Kathie Lee Gifford will put aside her morning glass of wine and step away from NBC's "Today" show in April.
NBC News chief Noah Oppenheim told staffers Tuesday morning that Gifford will leave the show after 11 years of getting up early, most recently hosting the 10 a.m. hour slot alongside Hoda Kotb and sipping plenty of reds.
In a memo to staff, Oppenheim called the 65-year-old Gifford "one of the most enduring and endearing talents in morning television. In short — she is a legend." He said she will focus on her film, music and book projects.
FILE - In this June 7, 2017 file photo, Hoda Kotb, left, and Kathie Lee Gifford give a toast as they present the award for CMT performance of the year at the CMT Music Awards at Music City Center in Nashville, Tenn. Gifford will be putting aside her morning glass of wine and will step away from the NBC’s “Today” show in April. NBC News chief Noah Oppenheim told staffers Tuesday morning, Dec. 11 that Gifford will leave after 11 years on the show, most recently hosting the 10 a.m. hour alongside Kotb and sipping plenty of reds. (Photo by Wade PayneInvisionAP, File)
In the memo, Oppenheim said Gifford told him she was leaving "with a grateful heart but I'm truly excited for this new creative season in my life."
The move comes as NBC News struggles to remake its sprawling four-hour morning show following the cancellation earlier this year of Megyn Kelly's hour-long slot.
Before landing the NBC gig, Gifford co-hosted "Live" opposite Regis Philbin for 11 years. She left that show in 2000 and joined "Today" in 2008.
Away from TV, Gifford has supplied the book, lyrics and some of the music for the off-Broadway "Under the Bridge," an adaptation of a children's book about a hobo who befriends a homeless family in Paris.
She has released albums, including the poppy "The Heart of a Woman" in 2000 and the religious "Gentle Grace" in 2004. Gifford also has appeared onstage in the Broadway musical revue "Putting it Together" and supplied book and lyrics for the 2012 Broadway flop "Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson."
Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.
While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.
At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.
He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.
In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.
The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.
FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
