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Top 5 US news stories

September 8 2025

Greg Loving

08 Sep 2025 • 6 min read

U.S. Job Growth Reliant on Healthcare as Other Sectors Stall

White House Vows More Workplace Raids Following Detention of Foreign Workers in Georgia

Health Secretary to Announce Potential Tylenol-Autism Link

International Postal Deliveries to U.S. Plummet 80% After Trump's Removal of Small Package Tariff Exemption

Chinese Hackers Targeted US Negotiating Team Amid High-Stakes Trade Negotiations

1. U.S. Job Growth Reliant on Healthcare as Other Sectors Stall

America’s labor market has slowed markedly in recent months. If it weren’t for job gains in the health-services sector, it would barely be growing at all. Health services, which include healthcare and social assistance, have long been an engine of U.S. job growth, bolstering the labor market through thick and thin. But amid a general weakening in the labor market, the danger is that the sector doesn’t have enough gasoline in the tank to keep driving employment forward. Impending Medicaid cuts, for example, could severely slow it down. What is more, the sector might turn out to not be providing as much oomph to job growth as the official data now show. Friday’s jobs report reinforced the trend, painting a picture of a sharply slowing labor market, with health services one of the few relatively bright spots. Indeed, absent gains in health-services employment in August, the private sector would have shed jobs last month. So far in 2025, the economy has added an average of about 74,000 private-sector jobs a month, according to the Labor Department, a step down from last year’s average gain of about 130,000 jobs. Take away the roughly 64,000 jobs that health services have been adding each month, though, and the remainder of the private sector has been contributing only about 9,400 jobs a month. Both healthcare and social assistance tend to add jobs steadily, even in economic downturns. Healthcare is something people spend money on even when they are cutting back elsewhere, and the healthcare needs of an aging population have contributed to the sector’s underlying growth. The same goes for the closely related social-assistance sector: A bit more than half of its 5.2 million jobs are in services such as home care for the elderly and disabled.

WSJ

2. White House Vows More Workplace Raids Following Detention of Foreign Workers in Georgia

SEOUL—South Korea and the U.S. have reached a deal to release Korean citizens who were detained last week in a large-scale immigration raid at a Hyundai Motor plant in Georgia, according to the office of the South Korean president. Kang Hoon-sik, chief of staff of South Korea’s presidential office, said Sunday that Seoul has concluded talks with the U.S. to release Korean citizens who were detained in Thursday’s raid. Some administrative procedures remain, but once they are cleared, a chartered plane will be sent to the U.S. to bring the South Korean citizens home, Kang said. He didn’t elaborate on the timing nor on the nature of the deal agreed to with the U.S. The State Department doesn’t comment on private diplomatic communications, a spokesman said. One unresolved point is whether the detained South Koreans are allowed to leave voluntarily or be deported—the latter move often triggering a multiyear entry ban to America, officials from Seoul and Washington say. As of Friday, the U.S. had said no criminal charges had been filed. Seoul’s statement of a deal comes days after U.S. law-enforcement officials carried out their largest ever single-site immigration raid at the construction site of an electric-vehicle battery factory near Savannah, Ga. The factory is a joint venture between Hyundai and fellow South Korean firm LG Energy Solution. On Sunday, U.S. border czar Tom Homan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that these workplace raids would continue because they help secure the border. “You’re going to see a lot more worksite enforcement operations,” Homan said. “It’s a crime to knowingly hire an illegal alien.” Homan said employers hire people in the country illegally because they want to pay them less and undercut competing American workers. President Trump on Sunday evening said foreign companies’ investments in the U.S. were welcome and they should “LEGALLY bring your very smart people, with great technical talent, to build World Class products, and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so.” In his Truth Social post, he added: “What we ask in return is that you hire and train American Workers.”

WSJ

3. Health Secretary to Announce Potential Tylenol-Autism Link

Sept 5 (Reuters) - U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to announce that use of Kenvue's (KVUE.N), opens new tab popular over-the-counter pain medication Tylenol in pregnant women is potentially linked to autism, contrary to medical guidelines that say it is safe to use, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Kennedy, in the report, will also suggest a medicine derived from folate called folinic acid can be used to treat symptoms of autism in some people, the WSJ reported. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said that until the final report is released, claims about its contents are speculation. "We are using gold-standard science to get to the bottom of America’s unprecedented rise in autism rates," the spokesperson said. Shares of Kenvue fell 14% after the report. Tylenol, whose active ingredient is acetaminophen, is a widely used pain reliever, including by pregnant women. Kenvue said in a statement that it believes there is no causal link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism. The company advises expecting mothers to speak to healthcare professionals before taking OTC medications, including Tylenol.

Reuters

4. International Postal Deliveries to U.S. Plummet 80% After Trump's Removal of Small Package Tariff Exemption

Postal deliveries from around the world to the United States have plummeted by 80 percent since President Trump lifted the “de minimis” exception that allowed small packages worth less than $800 to be exempt from tariffs, a United Nations body has found. The Universal Postal Union (UPU), a U.N. agency that works on global postal cooperation, said postal traffic had gone down 80 percent to the U.S. since Aug. 29, when the rule went into effect.

The Hill

5. Chinese Hackers Targeted US Negotiating Team Amid High-Stakes Trade Negotiations

As the Trump administration’s contentious trade talks with China were set to begin in Sweden last July, staffers on the House committee focused on U.S. competition with China began to get puzzling inquiries, according to people familiar with the matter. Several trade groups, law firms and U.S. government agencies had all received an email appearing to be from the committee’s chairman, Rep. John Moolenaar (R., Mich.), asking for input on proposed sanctions with which the legislators were planning to target Beijing. “Your insights are essential,” the email read, asking the groups to review a draft of the legislation attached to the message. But why had the chairman sent the message from a nongovernment address? It turned out to be the latest in a series of alleged cyber espionage campaigns linked to Beijing, people familiar with the matter said, timed to potentially deploy spyware against organizations giving input on President Trump’s trade negotiations. The FBI and the Capitol Police are investigating the Moolenaar emails, and cyber analysts traced the embedded malware to a hacker group known as APT41—believed to be a contractor for Beijing’s Ministry of State Security. U. S. and Chinese officials met in late July in Stockholm—just days after the first email was sent—to pursue the type of high-stakes negotiations that spies in both countries were likely eager to obtain an advantage in. The two countries soon after agreed to extend a tariff truce until early November, when Trump and Xi could meet at an Asian economic summit.

WSJ

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