By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting on Wednesday following the latest discouraging signal on the job market.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading, though it remains near its record set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 51 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, a day after setting its own all-time high. The Nasdaq composite was 0.4% lower.

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The action was stronger in the bond market, where Treasury yields sank after a report suggested hiring may have been much weaker across the country last month than economists expected.

Employers outside the government actually cut 32,000 jobs more than they added, according to the survey by ADP Research, with the hardest hits focused in the Midwest. What’s worse, the survey also revised down its numbers for employment in August, down to a loss of 3,000 jobs from a previously reported gain of 54,000.

The ADP survey gets its numbers from a smaller sample of employers than the U.S. government does for its monthly jobs reports, and the ADP’s does not have a perfect track record predicting what the more comprehensive Labor Department’s will say each month.

Usually, traders on Wall Street wait for the U.S. government’s report to suss out more fully how the job market is doing each month. But the next one, scheduled for Friday, is likely to be delayed because of the shutdown of the U.S. government that began just after midnight. The Department of Labor has said that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will completely cease operations if there’s a lapse.

“Whether this is an accurate statistic or not, people in the markets believe that it signals something,” according to Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. “The signal from today’s headline will not be a good one.”

The hope on Wall Street has been that the job market will continue to slow by a very precise amount: enough to convince the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, but not by so much that it brings a recession.

That’s a delicate balance to achieve, and every report from the U.S. government on the economy that gets delayed only increases the uncertainty about whether it’s possible.

To be sure, the stock market and economy have typically powered through past shutdowns relatively well, particularly if they are short in duration. But this shutdown could be different in a couple ways, including the threat that the White House may use it to push for large-scale firings of federal workers.

On Wall Street, Cal-Maine Foods dropped 2.6% after its profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations. That was even though the egg company delivered its strongest-ever first quarter.

On the winning side of the market was Nike, which rose 4.7% after blowing past analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter. The athletic giant reported strong growth for apparel sold in North America.

Lithium America’s stock that trades in the United States soared 22.5% after the Canadian company said the U.S. government agreed to let it draw from a previously announced $2.26 billion loan. As part of the agreement, the U.S. Department of Energy will take an ownership stake in the Vancouver-based company.

Lithium Americas is developing a lithium project in Nevada with General Motors, and it follows Intel and other companies where the U.S. government has recently taken an ownership stake.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.09% from 4.16% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for action by the Fed, fell more sharply. It dropped to 3.53% from 3.60%.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

NEW YORK (AP) — Part of a high-rise apartment building in New York City collapsed Wednesday morning, leaving a corner of the building a pile of rubble.

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The city’s fire department said it had no immediate reports of injuries. It said it was responding to a report of a gas explosion that collapsed an incinerator shaft in the 20-story building in the Bronx.

Video from the scene shows a high-rise with one corner collapsed from the ground floor to the roof. Videos by nearby residents showed a cloud of dust billowing over the block moments after the collapse, which happened around 8:10 am.

The building is city-owned public housing.

Incinerator shafts in New York City buildings were once used to dispose of trash, which was then burned on site. But they have largely been replaced with trash compactors, which can use the same chutes.

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO and JONEL ALECCIA, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart said Wednesday that it plans to remove synthetic food dyes and 30 other ingredients, including some preservatives, artificial sweeteners and fat substitutes, from its store brands sold in the United States by January 2027.

The move announced by the the nation’s largest retailer amounts to an acknowledgment that American consumers and the U.S. government under President Donald Trump are paying attention to what goes into packaged foods. Walmart said its goal would affect about 1,000 products, including salty snacks, baked goods, power drinks, salad dressings and frosting.

A customer walks past a display of Great Value brand cereal at a Walmart Neighborhood Market, Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, in Bentonville, Ark. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Several of the ingredients on Walmart’s removal list, however, already are banned, not widely used or have not been used in the U.S. food supply for decades. Others were included despite no known problems or have been targeted by the Trump administration for review and possible elimination as an approved food additive, according to food safety experts.

Walmart said the 14-month reformulation plan primarily would involve its largest private-label food brand, Great Value. Customers also can expect changes in Walmart’s Marketside and Freshness Guaranteed lines of prepared foods, and to some extent in its premium label Bettergoods products, the company said.

In recent months, major food companies such as Kraft Heinz, Nestle and Conagra Brands have pledged to eliminate petroleum-based synthetic dyes in coming years. Walmart took its news a step further by identifying other kinds of food additives in its phase-out timeline.

The chemicals and compounds the discount retailer intends to eliminate encompasses the breadth of food manufacturing. For example, Walmart’s list includes potassium nitrate, potassium nitrite and potassium bisulfite, which are used as preservatives in processed meats. It also plans to remove phthalates, a chemical used to make plastic flexible.

Health advocates have argued that phthalates in plastic wrap, plastic packaging and plastic bottles can end up in food and beverages. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has limited but not ended their use in items that come into contact with food.

But some of the 30 non-dyes listed by Walmart are already banned or no longer used. Simplesse, a fat substitute the company named, was phased out of the U.S. food market in 2023. Other banned additives on the list include synthetic trans fatty acids, or trans fats, which the FDA effectively phased out and then eliminated in 2023 by determining that partially hydrogenated oils no longer were recognized as safe.

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Walmart said the choice of banished additives reflected the availability of “viable and scalable alternatives” for maintaining product quality, taste and affordable pricing.

Some of the 11 artificial food dyes the company identified, such as Red No. 4, Red No. 3, Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B, also are already banned or the subject or proposed bans, or haven’t been used in the U.S. for years.

In June, Walmart’s wholesale club division, Sam’s Club, said it would remove more than 40 ingredients, including artificial colors and the artificial sweetener aspartame, from its Member’s Mark products by the end of the year.

Walmart shoppers also are likely to see reformulated food items in the coming months, the company said. Among them: Great Value cheese dips made with paprika and annatto, a food coloring and spice that’s derived from the seeds of the achiote tree, in place of Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6, Walmart said.

In the future, a new version of Great Value Fruit Spins Cereal will not get its colors from Red No. 40, Yellow No. 6 and Blue No. 2, but from beta carotene, annatto, blue-green spirulina and juice concentrates, according to Walmart.

Scott Morris, Walmart’s senior vice president of private brands food, consumables, and manufacturing, told The Associated Press that 90% of Walmart’s private label foods don’t contain synthetic dyes. He said Wednesday’s news marks the biggest food reformulation in Walmart’s history but also an acceleration of a process the company initiated in the last few years.

Customers have been asking Walmart to get rid of certain ingredients, but replacing them with more natural alternatives is complicated, Morris said. The performance of the substitutes can vary significantly depending on whether a product is shelf stable or needs to be refrigerated, he said. New versions need to be vigorously taste-tested with customers, he added.

“Every item’s a snowflake,” Morris said.

The main factor that prevented Walmart from overhauling its food shelves sooner was a limited availability of approved alternatives, but the market for those is increasing, he said.

“Now’s the right time to make our declaration and be more broad with our application of the natural ingredients,” Morris said.

The federal government is also giving artificial food dyes increased scrutiny,

Days before Trump returned to office, the FDA banned the dye called Red 3 from the nation’s food supply, nearly 35 years after it was barred from cosmetics because of potential cancer risk.

In April, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said the agency would take steps to eliminate synthetic dyes by the end of 2026, largely by relying on voluntary efforts from the food industry.

Aleccia reported from Southern California.

By MATTHIAS SCHRADER and STEFANIE DAZIO, Associated Press

MUNICH (AP) — German police closed the Oktoberfest fairgrounds Wednesday morning following a bomb threat from the suspected perpetrator of an explosion in northern Munich, city officials said.

At least one person’s death was believed to be connected to the explosion at a residential building early Wednesday, which Munich police said was deliberately set on fire and part of a domestic dispute.

It was not immediately clear whether the deceased was the suspected perpetrator or someone else. Another person, who was not considered to be a danger to the public, remained missing.

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Specialized teams were called to the scene to defuse booby traps in the building, police said. Photos from the area also showed a burned-out van.

Officials discovered the bomb threat to Oktoberfest in a letter from the alleged perpetrator. Police searched the fairgrounds for other explosive devices and asked workers to leave the area. Authorities said the festival will be closed at least until 5 p.m. local time Wednesday.

This year’s Oktoberfest began on Sept. 20 and ends Oct. 5. The world’s largest beer festival usually attracts up to 6 million visitors.

In 1980, Oktoberfest was the target of a deadly neo-Nazi attack. The bombing on the evening of Sept. 26, 1980, claimed 13 lives, including that of three children and the attacker, student Gundolf Koehler, a supporter of a banned far-right group. More than 200 people were wounded.

Dazio reported from Berlin.