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Oct. 3, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Steve KopackFor people who closely follow the U.S. economy, the first Friday of every month is known as “jobs Friday,” when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the previous month’s employment report at precisely 8:30 a.m. ET. But on this jobs Friday, September’s employment data — a critical window into the health of the U.S. labor market — will not be released.Like many other federal offices, the BLS is temporarily closed because of the ongoing government shutdown. Until Congress approves its funding, the bureau’s more than 2,000 employees will remain furloughed, unable to release any reports.The data blackout comes at a perilous time for the U.S. economy. The unemployment rate has steadily ticked up this year, from a seasonally adjusted 4% in January to 4.3% in August. On Wednesday, new private-sector employment data released by payroll processing giant ADP showed a net loss of 32,000 jobs in September. Economists had expected a gain of around 45,000 jobs. The surprise loss of private-sector jobs only served to compound the value a Friday jobs report could have provided to policymakers and businesses as they try to make sense of the rapid shifts underway in the labor market.Federal Reserve officials are also considering next steps for interest rates.When the Fed cut borrowing costs last month, Chairman Jerome Powell warned that the overall economic picture was so unusual that central bankers were having a hard time forecasting what would come next. “Ordinarily, when the labor market is weak, inflation is low, and when the labor market is really strong, that’s when you’ve got to be careful about inflation,” Powell said at a mid-September news conference in Washington. Then, as now, the labor market was showing signs of weakness even as inflation crept up.As a result of those dueling forces, “there’s no risk-free path” ahead for the Fed, Powell said. “It’s quite a difficult situation for policymakers.”Fed cuts interest rates, citing ‘risks’ to jobs market01:44Now, the Fed could be forced to make another decision on rates this month without the benefit of key federal data.And it’s not just the jobs report that could go on hiatus.If the shutdown drags on past the middle of October, it could also delay the monthly BLS-produced Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index reports. BLS data on import prices is also expected that week.“Assuming the shutdown is over within a couple of weeks, there should still be plenty of time” for the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee to evaluate September’s jobs data before it meets again at the end of the month, analysts at JPMorgan Chase wrote Thursday.However, “if there is no employment report, then we expect them to focus on available indicators, including ADP, consumer confidence, jobless claims, and other private-sector measures of employment, job openings, and announced job cuts,” the JPMorgan analysts wrote.The Federal Reserve did not immediately reply to a request for comment Thursday about what impact delayed data might have on its upcoming deliberations.The September jobs report is most likely already in its “final draft” form, former BLS Commissioner William Beach wrote in a blog post this week.“Usually, BLS staff present the final draft of the jobs report to the commissioner on Wednesday preceding the Friday publication,” Beach wrote for Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill, an independent research center that provides economic data to Congress. The final draft allows the BLS commissioner to brief major stakeholders on the day before each jobs Friday, including members of the Federal Reserve board and top White House officials. “The president and his economic team only see the data the day before publication,” Beach wrote. “So, if there is no publication on Friday,” the administration does not get a preview of it on Thursday.Even if the shutdown is resolved in the coming days, it’s still not certain when top officials and the public should expect to see September’s jobs report.In 2013, it took four days after federal agencies reopened following a 17-day government shutdown for BLS to release the previous month’s jobs data. The monthly Consumer Price Index data was not released for more than a week after the shutdown was over. That year, the Fed’s two-day October meeting began with officials still lacking the previous month’s key inflation data. It was only on the second day of the meeting that officials were finally able to review the inflation report, just hours before they announced their interest rate decision. The Federal Reserve building in Washington.Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesFurther complicating matters for the Fed is that any shutdown creates additional uncertainty of its own in the economy, as thousands of federal workers’ paychecks are delayed and government services are severely restricted.Still, a government shutdown alone is unlikely to be enough to shift the Fed’s thinking on interest rates. Most economists believe that the current shutdown’s economic impact will be minimal and that any dent to growth will be made up in the coming months.Fed policymakers already face a formidable challenge: predicting how President Donald Trump’s unprecedented, and rapidly evolving, economic policies will affect the labor market and inflation.“With all this change, a dense fog has fallen,” Richmond, Virginia, Fed President Tom Barkin said in March in a lecture at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. At the time, Trump had been in office for less than two months and had already set about reversing his predecessor’s economic legacy.“It’s not an everyday ‘forecasting is hard’ type of fog,” Barkin said. “It’s a ‘zero visibility, pull over and turn on your hazards’ type of fog.” Six months later, some of that fog appears to have lifted. But as Powell suggested, it is still difficult for the Fed to see what’s coming next. Steve KopackSteve Kopack is a senior reporter at NBC News covering business and the economy.

- Latest News - October 3, 2025

For people who closely follow the U.S. economy, the first Friday of every month is known as “jobs Friday,” when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the previous month’s employment.

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Oct. 3, 2025, 1:56 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 3, 2025, 2:18 AM EDTBy Phil HelselLOS ANGELES — A large fire was reported Thursday night at a Los Angeles-area oil refinery, prompting a response by first responders, according to officials and video that captured the scene.Helicopter footage from NBC Los Angeles showed flames coming from two of the stacks and one other area at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo. The city of El Segundo said the event was a fire at the refinery, and “not a flaring event.” There were no evacuations ordered, it said.It was not clear if there were any injuries. Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Manhattan Beach, a neighboring coastal city in Los Angeles County, told residents that it was aware of the “unusual fire event” at the Chevron refinery, but that there was no evacuation order. The city told residents to stay inside.Video captured on social media showed a fireball appearing to erupt from the facility, and flames that lit up the horizon.“I saw this thing just go up,” one local resident whose lived in the area for eight years told NBC Los Angeles. “I never, ever fear anything. This — I got in panic mode when I saw it. I was literally in panic mode.”The oil refinery covers around 1,000 acres and has around 1,100 miles of pipelines, according to the facility’s website. It primarily refines gasoline, jet and diesel and can refine up to 290,000 barrels of crude oil per day, according to the site.California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the situation, his office said on X.”Our office is coordinating in real time with local and state agencies to protect the surrounding community and ensure public safety,” the governor’s office said.By 11 p.m. helicopter footage from NBC Los Angeles showed firefighters working to douse a plume of flame by spraying from ladder trucks in one part of the facility, while two of the stacks also had flames coming from their tops.Phil HelselPhil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.Jean Lee, Matthew Mulligan, Bill Feather and Todd Miyazawa contributed.

- Latest News - October 3, 2025

A large fire was reported Thursday night at a Los Angeles-area oil refinery, prompting a response by first responders, according to officials and video that captured the scene.

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Oct. 2, 2025, 11:34 PM EDTBy Steve Kopack and Phil HelselApple said Thursday it is removing an app that allows users to share information about sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, which the head of ICE had criticized.ICEBlock was removed from Apple’s App Store along with other apps like it, Apple said.“We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps,” Apple said. “Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.”Trump administration officials have complained about assaults and threats to ICE agents, among them that they face being “doxxed,” a term that means personal information is shared online.ICEBlock does not involve the sharing of personal information about agents, but it notifies people within a 5-mile radius of sightings.The app was launched in April, around three months after President Donald Trump was inaugurated following a campaign in which he vowed to crack down on people in the country without legal authorization. Downloads took off in June, the month immigration raids were launched in Los Angeles.Fox Business, which first reported that the app had been pulled Thursday, reported that Justice Department officials asked Apple to remove ICEBlock at the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi.The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News. Bondi said in a statement to Fox Business, “We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so.”Bondi told the news outlet that “ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs.”White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons also criticized the app in July.A message seeking comment from ICEBlock’s founder or others affiliated with the app, which was sent through its website, was not immediately returned Thursday night.The app is being removed a little more than a week after a 29-year-old Texas man, Joshua Jahn, opened fire on people at a Dallas ICE facility sally port, killing two detainees and himself. No ICE agents were injured. After the shooting, Marcos Charles, the ICE field office director of enforcement and removal operations, said Jahn used ICE tracking apps. He did not say which ones.There have been more than 1 million downloads of the ICEBlock app, according to app tracking firm Appfigures. Downloads took off in June, according to the firm. That month, ICE ramped up immigration raids in Los Angeles. Demonstrators protested the raids, and some downtown stores were looted. The Trump administration sent the National Guard to the city without a request from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a controversial move that critics called political theater and an attempt to intimidate and terrorize residents.A federal judge ruled Sept. 2 that the deployment of National Guard personnel and Marines to Los Angeles was illegal. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco ruled that it violated a 19th century law that prohibits the use of soldiers for civilian law enforcement activities.Steve KopackSteve Kopack is a senior reporter at NBC News covering business and the economy.Phil HelselPhil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.Laura Strickler contributed.

- Latest News - October 3, 2025

Apple said Thursday it is removing an app that allows users to share information about sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, which the head of ICE had criticized

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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 2, 2025, 6:03 PM EDTBy Ryan Nobles, Frank Thorp V and Kyle StewartWASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has become a leading figure in the fight over government funding, but it’s not a role she has asked for. Rather, it’s a role Republicans have thrust upon her.“Chuck Schumer is terrified he’s going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday. “The reason why the American people’s government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far-left radicals in his own party because he’s terrified of a primary challenge.”Republican after Republican has used Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive star, as a foil in their argument that Democrats are going overboard in their demands to end the shutdown. They claim she and the left wing of the party are pressuring their more moderate leadership to hold firm.Ocasio-Cortez made it clear in an interview with NBC News that Democratic leadership is driving the party’s strategy. “They’re saying this stuff about me in the press, and the fact of the matter is I can tell you, in the seven years that I’ve been here, they [Republican leaders] have never given me a single phone call, because they know what the truth is,” she said. “They know that the people that they need to be negotiating with, and who they are negotiating with, are Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer,” the House and Senate Democratic leaders, both of New York. Vance; House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La..; Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.; and President Donald Trump continue to claim Schumer, in particular, is feeling pressure because of the possibility that Ocasio-Cortez might want to challenge him in the Senate primary in 2028. Ocasio-Cortez, who is in her fourth term, didn’t rule out a Senate bid but instead said it’s not something with which voters are concerned.“People are going to die. Nobody cares about some election years from now. They care about if their kids can get insulin, if they can put food on the table,” she said.She said that her caucus remains “tremendously united” in its demands to end the shutdown and that she and her fellow Democrats aren’t intimidated by White House threats around mass layoffs and funding cuts. She said it’s not necessary for her to be front and center in the negotiations.“It is so important to understand that these people are all talk. They are all talk. They are negotiating with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, and Democratic leadership and Democrats are united to that end.” Ryan NoblesRyan Nobles is Chief Capitol Hill Correspondent for NBC News.Frank Thorp VFrank Thorp V is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.Kyle StewartKyle Stewart is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the House.Brennan Leach contributed.

- Latest News - October 3, 2025

In an interview with NBC News, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez says her caucus is “tremendously united” in demand to end shutdown.

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