French PM Abruptly Resigns After Just 3 Weeks As Local Politics Enters "Very Dangerous Territory"

 French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu abruptly resigned on Monday morning, just three weeks after his appointment, preempting what appeared to be an inevitable ousting. Lecornu was expected to unveil his policy agenda before the National Assembly on Tuesday, but both the Socialist Party and the National Rally had warned that without a drastic policy shift, they would trigger a no-confidence vote. French bonds and stocks slumped on the emerging political crisis. 

President Emmanuel Macron's office issued a one-sentence statement, confirming that Macron had accepted the resignation of Lecornu. This comes amid turmoil over the composition of his cabinet, a coalition of centrists and conservatives. 

Lecornu told reporters his resignation was primarily due to the inability to compromise across the political spectrum: "I was ready to compromise, but each political party wanted the other political party to adopt its entire program."

He told reporters in the courtyard of the Matignon Palace, the prime minister's headquarters, that he had spent weeks trying to forge a viable path forward with politicians, unions, and social partners from both political sides, but had achieved no breakthroughs. 

Jean Garrigues, one of France's top political historians, told local media that Macron will likely be forced to dissolve the National Assembly once again. 

"A fresh dissolution might lead to an increase of seats for the National Rally in the lower house, but it's unlikely that they'll get an outright majority," Garrigues stated in the interview. 

UBS analyst Simon Penn provided clients with the three possible pathways for Macron to move forward: 

1. He can try another technocrat type

2. He can call a general election

3. He can quit and call a full presidential election

The Bloomberg Economics team provided readers with the visualization. 

Penn warned that France is entering a dangerous political environment:

French PM Lecornu has resigned less than a month after he was appointed (Sept. 9). On face value Lecornu looks to have quit before he was forced out. He was due to present his policy proposals to the National Assembly on Tuesday, but leaders of the Socialist and National Rally had already warned that unless there was a total change in direction they would call a vote of no confidence immediately after Lecornu stopped speaking.

Furthermore, the press and public reaction to the appointment of a near unchanged cabinet from the Bayrou administration has been somewhat scornful. President Macron has attempted three times to try for the same policies and failed three times. As the famous quote from Jean-Claude Juncker goes: "We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it."

The latest failure puts French politics into very dangerous territory – more so than the markets seem to be pricing. The lessons of the UK in the 1970s are worth bearing in mind – a government in the early 70s attempting what today would be described as austerity; failing and being replaced by socialist policy, that today might be described as populist. It took mass strikes, power blackouts and an IMF bailout before UK voters were willing to accept the necessary medicine that came in the form of the 1979 Thatcher government.

Meanwhile, across other Wall Street desks this morning, analysts are desperately trying to make sense of the political turmoil and what comes next. Barclays analysts expect parliamentary elections, adding that a Macron resignation is "unlikely."

Political turmoil sent the CAC 40, the benchmark French stock market index, down 1.5% by early afternoon trading in Paris. French bonds also dropped. 

More market commentary from UBS analyst Justinus Steinhors: "The Euro Stoxx 50 falls 80bp, retreating from highs. Yields jump on political turmoil: in France, PM Lecornu resigns after less than four weeks in office."

Alexandre Baradez, chief market analyst at IG in Paris, warned, "What's new this morning is the beginning of contagion from France to the rest of the European banking sector. The drop of the sector is 100% linked to France. Given that banks have outperformed the markets so much, all the elements are aligned for some profit-taking on these stocks."

Allianz CIO and Chief Economist Ludovic Subran told Bloomberg that it's not the time to panic.

Lecornu's resignation makes him the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of France's Fifth Republic, founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/french-prime-minister-abruptly-resigns-ubs-warns-french-politics-entering-very-dangerous

Trump administration eyes stake in company developing Greenland rare earths mine

 Trump administration officials have discussed taking a stake in Critical Metals Corp, four people familiar with the discussions told Reuters, which would give Washington a direct interest in the largest rare earths project in Greenland, the Arctic territory that President Donald Trump once suggested buying.

If finalized, the deal would mark the latest political twist for the Tanbreez rare earths deposit, which former President Joe Biden successfully lobbied to have sold to New York-based Critical Metals for far less than a Chinese firm was offering. Washington has recently taken stakes in Lithium Americas and MP Materials, underscoring Trump's desire for the U.S. to benefit from growing production of minerals used across the global economy.

Details of the discussions about Washington's interest in an equity stake in Critical Metals have not previously been reported. The four sources declined to be named, citing the sensitivity of the negotiations.

"Hundreds of companies are approaching us trying to get the administration to invest in their critical minerals projects," a senior Trump administration official told Reuters in response to a request for comment. "There is absolutely nothing close with this company at this time."

Critical Metals did not respond to repeated requests for comment via email and phone. Greenland is a semi-autonomous part of Denmark and the Danish Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rare earths offer strong magnetic properties critical to high-tech industries ranging from electric vehicles to missile systems. Their importance is spurring an intense push for fresh supplies by Western countries looking to lessen their dependence on China's near total control of their extraction and processing. Critical Metals, which agreed to buy Greenland's Tanbreez deposit last year for $5 million in cash and $211 million in stock, applied in June for a $50 million grant through the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era piece of legislation aimed at boosting production of goods for national security purposes. In the last six weeks, though, the administration has begun discussions with the company about converting the grant into an equity stake, three of the sources said. If the deal goes through, a $50 million conversion would mean a roughly 8% stake in the company, although negotiations are not final and the final size of the stake could be higher or the deal itself could collapse, the same three sources said.

Administration officials have considered reallocating $2 billion from the CHIPS Act to fund critical minerals projects, Reuters reported in August. The law, formally known as the CHIPS and Science Act, was signed into law by then-President Joe Biden in 2022 and aims to lure chip production away from Asia. The Critical Metals investment discussions were delayed by the administration's negotiations in recent days for a 5% stake in Lithium Americas, two of the sources said. The U.S. government shutdown is not expected to affect the negotiations, given that high-level staff involved in the discussions are considered essential government workers, two of the sources said. Part of the discussion centers on how warrants would be issued to give Washington the stake, one of the sources said. Warrants give their holders the right to buy stock at a set price. The equity stake would be separate from a $120 million loan the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) is considering to help the company develop Tanbreez, according to two of the sources. An EXIM spokesperson was not immediately available to comment. GREENLAND'S APPEAL Even before Trump expressed an interest in acquiring Greenland, Washington had long-running economic interests in the Danish territory. Biden officials were visiting Greenland's capital Nuuk as recently as last November trying to woo additional private investment in the island's mining sector. Trump also sent Vice President JD Vance to the island in March. One of the largest U.S. Air Force bases is in northern Greenland. The Tanbreez project is expected to cost $290 million to bring into commercial production, the company has previously said.

The EXIM loan would be used to fund technical work and get the mine to initial production by 2026. Once fully operational, the mine is expected to produce 85,000 metric tons per year of rare earths concentrate. The site also contains gallium, which China subjected to export restrictions last year, and tantalum. Greenland's mining sector has developed slowly in recent years, hindered by limited investor interest, bureaucratic challenges and environmental concerns. Currently, only two small mines are in operation. The remote, cold location of Tanbreez is seen posing challenges to its development, although the deposit is located near a major waterway.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-trump-administration-eyes-stake-233315714.html

FDA pilots fast-track scheme for US-made generics

 In another move designed to reduce the US's reliance on imported medicines, the FDA has launched a pilot of fast-track reviews for generics tested and made in domestic facilities.

According to the regulator, applicants who conduct any required bioequivalence testing in the US, and whose products are made there using exclusively domestic sources for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), will be eligible for priority review.

In a statement announcing the scheme, the FDA said that more than half of the pharmaceuticals distributed in the US are manufactured overseas, while only 9% of APIs are produced domestically. China supplies around 22% of the API market, and India supplies 44%.

Meanwhile, studies of generics, including bioequivalency testing, are increasingly being carried out outside the US, which the FDA claims is weakening the US's R&D infrastructure.

"Overreliance on foreign drug manufacturing and testing creates risks both to national security and patient access, and undermines investments in US research, manufacturing and production," said George Tidmarsh, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER).

"It also slows down reviews and costs taxpayers more money, as these foreign research and testing sites must be inspected by FDA, and foreign inspections take more time to prepare for and are more expensive to conduct than domestic inspections."

The initiative is only the latest in a series by the Trump administration to encourage the manufacturing of medicines intended for use by Americans within the US.

The big lever deployed by the White House is the threat of tariffs on imported medicines, recently announced at a rate of 100%, although Pfizer has just reached an agreement that frees it from tariffs for three years – in return for investing tens of billions of dollars in US facilities.

In August, it also launched a programme to make it easier for drug companies to set up manufacturing facilities in the US – dubbed FDA PreCheck – that introduces quicker responses from the agency on start-up tasks like facility design, construction, and pre-production as well as a 'streamlining' of the chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) section of new facility applications.

In May, Trump issued an executive order (number 14293) that specifically sought to address the length of time it takes to build or upgrade pharma manufacturing facilities in the US, put at between five and 10 years, which he blamed on a "myriad" of federal, state, and local requirements ranging from building standards and zoning restrictions to environmental protocols.

The order directed the FDA to streamline review of domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing and eliminate unnecessary regulatory requirements while maximising review timeliness and predictability.

https://pharmaphorum.com/news/fda-pilots-fast-track-scheme-us-made-generics

Sepsis big cause of child mortality

 Globally, sepsis infection is the leading cause of death in children, taking more than 3.4 million lives per year, according to the Sepsis Alliance — and 85% of these deaths occur before age 5.

Sepsis among children is a very difficult and elusive problem for physicians to diagnose and treat, with almost 10% of cases being missed in the emergency room.

When children are admitted with the infection, the average length of stay is more than a month, per the above source.

Many people don’t know much about sepsis, according to Professor Elliot Long, team leader in clinical sciences and emergency research at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia.

With sepsis, the immune system has an abnormal response to an infection — either too exuberant or too minimal.

“The immune response can be underactive, which leads to severe, overwhelming infection, or it can be overactive and the immune response itself causes damage to the body’s organs, which can be life-threatening,” Long told Fox News Digital during an on-camera interview.

The professor, who received a $5 million National Critical Research Infrastructure Initiative grant this year to test potential sepsis treatments across Australia and New Zealand, noted that sepsis is easily missed because parents don’t have a good understanding of how common or severe it is. 

Sepsis infection is the leading cause of death for children.patcharaporn1984 – stock.adobe.com

The symptoms are often subtle — “and they overlap with the same symptoms you’d get for self-limited viral infections that are really common in kids,” Long said.

“The paradox is that sepsis in its late stages is very easy to pick up, but the treatments aren’t very effective,” he added. “And sepsis in its early stages is very tricky to pick up — but that’s when the treatments are most likely to be effective.”

Sepsis symptoms and treatments

The Sepsis Alliance uses the acronym T.I.M.E. to help people remember the primary warning signs, as follows.

• T = Temperature: higher or lower than normal (fever or hypothermia)
• I = Infection: signs of an infection (e.g. a cut, pneumonia, UTI)
• M = Mental decline: confusion, sleepiness, difficulty awakening or arousing
• E = Extremely ill: severe pain or discomfort, shortness of breath, feeling like you might die

Other warning signs may include shortness of breath, confusion, extreme pain, low blood pressure, fever, organ dysfunction, and clammy or sweaty skin.

Early detection and treatment of sepsis is essential to preventing life-threatening complications that damage the kidney, heart, liver, brain and other organs, according to Long. Sometimes, preventing this damage involves what seems like overtreatment with antibiotics. \

Treatments for sepsis are evolving and a work in progress. Currently, all treatments are supportive, meaning the child is treated with antibiotics while doctors deal with the abnormal immune responses and wait for the return of normal function.  

“Those supportive treatments include simple things like receiving oxygen and fluids, and if kids need help with their breathing, if their oxygen levels are too low or their conscious state is impaired, then they get put on a ventilator,” Long said.

“We have a lot of work to do to try and develop treatments that help improve outcomes for kids with sepsis that are not just supportive treatments, but help to modify the immune response.”

Despite children’s resilience, sepsis can have a long-term impact. Long and his colleagues are on the lookout for long-term problems with cognition, emotions and motor abilities. 

“The impact isn’t just on the children, it’s on the parents as well, because they’ve had an extremely stressful life event,” Long said. “And sometimes that has meant that they’ve had to contemplate the possibility of their child dying … so parents and families are left with this kind of burden of survivorship.”

Listening to parents

Because early sepsis is so easy to miss, Long emphasized how important it is for doctors to listen closely to parents. 

“If parents say, ‘this is a very abnormal response for my child to an infection or this is the sickest I’ve ever seen them,’ these are important red flags that this may be something more than just a minor infection,” he said.

Long told Fox News Digital that the most common age for sepsis patients is younger than 5 — and within that group, it’s especially prevalent for kids who are less than a year old.

“They’re often pre-verbal or can’t describe the signs or symptoms, so we’re relying a lot on the parents to go through what they think is going on or what they’ve observed in their child,” the doctor added.

“Martha’s Rule” is a universal principle that allows parents to advocate for their sick child, which is especially important with sepsis, where a young life may be easily lost. 

“So if parents notice their child is getting worse or deteriorating over time, Martha’s Rule has been put in place to allow them to bypass local escalation procedures and get an independent opinion,” Long said. “[This allows them to] provide the appropriate level of care for their child in the event of deterioration.”

https://nypost.com/2025/10/05/health/hidden-infection-kills-millions-of-kids-every-year-here-are-the-symptoms/

Supplying Tomahawk Missiles To Ukraine Will Destroy US-Russia Relations, Putin Warns

 Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any Washington decision to supply Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles for strikes deep into Russian territory would irreparably damage Moscow's relations with Washington.

The warning comes less than two months after Putin met with President Donald Trump at a summit in Alaska, which sought de-escalation in Ukraine and was focused on improving bilateral relations. But now Putin is making clear that these relations could be destroyed, also at a moment the extension to the New START nuclear treaty has left some breathing room for nuclear negotiations.

"This will lead to the destruction of our relationship. Or at least the emerging positive trends in this relationship. So I'm saying what I think. And how things turn out depends not only on us," Putin said in a fresh interview with Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin, parts of which were widely published Sunday.

Image: US Navy

Given the Tomahawk missile has a range of at least 1,500 miles, it could potentially hit Moscow and offices of Kremlin leaders, unleashing the likelihood of runaway escalation toward WW3. This is basically what Moscow is now warning about.

Already the US has said it is assisting Kiev with long-range targeting, which has included daily drone warfare, sometimes reaching over 800 miles into Russia with strikes on energy facilities. Probably such intel-sharing had long been happening for years in the war.

Vice President J.D. Vance had last week indicated the US is looking into the European request to send Tomahawks, and the Kremlin has said it would be deeply surprised if the US took this step.

Still, Trump has voiced frustration with Putin, going so far as to call Russia a "paper tiger" for its inability to quickly and decisively defeat Ukraine.

Yet it should be remembered that Russia's actions are still only at the level of "Special Military Operation" and a full war mobilization has not been ordered.

Moscow has not revealed an intent to utterly destroy Kiev, and for the most part has not begun obliterating 'decision-making' centers, leaving open a chance for de-escalation.

Putin also last Thursday separately pointed out it was impossible to use Tomahawks without the direct participation of American specialists and thus any supply of these missiles to Ukraine would trigger a "qualitatively new stage of escalation."

"This will mean a completely new, qualitatively new stage of escalation, including in relations between Russia and the United States," Putin emphasized.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/supplying-tomahawk-missiles-ukraine-will-destroy-us-russia-relations-putin-warns

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/missouri-governor-authorizes-national-guard-assist-ice-operations

https://seekingalpha.com/news/4501797-googles-remedy-trial-continues-as-it-could-reshape-future-of-digital-advertising