U.S. Rescues One of Two Crew Members From Jet Downed in Iran

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0:22Matt Grossman:Iran hits two U.S. warplanes. The search continues for a crew member still on the ground in the country. We'll get the latest. Plus, hiring in the U.S. blew past expectations. The economy added 178 ,000 jobs last month. Economists at the Fed and the policymakers there still have a lot of questions about how the war is going to affect the economy. The jobs report does give them some help, though. And Maine is poised to freeze the construction of new data centers in the state. It's Friday, April 3rd. I'm Alex Osula for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

1:05Matt Grossman:Iran shot down an American F-15E fighter jet earlier today. It's the first known loss of a jet in the country since the start of the war. The U.S. has rescued one crew member, and the status of the second is unknown, and the search and rescue continues. The Journal's senior video and national security correspondent Shelby Holliday has been reporting this story, and it's here now with the latest. Shelby, what do we know about the situation? How did this happen? Yeah, this was an extremely tense day for the United States. The plane was downed in Iranian territory. The crew members were both in an F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet.

1:41And one of them was rescued earlier in the day. But the search has been ongoing for the second crew member for hours now. And we know that Iran brought the plane down at this point. It's not clear what they shot the plane with. But there was a huge church and rescue effort, and some of the aircraft involved in that effort have been filmed flying over Iran.

2:02Matt Grossman:And how has Iran responded to this situation? Iran has been using it to their advantage in propaganda and posts online. In some posts, they were even taunting the United States. It's quite amazing when you talk to former Air Force officials. They say it's incredible that this hasn't happened sooner. It's been five weeks of war, 13 ,000 combat flights. It's pretty amazing that this is the first time something like this has happened. Of course, it's extremely serious. But for Iran, it's a big victory. They've been shooting at U.S. planes for five weeks, and they haven't been able to bring anything down.

2:34And they're claiming it as a victory. It's a very small victory, but it is something. And it's just a reminder that Iran is still a very aggressive and capable enemy in this fight.

2:45Matt Grossman:President Trump has said repeatedly that the U.S. has diminished Iran's military, a claim that, of course, Iran has rejected. What does this incident show about Iran's military capabilities? That's a good question. From day one of this fight, Iran has fought back. Their ability to do so with missiles and drones and other types of equipment, fast boats, that has diminished. Drone strikes are down 90 percent. Missile strikes are down 90 percent. But they're still shooting at stuff. They're still able to fight back. And so this is just a reminder. It's just sort of a wake-up call that Iran is not going down quietly.

3:18Matt Grossman:What are you going to be keeping an eye on in the coming hours and days to see how the situation progresses? I'm really curious to see if the U.S. will be even more resolved after this incident and if they will ramp up the combat flights in any way or strike more targets or do something that sends a big signal. I'll also be curious to see what Iran is capable of doing in the coming days. They've been getting help from adversaries. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has acknowledged that adversaries hinting at Russia and China have been helping them with satellite imagery and intelligence. So I am really curious to see if things escalate from here or if we just go back to status quo.

3:58The air war over Iran, thousands of targets hit.

4:01Matt Grossman:That was WSJ senior video and national security correspondent Shelby Holliday. Thanks, Shelby. Thanks, guys. This afternoon, we reported that Iran also hit a second American warplane. People familiar with the matter said that the pilot is safe, as they were able to fly out of Iranian territory before ejecting from the aircraft. In other Iran news, the latest efforts to reach a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, led by Pakistan, have hit a dead end. Mediators said today that Iran has officially told them it isn't willing to meet U.S. officials in Pakistan in the coming days, and that U.S. demands are unacceptable.

4:35Matt Grossman:Qatar is resisting efforts by the U.S. and other regional countries to be a key mediator for a potential ceasefire deal. And a French-owned container ship has passed through the Strait of Hormuz, the first known vessel with ties to Western Europe to cross the channel since the start of the war. Separately, a new 2027 budget proposal released by the White House today seeks$1.5 trillion in defense spending, by far the most in modern history. President Trump had promised a request of this size back in January, before the war on Iran. The proposed budget includes cuts for non-defense spending, for things like education and the Environmental Protection Agency.

5:11Matt Grossman:Congress will need to determine which pieces of the budget will be passed into law before the fiscal year begins on October 1st.

5:22The U.S.

5:23Matt Grossman:job market added 178 ,000 jobs in March. The Labor Department's report showed the best month for job growth in more than a year, beating economists' expectations and a reversal from February's job losses. For more Behind the Numbers, I'm joined now by WSJ economics reporter Matt Grossman. Matt, which industry saw the most growth? Well, it was a really good month for the healthcare sector. In part, that wasn't a surprise because February had been a down month for that sector, mostly because there was a big strike. There was good job growth and leisure and hospitality. It was also a pretty good month for trades like construction and manufacturing.

6:02So the gains were pretty broad. There were some declines in government payrolls, especially for the federal government.

6:09Matt Grossman:The unemployment rate also fell to 4.3 % from 4.4 % in February. But there was an asterisk to that, which is that the labor force itself actually shrank by nearly 400 ,000 people. What's going on with that? Yeah, this is a big story that economists are looking at when you zoom out a bit from the month-to-month numbers. A couple years ago, when the economy and the labor force were in full boom mode, we were adding hundreds of thousands of jobs most months. In the past few months, given that immigration has slowed down so much, the economy now no longer needs to create nearly as many jobs to kind of hold steady.

6:47So that's a decent sign for people who are here looking for work because maybe there are fewer people that you're competing against for those jobs. On the other hand, it means the economy probably isn't growing as much because there's only so much economic activity that a kind of steady or shrinking labor force can produce.

7:05Matt Grossman:These numbers are coming out four or five weeks after the U.S. attacked Iran. How has the war affected the jobs market and what does it mean for the Fed? The data we got today probably doesn't tell us much about how the war in Iran was affecting the economy. The numbers really reflect the state of the job market in the second week of March. At that point, the war had only been on for 10 or 15 days or so. Economists at the Fed and the policymakers there still have a lot of questions about how the war is going to affect the economy. The jobs report does give them some help, though, because if this had been a really bad report, they might have felt pressure to help cushion the labor market by potentially reducing rates at the same time that high inflation is still a concern for them.

7:50Now that they saw solid job growth in March, they can probably put that to one side and kind of wait and see whether the war is going to have an impact and whether they can make any more progress on inflation.

8:02Matt Grossman:That was WSJ economics reporter Matt Grossman. Thank you, Matt. Thanks. Major indexes were closed today for Good Friday, but stock futures fell slightly after the report came out. Treasury yields climbed modestly. Coming up, executives are coming to Venezuela with an eye for investments and an appetite for risk. That's after the break.

8:28Matt Grossman:Hi, this is Alex Osula, host of the WSJ's What's News podcast. We bring you the biggest news of the day, from business and finance to global and political developments that move markets. If you're looking for more insights and tools to understand the latest headlines, consider becoming a subscriber to The Wall Street Journal. Visit subscribe.wsj.com slash what's news to subscribe now.

8:57Matt Grossman:In the months since Nicolas Maduro's ouster, Venezuela has begun reopening after years of economic collapse and isolation. Businesses from the U.S., Colombia, and elsewhere are sending over their executives, studying projects, and in some cases, moving toward early investments. For more on this, I'm joined now by WSJ South America Bureau Chief Juan Ferrero. Juan, where does investment in Venezuela stand right now? I think we're seeing investment at its inception, actually, because the situation really is quite unstable in Venezuela at this point. Venezuela still has a judicial system that is under state control.

9:33There are questions about the legality of contracts and things of that nature. And also sanctions haven't been lifted on Venezuelan companies and on several high-ranking Venezuelan officials. You cannot go and do business with the state oil company, which is obviously key in Venezuela because a lot of the investments will be in oil. But what we can say with certainty is that Venezuela has nowhere to go but up and Venezuela needs everything. Venezuela needs imports of food and construction material, pharmaceuticals, chemicals. And because of the giant possibilities for oil production, the projection is that Venezuela will be able to generate a lot of money.

10:20The U.S. government has deployed high officials, including the energy secretary and the interior secretary. They've gone down to Venezuela to meet with officials and so forth, and they've been talking up the investments in oil and critical minerals and so forth, and just how good an investment possibility Venezuela is. The big question is, will investors follow along?

10:45Matt Grossman:Who are some of the companies and investors looking into this, and what, if anything, do they have in common? I interviewed an executive named Charles Myers, who is from Signum Global Advisory, which is a company that recently took down 55 executives from the United States and from Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Europe, Middle East, many different places. And this was a whole amalgam of executives from all kinds of different companies. One of the things that he said that was key to all of this, that underscored why they're interested, why they think this is a good place to go into, is one, the oil, that Venezuela has vast amounts of oil, which of course means revenues, And then secondly, that the U.S.

11:27is a backstop. So guaranteeing that things move forward as opposed to slipping back. But of course, the concern that I think people probably should have is we're not 100 percent on how things are going to turn out in Venezuela, whether Delcey Rodriguez, who's the interim president, is going to stay in charge forever or whether there's going to be some kind of transition to elections in the future.

11:51Matt Grossman:That was WSJ South America Bureau Chief Juan Ferreiro. Thanks, Juan. Thank you.

11:59Matt Grossman:Maine is poised to become the first state to ban the construction of large new data centers. Last month, the state's House of Representatives passed a bill that would temporarily bar their construction, and it's expected to pass into law. The freeze would apply to data center projects of at least 20 megawatts, which is enough to power more than 15 ,000 homes, and it would pause construction until November 2027. Wall Street Journal real estate reporter Will Parker tells our tech news briefing podcast the ban is a challenge for data center builders and it may not be limited to one state for long.

12:31This is coming in response to not so much a boom in AI in Maine, but a larger explosion of these projects nationally. The effects on electricity grids, the effects on the cost of electricity for ratepayers. So losing access to Maine for 18 months may not be that big of a deal, but if this snowballs and starts to affect bigger states where there is more data center business, you'll see much more of a response to that. Swelling community opposition kind of shrinks the map of where they are likely to try to go and do business. So it's a mounting concern for data center developers. It shows momentum, especially for Democrats who at the state level seem to be the ones introducing these bills most often.

13:18The polling on voter opinions of data centers and AI is increasingly negative. And I think you're likely to see more politicians try to respond to that with various legislative proposals.

13:30Matt Grossman:For more from Will, listen to today's episode of Tech News Briefing. And that's what's news for this week. Tomorrow, you can look out for our weekly markets wrap-up, What's News in Markets? We'll be off on Sunday for Easter, and we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning. Today's show is produced by Alexis Green with supervising producer Pierre Bien-Aimé. Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Aishal Muslime is our development producer. Chris Zinsley is our deputy editor. And I'm Alex Osola. Thanks for listening.

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