The unemployment rate remained steady at 4.1% for August as the US economy added 162,000 jobs in August, better than analysts had expected. The Labor Department cited gains in construction, food service and drinking places and local government education. The Federal Reserve can now be confident about interest rate hikes to fight inflation, Macro Policy Perspectives founder Julia Coronado told Marketplace. [Bureau of Labor Statistics]

Record Diesel Prices – National average for a gallon of diesel fuel hit an all-time record $5.85 per gallon Friday, the AAA reports. That’s up 6.68 cents per gallon over Thursday and +$2.1635 since the beginning of the US-Israeli war over Iran. This mean likely higher inflation for goods delivered by diesel trucks and trains, which means nearly everything. Meanwhile, a unleaded regular gas hit an average of $4.1474 per gallon Friday – not a record – but 0.38 cents over Thursday and $1.3312 over February 27.

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Treasury Goes After Private Schools’ ‘DEI’ – Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is on a MAGA roll of sorts. While blaming Ukraine for higher oil prices with its strikes on Russian reserves, Bessent also says the Treasury Department’s Internal Revenue Service intends to revoke tax-exempt status for private schools that help students based on race.

Wesleyan University President Michael Roth told NPR’s Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition that his school has programs designed to help students, such as low-income first-generation college students, in need. Such programs are not race-based, though they may benefit students of color in much larger proportion than white students, he said.

“But the secretary of the Treasury is talking about ending discrimination against white people,” Roth told Inskeep. “That’s what should shock us here. The secretary of the Treasury is using the IRS to advance a pro-white nationalist agenda.”

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‘Limited Military Operation,’ Week 22 – While the economic war via strict sanctions on Iran broke out into US military strikes on Iran while Iran continued attacking the region this week, the Trump administration is casting whatever we’re doing there as a limited military operation.

“I wouldn’t call it a war,” Vice President JD Vance said in the first White House press briefing since press secretary Karoline Leavitt stepped down, Time reports. “Right now, there is no shooting.”  – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa