*By Brian Henry*
Even as British Prime Minister Theresa May suffered an embarrassing defeat as her Brexit vote was voted down in Parliament, and then only narrowly survived a no-confidence vote, investors remained relatively unrattled.
According to Chris Demetriou, the U.S. CEO at Aberdeen Standard Investments, the mild response to the vote was not a surprise.
"There are two elements to it," he told Cheddar Wednesday.
"The vote \[Tuesday\] and the no confidence vote \[Wednesday\] weren't really a surprise to anybody. It's long been speculated Theresa May didn't have the votes to carry the deal through Parliament."
Demetriou said that the decision by British lawmakers to reject the Brexit deal by such a historic margin ー 432 to 202 ーearlier this week actually has investors feeling confident.
"The resounding defeat, the size of the defeat, really suggests that a tweak to the deal probably isn't going to help get it through either. I think that, perhaps, is giving investors confidence that the can will be kicked down the road or potentially even a more formal withdrawal of Article 15."
"Investors want as a little change as possible in the current arrangement," he added.
Demetriou says productive trade talks between the U.S. and China as well as the Federal Reserve displaying patience on future rate hikes have led to less market volatility.
"A lot of the uncertainty we saw in the back end of the year, the escalation of trade discussions, perhaps concern around fed policy coming into 2019 ー a lot of that has reversed in the beginning of January."
But will the relative market peace last?
"There's a lot of positive news or certainly constructive news out there to offset some of the uncertainty that exists," Demetriou said.
"We do expect continued uncertainty, which breeds volatility in the markets and that will continue throughout the year."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-uk-government-survives-no-confidence-vote-after-brexit-defeat).
With less than two weeks until election day, a California Democrat, Harley Rouda, has gotten a $4.3 million boost from Michael Bloomberg in his bid to take down 30-year incumbent Republican Congressman Rohrabacher. Bloomberg's Independence USA PAC disclosed the spending last week, which went to advertising targeting the Republican. Rouda said Bloomberg's ad campaign will help bring the issue of climate change to the forefront of voters' minds in the coastal Orange County district.
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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti mulled a 2020 presidential run in an interview on Cheddar Monday, saying the cure to America's "odious" political sickness may be found in city hall. "I hope that even if I don't run, that mayors will think about jumping in," Garcetti said, "because I think we could cut through a lot of that partisanship right now."
Attending a Trump rally can be daunting for any self-proclaimed liberal ー even more so if your last name is Pelosi. But an experience with her political opposites left Alexandra Pelosi, the documentarian and youngest daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, feeling hopeful. "We all need to burst out of our own bubbles and see what the other people are thinking," Pelosi said Monday in an interview on Cheddar.
Gab, an online haven for white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the alt-right, is facing an increasingly uncertain future. Over the weekend, Gab was linked to Robert Bowers, who is accused of open-firing in a Pittsburgh, Pa., synagogue, killing 11 people and wounding six others. Bowers had a verified account on Gab and used the social network to post hateful, anti-Semitic messages up until the morning of the shooting.
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After a week of political finger-pointing and frayed national nerves ahead of a major election, a Florida man is in custody on federal charges that he sent at least 13 live explosive devices to prominent former and current Democratic officials, a news organization, a Hollywood actor, and liberal donors.
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.
