Halloween.
China is responding to a revelatory report in The New York Times ー that said Chinese spies are allegedly eavesdropping on President Donald Trump during calls he makes on an unsecured iPhone ー by suggesting that the president use the device of a Chinese competitor instead.
Two more suspicious devices were intercepted on Thursday ー one in Delaware en route to former VP Joe Biden and the other at the restaurant and office of actor Robert De Niro in Lower Manhattan ー the eighth and ninth to be sent to high-profile critics of President Trump in a period of three days.
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Investors overseas are losing their appetite for U.S. debt. Foreign buyers now hold 41 percent of outstanding Treasury debt, marking their lowest share in 15 years. If the trend continues, the U.S. dollar may weaken and interest rates might climb. While it may be easy to blame the trade war for the drop, Daniel Kruger, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, said a stronger dollar is the culprit.
An apparent attempted mail bombing of several prominent Democrats and members of the news media used techniques that have grown more common among terrorists in recent years, said Jarrod Bernstein, a former counter-terrorism official in the Obama administration.
