News Wrap: Pope Francis arrives for U.S. visit

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Pope Francis is now in Washington, after arriving today to pomp, ceremony and cheering, chanting crowds. The start of his six-day stay followed four days in Cuba.

  William Brangham reports on the day's events.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  The pope began his first-ever visit to the United States late this afternoon, flying into a military facility just outside Washington.

  President Obama, Vice President Biden and their families greeted Pope Francis on the tarmac while hundreds more awaited.

  Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett:

• VALERIE JARRETT, White House Senior Adviser:

  Everyone who is coming is excited about the opportunity to be in his presence. And so I think that this visit means a great deal to America.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  Security was tight across the nation's capital, with barriers erected at the White House for the pontiff's official welcome and meeting with the president tomorrow. Workers at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception also made final preparations. The pope celebrates mass there tomorrow afternoon.

  JACQUELYN HAYES, National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception: Everybody is just collectively feeling the excitement of having the pope here. And all the many long days and long hours of work are really coming together to bring just a wonderful event to fruition.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  Francis will address Congress on Thursday, before going on to New York and then Philadelphia. The U.S. leg of his tour began after he wrapped up a four-day visit to Cuba.

• LANIA LINARE, (through interpreter):

  We're very proud that he chose our province to come bless us, to give us all his joy here in Santiago.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  The pope used his final mass on this communist island to urge Cubans to rediscover their Catholic heritage.

• POPE FRANCIS (through interpreter):

  Our revolution comes about through tenderness, through the joy which always becomes closeness and compassion, which is not pity. It is to suffer in order to be free. And it leads us to get involved, to serve others.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  And he met with families at the Cathedral of Santiago and offered a goodbye from its balcony to the crowds massed outside. The pope avoided directly addressing political issues in Cuba. But in the U.S., many anticipate he will address immigration reform, climate change and other issues.

  For the PBS NewsHour, I'm William Brangham in Washington, D.C.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  On the flight from Cuba to Washington, the pontiff dismissed claims that he is a political liberal. He told reporters — quote — "That would be a mistake of interpretation." And he added that he follows the social doctrine of the church.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Chinese President Xi Jinping has also arrived in the U.S., ahead of his meetings with President Obama this week. Xi's Air China plane touched down in Seattle this morning, and he was greeted by state and local officials. He will attend a forum with tech leaders tomorrow.

  Before his arrival, Xi told The Wall Street Journal that China will go ahead with economic reforms, despite sluggish growth.

  There's no break yet in the abortion fight that's tied up the U.S. Congress and could force a government shutdown. Senate Democrats blocked a bill today to ban late-term abortions. Now Republicans say they will seek to fund the government into December, but strip money from Planned Parenthood. Democrats say they will block that too.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  European interior ministers pushed through a crisis plan today to relocate 120,000 migrants and refugees. As they did, throngs of people continued pouring across Croatia, Hungary and Austria by rail, road and on foot.

  Jonathan Miller of Independent Television News followed their journey today.

• JONATHAN MILLER:

  We drove from Croatia into Hungary by remote border crossing early this morning, and you would have thought they were preparing for war.

  Overnight, Hungary's Parliament had passed a law deploying troops to handle what its prime minister has cast as a Muslim invasion. The Humvees arrived, the border now bristling with military hardware and soldiers. This country's population rights-wing leader, Viktor Orban, had pledged a crackdown to end the influx and to defend what he called Christian culture.

  But he's being forced by Croatia, which in less than a week has dumped 30,000 asylum seekers on his doorstep, to facilitate their transit to the richer E.U. member states further north.

  At a Hungarian station called Hedashalom this afternoon, way up in the northwestern Austrian border, 1,300 people disgorged from a train that had come from the Croatian frontier. From the station, they're shepherded toward Austria.

  As rather friendlier Austrian soldiers received the new arrival, reports from Brussels that the bickering between E.U. member states on where to put people who have arrived in recent weeks had reached a fever pitch.

  For all the exasperation in Brussels, for all the political feuding, the barbed comments and the bad blood, even if they do decide on how and where to resettle 120,000 people, it won't make the blindest bit of difference on not only the exodus from the Middle East, but on where these people end up. They're pouring into Europe at such a rate that, in 20 days' time, there will be another 120,000 people.

  An Austrian soldier, a second-generation immigrant himself, offered reassurance and instructions in Arabic. As they stood waiting, European interior ministers finally voted for their plan for mandatory quotas to farm out the 120,000 refugees. Four former Soviet bloc E.U. member states dissented, but were overruled.

  The U.N. Refugee Agency has already branded the plan irrelevant to the worst humanitarian crisis in decades. The aim was to allow E.U. leaders to present a united front at their emergency summit tomorrow. Instead, deep rifts have been exposed, as the human surge continues to build.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  The four nations opposing the resettlement plan are the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.

• GWEN IFILL:

  The exiled president of Yemen has returned to his country for the first time since Shiite rebels forced him to flee. President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi spent the last six months in Saudi Arabia. He arrived back in the port city of Aden today, after his forces recaptured it with Saudi support.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Separate attacks in Afghanistan left 15 government troops dead today. In one, an Afghan soldier let militants into a checkpoint to shoot his fellow soldiers.

  Meanwhile, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, said the sexual abuse of young boys by Afghan forces will not be ignored. He denied that U.S. troops have been told to look the other way.

• GWEN IFILL:

  The former U.S. commander in Iraq and Afghanistan apologized to Congress today. Retired Army General David Petraeus is serving two years probation for giving classified information to his former biographer and mistress. His testimony at a Senate hearing was his first since he resigned as CIA director in 2012.

• DAVID PETRAEUS, Former CIA Director:

  I made a serious mistake, one that brought discredit on me and pain closest — to those closest to me. It was a violation of the trust placed in me and a breach of the values to which I have been committed throughout my life. There's nothing I can do to undo what I did.

• GWEN IFILL:

  The focus of the hearing was U.S. strategy against Islamic State forces. Petraeus called for beefing up efforts in Iraq and Syria.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Meanwhile, there's word the Obama administration is shifting more attention to Syria, and may arm a wider array of rebels. A Washington Post report says the change is a recognition that efforts in Iraq have stalled, whereas Kurdish forces are gaining ground against ISIS in Syria.

• GWEN IFILL:

  In Saudi Arabia, more than two million Muslims observed the opening rites today in the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Vast crowds of worshipers circled the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure in the city's Grand Mosque. The main ceremonies come tomorrow in a valley outside Mecca.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Back in this country, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she will oppose building the Keystone pipeline across the nation's midsection. She'd previously declined to state a position publicly.

  Appearing in Des Moines, Iowa, Clinton also called for capping prescription drug costs and cutting tax breaks for drug advertising.

• HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, Democratic Presidential Candidate:

  Too often, so-called new drugs are really old drugs that have just been tweaked a little bit. But then they're marketed as breakthrough drugs, and they're sold for high prices. Drug companies should have to explain why their new drugs are different and better than treatments on the market.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was also in Iowa. He promised he will place a freeze on new federal government regulations if he's elected.

• GWEN IFILL:

  If you are like most Americans, you are going to have at least one mistaken, or delayed, medical diagnosis some time during your life. The prestigious Institute of Medicine reported that finding today. It said the causes range from poor communication to misread lab tests. And it called for urgent changes to address the problem.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Wall Street had a down day, driven by falling oil and copper prices. The Dow Jones industrial average lost nearly 180 points to close at 16330. The Nasdaq fell more than 70 points. And the S&P 500 slipped 24.

• GWEN IFILL:

  And the Interior Department announced it will not list the greater sage grouse as an endangered species. Instead, it wants to conserve 67 million acres of habitat. The unusual bird, usually found in the West, has seen its numbers dwindle from millions to just a few hundred thousand. Its fate has been a longstanding issue across 11 states.