Louise McSharry

Hello, my friend, and welcome to Catch Up with Louise McSharry.

This is the podcast where I do my best to keep you caught up with what's going on in the world, whether indeed it is a news catch up on Monday, an entertainment catch up on Wednesday, or a chat with someone interesting who's got something interesting going on on a Friday.

I'm trying to just keep you looped in and entertained, frankly.

that's you know that's the main goal um today is monday so obviously we're catching up on the news there is so much to talk about there i don't even know where to begin i mean you'll hear where we begin but obviously a lot has been happening over the course of the weekend in terms of global politics but we've also got a really really fun story to wrap up with this week and in fact one of my favorite stories that we've talked about in quite some time so i hope you'll stick around for that here is carl kintzler

Good morning, Carl Kinsella.

I had chosen all of the stories for today's news episode and then things got immeasurably worse over the weekend.

So let's start with global news because there's been a lot going on.

What is happening with Iran, Lebanon and Israel?

Yeah, it just betrays such a disrespect for human life via Israel and America.

And to think about these three American service members dying, you have to wonder what impact that's going to have

in domestic politics in the US.

I mean, it's surely not going to win Donald Trump any favors.

I think it's been pointed out that, you know, people are now really focused obviously on talking about this conflict, which has kind of taken the light away from the Epstein files and the conversation about Donald Trump's involvement there.

It obviously comes after heavy groundwork was laid in terms of international politics via the action and inaction over what happened in Gaza, the allowance of Israel to just do whatever they want, clearly.

And also be, this probably isn't the right word to use, but be in cahoots with the US.

They're obviously working in a very coordinated way.

fashion on what's happening at the moment um so obviously you know Israel was never going to be called to task in any big way on Gaza by the by America when they are working together in this fashion it's just all very worrying about the actual stability of world politics isn't it

Yeah, like, I mean, the US, as of early 2026, according to Google, the US defense budget is $880 to $900 billion annually.

Like, that is enormous.

when you have a situation where Americans, many of them are struggling to get food.