French Premier Lecornu Resigns; Trump Pushes for Israel-Hamas Deal

On today's podcast:1) French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu resigned Monday just a day after President Emmanuel Macron named a new cabinet, deepening the country’s political crisis. The premier quit less than 24 hours after Macron announced a government that retained most senior members from previous cabinets. That irked opposition parties looking for change, but in a surprising twist, the reappointed interior minister, Bruno Retailleau — who leads the center-right Republicans — also slammed the choice of ministers as failing to “break” with the past.2) President Trump is pressing Israel and Hamas to seal a settlement to the two-year conflict that’s devastated Gaza and destabilized the Middle East, with the warring sides set to begin mediated talks on Monday. A key sign of progress in the negotiations, taking place in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, will be whether Hamas frees all the roughly 20 of its live hostages — plus the remains of those who are dead — in return for Israel releasing about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.3) Unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers asked a US judge to immediately block any mass firings by the Trump administration during the government shutdown while they press a legal challenge.The emergency request Saturday night to US District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco follows what the unions contend are a series of statements from President Donald Trump and other senior officials signaling that agencies could take action on layoff plans as early as Monday. Kevin Hassett, Trump’s top economic adviser in the White House, said the administration is holding off on layoffs at least until Monday, when a divided Senate is due to vote for the fifth time on a stopgap bill to keep government open through November 21st.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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