Sim City is also among the first 14 titles in the Museum of Modern Art's new video game collection. The New York City museum's website says video games are not only art, they're design. And design is among the selection criteria — along with cultural relevance. MOMA hopes to have about 40 titles when the exhibit opens in March.

The president of the European Central Bank said Friday that the eurozone has yet to emerge from its economic crisis but is on a path to see a recovery by the second half of 2013. But there are still many challenges. Just after that interview, new numbers showed unemployment in the euro zone rose to a record 11.7 percent in October.

Enrique Pena Nieto takes over as Mexico's president on Saturday, marking a return to power of the PRI, which dominated politics in Mexico for much of the 20th century. His inauguration follows his visit this week to Washington and talks with President Obama. Washington is keen to know more about what Pena Nieto plans in Mexico's war on narco-traffickers.

Fast-food workers staged protests Thursday at restaurants in New York. The workers said their low wages need to be raised. But with the economy still slow, restaurant managers are determined to hold down labor costs so they can offer dollar foods.

Five years after his much-hyped arrival in the United States, David Beckham is playing his last game for the L.A. Galaxy on Saturday. David Greene speaks with Los Angeles Times sportswriter Kevin Baxter about whether Beckham lived up to America's expectations.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to make it a little harder for police to read people's old emails. It's something privacy groups and tech companies have wanted for years, but law enforcement groups are less pleased.

Most of the news we hear about Mexico these days is about drug-related violence. But it turns out there's another, brighter story there: The country's economy has been growing at a solid pace for the past couple years, driven in large part by solid exports.

Among other things, Mexico is the world's largest exporter of flat-screen TVs. There are a lot of factories just south of the U.S. border, filled with workers putting together televisions. The individual parts come from Asia, but the final assembly is done in Mexico.

For a second day, the Syrian capital, Damascus is cut off from the outside world, with the international airport shut, the Internet down and mobile phone lines working sporadically. There are reports of fierce clashes around the capital and heavy airstrikes in the capital's suburbs and in the northern city of Aleppo.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And a very different emotion on the West Bank, where Palestinians are reveling today in their new status as a non-member observer state in the United Nations. What that change means depends on who's talking. NPR's Philip Reeves was in the West Bank city of Ramallah, as the vote was announced.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, CROWD CHATTER)