Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.
On today's podcast:
1) The US government stumbled into a partial shutdown Saturday while waiting for the House to approve a funding deal President Trump worked out with Democrats following a national uproar over Border Patrol agents’ killing of a US citizen in Minneapolis. The funding lapse is likely to be short, with the House returning from a week-long break on Monday and the Republican president fully supporting the spending package. Many Americans may not even notice since most federal employees working on weekends, such as military personnel and air traffic controllers, are deemed essential and aren’t furloughed in a shutdown.
2) The Justice Department’s latest release of material related to its investigations into Jeffrey Epstein offers fresh details about the rich and well-connected people who circulated in the orbit of the late disgraced financier. Officials said Friday they were releasing some 3 million pages of material, including more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
3) Gold extended losses, after its biggest plunge in more than a decade on Friday, while silver’s year-to-date gains were wiped out as a record-breaking precious-metals rally unwound at breakneck speed. Spot gold fell as much as 10% on Monday and is now down almost a fifth from an all-time high reached in the last-but-one session. Silver slumped as much as 16%, following on from an intraday loss on Friday that was the steepest on record.