News Wrap: UAW strike expands to more Ford and GM plants

Geoff Bennett:

In the day's other headlines: The United Auto Workers strike expanded to two more Ford and GM plants in the Midwest. Some 7,000 union members walked off the job today to join picket lines.

UAW President Shawn Fain made the announcement in a video address.

SHAWN FAIN, President, United Auto Workers:

I'm calling on Ford's Chicago assembly plant to stand up and go on strike. And I'm calling on GM's Lansing Delta Township to stand up and go out on strike.

Our courageous members of these two plants are the next wave of reinforcements in our fight for record contracts.

Geoff Bennett:

The union did not expand the strike to any additional plants at Stellantis. Fain said that's because the company made a new offer today on pay raises and other issues.

In Pakistan, suicide bombings killed at least 57 people today. In the first, a bomber targeted a religious celebration in the Southwest, killing 52 people. The others died in the northwest when a mosque was attacked. Video from the first bombing showed charred personal items on the ground where some 500 people had gathered. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The World Court called today for Azerbaijan to withdraw troops from sites in Nagorno-Karabakh. But there was no sign that Azerbaijan will comply after recapturing the region last week. Instead, the exodus of ethnic Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh neared 100,000, more than 80 percent of the population.

U.N. and Red Cross officials say they're struggling to keep up.

Carlos Morazzani, International Committee of the Red Cross: We had been planning for evacuations to be a longer process. Evacuations this week has gone very, very fast, very high numbers of people, but, as a result of that many people become stranded.

Geoff Bennett:

Officials said close to a third of the refugees are children.

There's word tonight that migration toward the U.S. this year has hit record levels through the dangerous Darien Gap linking Colombia and Panama. Data from Panama shows more than 400,000 people made the trek through the jungle region as of the end of September. That figure is almost double the total number of crossings there for all of last year. Officials say children and babies account for more than half the total this year.

Today marked six months that American journalist Evan Gershkovich has been jailed in Russia, with no end in sight. The Wall Street Journal reporter is charged with espionage. He has denied it. And the U.S. State Department says he's being wrongfully detained. His latest appeal was denied earlier this month.

The U.S. military's top officer, Army General Mark Milley, formally ended a four-year tenure today with a strongly worded defense of democracy. As chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Milley had a rocky relationship with then-President Trump.

Today, as President Biden and Vice President Harris joined a farewell tribute at Fort Myer in Virginia, the general offered this apparent rebuke of Mr. Trump.

Fmr. Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: We don't take an oath to a king or queen or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we're willing to die to protect it.

Geoff Bennett:

Air Force General Charles Brown was sworn in to succeed Milley as chair of Joint Chiefs.

Police in Las Vegas say they finally scored a breakthrough in the drive-by killing of rapper Tupac Shakur back in 1996. A local man named Duane Davis was arrested today and charged with murder. He allegedly ordered the attack on a BMW that Shakur was riding in after a brawl at a casino. Investigators say Davis' 2019 memoir gave them crucial evidence.

And an update to a story we brought you last year. A Texas jury has awarded nearly $2.5 million to an advocate for military victims of toxic burn pits. Le Roy Torres alleged he was forced to resign as a State Trooper in 2012. He said he needed accommodation because of lung damage caused by exposure to burn pits in Iraq.

Torres co-founded the group Burn Pits 360 to help other veterans exposed to toxic chemicals.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced today it will consider whether state laws regulating social media platforms violate the Constitution. The statutes were enacted by Republican lawmakers in Texas and Florida. They bar companies from censoring users based on their viewpoints. The industry argues the laws make it harder to curb extremism and hate speech.

And, on Wall Street, stocks limped into the weekend amid ongoing worries about interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average lost nearly 159 points to close at 33507. The Nasdaq rose 18 points. The S&P 500 gave up 11.

And still to come on the "NewsHour": David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart weigh in on the week's political headlines; and actor Cheech Marin helps to open a permanent showcase exclusively dedicated to Chicano art.