ECON 101: President Trump learned yesterday that firing the person responsible for economic numbers won’t improve them.

  Hiring was down again in August, only 22,000 new jobs, and job growth is down 75 percent from a year ago. Unemployment rose to nearly 4.3 percent . There was a net loss of jobs last month in manufacturing, construction, and oil drilling.

  Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month, claiming the numbers that indicated a softening economy were rigged to make him look bad. This time he blamed Federal reserve chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates.  

  Some economists say the economy is creeping toward what’s called “stagflation” … a slower economy with rising prices. President Trump’s tariffs have increased prices and his immigrant roundups have made it hard to hire and retain employees for lower wage jobs.

LA MIGRA:  Federal authorities raided a Hyundai electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia yesterday, rounding up 475 people, 

  It’s the administration’s largest single immigration operation so far. 

  Homeland Security officials said many of the people they detained were in the country or working here unlawfully. They said the operation was protecting the jobs of Georgia residents and US citizens. 

  South Korean officials were shocked but controlled in their reaction. This happened while President Trump has been pressuring South Korea to make investments in the US. Just last week South Korea’s president pledged to invest an additional $150 billion in the United States, including in battery manufacturing.

  A statement from South Korea said, “The economic activities of our investment companies and the rights and interests of our citizens must not be unjustly violated during U.S. law enforcement proceedings.”

WAR AND PEACE: President Trump yesterday re-named the Department of Defense “The Department of War” as it was called during World War II. “I think it sends a message of victory,” Trump said. “We’re very strong. We’re much stronger than anyone would really understand.”

  It was Congress that had named it “The Department of Defense” by passing a law in 1949. Although Trump’s order does not supersede that law, workers immediately yesterday began changing signage at the Pentagon

  Defense Secretary … err … Secretary of War Pete Hegseth says the new name brings the warrior ethos to the military. He said “we haven’t won a major war” since the name was changed in 1947. The former Fox News host said, “We’re going to set the tone for this country: America first, peace through strength — brought to you by the War Department.” 

  We will continue referring to the “Defense Department” because that’s what it is by law.

THE REGIME:

— A federal judge in San Francisco yesterday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary US work and residency protections for more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela.

  Judge Edward Chen castigated Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for wanting to send people “back to conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries.”

  A DHS spokesperson said that “unelected activist judges” cannot stop the American people’s desire for a secure country.

— The Drug Enforcement Administration says they have arrested 171 suspected members of the Sinaloa drug cartel in New England, including 49 in Massachusetts, and seized drugs, guns, and cash as part of a recent sweep. Arrests were largely centered in Lawrence, north of Boston near the New Hampshire border.

— The Trump administration has informed Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man improperly deported to prison in El Salvador then brought  back, that they  now plan to deport him to the tiny African nation of Eswatini as he continues to fight continuing efforts to deport him. They had previously planned to deport him to Uganda. 

THE OBIT PAGE: Ken Dryden, the Hockey Hall of Fame goalie who stopped the puck for the Montreal Canadiens’ 1970s dynasty, died yesterday of cancer. He was 78. 

  Dryden was one of the greatest goalies in NHL history despite playing only seven full seasons. But in those years he won six Stanley Cup Championships. He had previously led Cornell University to three ECAC hockey championships.

  He retired in his prime to pursue business, law and politics, where he was equally successful.

  Among many things he did, he was a television commentator at three Winter Olympics, and was sitting next Al Michaels for ABC’s coverage of the “Miracle on Ice” game when the United States beat the Soviet Union in 1980.

THE SPIN RACK:   The artificial intelligence company Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to authors and publishers in a landmark settlement for using works to train their chatbot without payment.  Anthropic agreed to pay authors $3,000 per work for an estimated 500,000 books. — 
A former Alaska Airlines pilot accused of trying to turn off the engines of a passenger flight in 2023 while riding off-duty in the cockpit has pleaded  guilty and no-contest to charges in federal and state courts. Joseph Emerson told investigators that he was despondent over the death of a friend and had taken psychedelic mushrooms.

BELOW THE FOLD:  The Chicago Tribune reports that in a cold case search for a couple who went missing in 1994, 97 cars have been discovered sunk in the Chicago River.

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