Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dan Ronan.
Last month, Virginia voters approved a redistricting measure that could have gotten Democrats
“for more seats in Congress, Friday, Virginia's Supreme Court nullified the election.”
Jod Khalil from Member Station VPM reports. The court's ruling stems from Virginia's long constitutional amendment process. It requires the legislature to pass the text of an amendment, then stand for reelection, and then pass it again before voters approve it.
Virginia Democrats had to sprint to get it passed in the first step, and did so after
early voting had already begun. The Virginia Supreme Court said that, quote, "Ereparaly undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum." It's a major defeat for national Democrats, who were counting on Virginia to blunt President Trump's redistricting push.
State Democrats also spent lots of political capital on the effort. Speaker of the Virginia House of Delgats, Don Scott, said they would respect the result of the referendum. Likewise, it's a win for Republicans.
“State Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougall said the ruling was constitutional and not”
partisan. Friend Pierre News, I'm Jad Khalil in Richmond. The U.S. military says it fired on and disabled to Iranian oil tankers after exchanging fire with Iranian forces in the state of Hormoods. The United Arab Emirates reported another missile and drone attack on Friday.
The violence further undermines the month-old ceasefire. The territory of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. was acting defensively and insists the ceasefire remains in effect. Of course, when fired back at them, they were shooting at us. That's what I would expect to do.
Only stupid countries don't shoot back when you're shot at, and we're not a stupid country. The Trump administration is awaiting Tehran's response to the latest U.S. proposal aimed at ending the war. The Trump administration released files Friday that it described as new on UFOs.
“This comes as criticism and recent attacks of a lack of transparency at the Pentagon, and”
PR's Katia Riddle reports. Much of the files consist of blurry military footage and ambiguous sightings that experts say could have many explanations. But some of the most discussed material comes from NASA's Apollo missions, including Apollo 17 in 1972.
Astronauts described bright drifting lights outside of their spacecraft, one compared the scene to the 4th of July. McWest is a technical analyst who studies this kind of military data. It becomes clear that what they're seeing is actually just like high spotty calls and paint chips, the flakes off the side of the spaceship.
So a lot of the things in this are being presented as being unusual, but they're actually not. West dismissed the released files as an effort by the administration to distract the public from other current events. Katie Riddle and PR news.
The U.S. Academy at April added a stronger than expected 115,000 jobs, the nation's unemployment remains steady at 4.3% you're listening to NPR news. In the occupied West Bank, thousands of runners gathered in Bethlehem Friday for the annual Palestinian marathon.
His NPR's Honest Bobo reports for the first time in three years, runners in Gaza held
a simultaneous race under the banner we run for freedom. Along the Mediterranean, the sound of sneakers bounding the ground briefly replaced the buzzing sound of these rally drones. More than 2,000 runners participated in the three-mile stretching Gaza. It mirrors the marathon in Bethlehem, where to complete the 26-mile run there, runners
have to loot the same course twice, because there is in the single stretch of Palestinian land that linked three of Israel's shook points of barriers. In Gaza, the back drawback of the sea on one side and destruction from Israeli earth strikes on the other, and some wounded participants also bore scars of war. But people here say the race highlights aspirations for Palestinian unity, and as Bobo
and PR news goes a city. The already tight capacity in the North American trucking industry could get even tighter in the coming days as law enforcement in safety officials in the U.S. Mexico and Canada in next week, conduct high-level safety inspections made the 12th through the 14th. As a result of these scheduled inspections, many long haul truck drivers say they plan
to take part of next week off. The inspections covered a time when the federal government is also aggressively cracking down on illegally operating truck drivers in those that do not speak English. DOT Secretary Sean Duffy says more licenses will be suspended. This is NPR News.
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This week on the NPR Politics podcast, President Trump has never been more unpopular, and
the midterms are now less than six months away. So the intensity of opposition, that's waiting for a lot of these Republican candidates in a general election, is very, very high. The politics of a wartime economy this week on the NPR Politics podcast, listen on the
