--:-- Shea Stevens: This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years. Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off. Learn more at rosettastone.com slash NPR.
--:-- Shea Stevens: Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shea Stevens. Government agencies are beginning to reopen after a six-week-long shutdown. Federal workers who keep tabs on unemployment, inflation, and spending will soon return to measuring the health of the economy. But NPR's Scott Horsley reports that it won't be easy compiling recent data.
--:-- Scott Horsley: So far, we have not seen reports for October on either jobs or unemployment or inflation. Omar Sharif, who runs a firm called Inflation Insight, says the unemployment numbers might be the hardest to reconstruct. You have to call thousands of people to ask what they were doing a month ago now.
--:-- Scott Horsley: And even before the shutdown, the bureau that compiles that report was shorthanded because of the Trump administration's job cuts.
--:-- Shea Stevens: NPR's Scott Horsley reporting.
--:-- Shea Stevens: The Justice Department is joining a lawsuit that seeks to overturn California's new congressional maps favoring Democrats. From Ember Nation KQED, Guy Marzarotti reports that the lawsuit came after Californians voted to draw new lines to offset a maneuver by Texas.
--:-- Guy Marzarotti: The Trump administration is teaming up with the California Republican Party to ask a federal judge to block the new congressional map from taking effect. They argue the Proposition 50 district lines were drawn to unfairly benefit Latino voters, violating the equal protection and voting rights of other Californians.
--:-- Guy Marzarotti: Governor Gavin Newsom frames Prop 50 as an effort to counter moves by Republicans in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and possibly others. Democrats in Virginia have also countered, and other states are considering it.
--:-- Guy Marzarotti: In a statement, a spokesperson for Newsom says Republicans, quote, lost at the ballot box, and soon they will also lose in court.
--:-- Shea Stevens: For NPR News, I'm Guy Marzarotti in San Francisco.
--:-- Shea Stevens: The United Nations is reporting rising violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlers torched a mosque in a Palestinian village in the territory late Wednesday, as NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reports.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: The mosque was outside the city of Nablus in the central West Bank. Israeli settlers set it on fire and scrawled graffiti on a remaining wall in Hebrew that read, quote, we are not afraid and keep condemning.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: After an Israeli military commander issued a rare call for a crackdown on the violence earlier this week, it's the latest in what the UN says is an average of eight settler attacks a day in the West Bank – an all-high that has coincided with the Palestinian olive harvest.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: The attacks have provoked expressions of concern from top Israeli officials, military leaders, and members of the Trump administration, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Still, most such attacks go unpunished by Israel.
--:-- Shea Stevens: Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Tel Aviv.
--:-- Shea Stevens: Residents in the Ukrainian capital were urged to stay indoors early Friday amid a series of Russian attacks that left at least 11 people injured. Critical infrastructure, multiple apartment buildings, and private homes in Kiev were damaged in the attack.
--:-- Shea Stevens: This is NPR.
--:-- Shea Stevens: Attorneys for New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey are asking a federal court to dismiss the government's cases against them. They argued that the charges were brought by an interim federal prosecutor whose temporary appointment had expired.
--:-- Shea Stevens: James is fighting charges of mortgage fraud, while Comey is charged with making a false statement and obstructing Congress. Both are perceived enemies of President Trump.
--:-- Shea Stevens: More than 1 unionized Starbucks workers are on strike at 65 locations in over 40 cities in a dispute over pay and working conditions. The strike began on the company's Red Cup Day, a holiday annual promotion.
--:-- Shea Stevens: Major League Soccer has announced it is switching to a summer schedule aligning its league calendar with the rest of the world's top international soccer leagues. The new schedule goes into effect in 2027.
--:-- Becky Sullivan: For nearly 30 years, MLS has played a spring-to-fall schedule. Its seasons run from February through the summer and into the fall. But other international soccer leagues, including the English Premier League, begin in August and run through the spring.
--:-- Becky Sullivan: That incompatibility caused problems for players transferring between leagues and complicated participation in international competitions like the FIFA World Cup.
--:-- Becky Sullivan: MLS Commissioner Don Garber called the shift, quote, one of the most important decisions in our history. The league will begin the new calendar in 2027. It includes a winter break from mid-December to mid-February, but winter will be new for MLS.
--:-- Becky Sullivan: There are a handful of MLS teams in wintry locations like Montreal and Minnesota.
--:-- Shea Stevens: Becky Sullivan, NPR News.
--:-- Shea Stevens: U.S. futures are flat and after-hours trading. This is NPR.
