Fox News "Preparing" to Axe O'Reilly, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal Reports

Calls for his resignation have spread this week while the host is on vacation.

Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal reports that as the storm of sexual harassment allegations continues to swirl around Bill O'Reilly, Fox News is preparing to end its decades-long relationship with the host of The O'Reilly Factor.

The conservative political pundit has been under fire since a scathing New York Times article detailed over $13 million in legal settlements paid out by O’Reilly and the network to female staffers who raised sexual harassment and verbal abuse allegations against him.

In the wake of that news, O’Reilly’s nightly program lost a slew of blue-chip advertisers and there have been calls for his resignation or firing across the country, including a protest held by a women's rights group outside the Fox News headquarters on Tuesday.

"A final decision on Mr. O’Reilly’s fate could come as early as the next several days," according to the report by the Journal, which is owned by Murdoch's News Corp. Murdoch's son, James, heads up Fox News' parent company 21st Century Fox.

A Fox source says the Paul Weiss law firm will present its investigation findings to the 21st Century Fox board at a meeting Thursday.

The latest accuser, an African-American Fox News clerical worker, claims Bill O'Reilly used to leer at her and called her "hot chocolate," attorney Lisa Bloom told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday.

O'Reilly announced on his April 11 show that he would be gone until April 24 on a pre-planned vacation.