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The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in August, nearly triple the 55,000 economists had penciled in, with unemployment holding steady at 4.1 percent. The private sector alone accounted for 127,000 of those, and it's the strongest monthly gain since March. Trump called it a break of "all estimates" and immediately renewed his demand that the Federal Reserve cut rates.
The president signed a sweeping order Friday allowing farmers and ranchers to slaughter and process their own livestock and sell directly to consumers across state lines. USDA will build a program aimed at routing around the four large meatpackers that dominate the market. A companion measure tightens country-of-origin labeling on imported beef, with the midterms two months out.
Missouri's attorney general filed an emergency petition Friday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the Trump-backed congressional map that the state's own high court unanimously blocked on September 3. The state supreme court ordered a November referendum instead, meaning the 2020-census map governs the midterms unless Washington intervenes. AG Catherine Hanaway argued no court in American history has overturned a map after a primary but before a general.
Trump tapped Adam Telle as acting Army secretary, skipping over Undersecretary Michael Obadal, who would normally have stepped up under the standard line of succession. The move is unusual enough that it has raised eyebrows across the Pentagon's civilian ranks. It lands while the Army is stretched across an active Iran campaign and Caribbean counter-narcotics operations.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner touched down in Moscow this morning carrying a written proposal to end the war, with Putin ordering a three-day halt to strikes on Kyiv starting at midnight. The envoys meet Putin today and Zelensky tomorrow. Territory remains the wall everyone keeps hitting, with Moscow still demanding all of the Donbas including ground its army does not hold.
CENTCOM struck three Iranian crude carriers after the IRGC attempted to launch ballistic missiles at a U.S. carrier and a guided-missile destroyer. The M/T Downy off Kharg Island and the M/T Stark 1 near Jask were permanently disabled, and the M/T Kylo was destroyed outright in the Gulf of Oman. No Americans were hurt, and a senior Iranian source says Tehran has roughly two months of gasoline left under the blockade.
Rescuers today brought out a Chinese national and a woman alive, ten days after the August 26 glacier collapse sent floodwaters through the Trishuli River valley. That follows two mechanical workers pulled from the Upper Trishuli 3A tunnel yesterday, one of whom told crews more people are still alive down there. The confirmed death toll stands above 1,287 with more than 5,000 missing, and the State Department says 75 Americans remain unaccounted for.
NASA's $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched in late August and is now beginning its survey mission, built to find planets around other stars and probe dark energy. Its wide-field infrared eye can image an area roughly a hundred times larger than Hubble in a single shot. Scientists expect it to catalog thousands of new exoplanets over its primary mission.
NASA has laid out plans for more than a dozen uncrewed lunar base missions, with the first three targeted to launch before the end of 2026. One of them is billed as the first privately funded lunar lander mission in history, expected around this fall. The program is explicitly framed as a race to establish American infrastructure at the lunar south pole before China does.
The UN General Assembly adopted the Equal Earth projection as its official map, replacing the familiar Mercator-style rendering that visually shrinks Africa and inflates the northern latitudes. The United States cast the only vote against, with American diplomats branding the switch a "radical ideological project." One hundred sixty-four countries voted yes.
