An emboldened auto workers union was poised to announce its first simultaneous strike of Detroit's "Big Three" as Thursday's midnight deadline approached with the expiration of contracts at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. Barring a last-minute agreement, the union plans to announce a limited strike in which locals will participate with the majority of United Auto Workers (UAW) remaining on the job. The moment constitutes a turning point for the UAW akin to the 1930s, when a strike that started in Flint, Michigan helped catalyze the UAW.

HOW A PROLONGED UAW STRIKE COULD IMPACT US ECONOMY

NASA on Thursday officially joined the search for UFOs -- but reflecting the stigma attached to the field, the space agency wouldn't identify the director of the new program tasked with tracking mystery flying objects. The official's appointment is the result of a year-long NASA fact-finding report into what it calls "unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP)." An independent team of 16 researchers concluded in the report that the search for UAPs "demands a rigorous, evidence-based approach."

NASA VOWS TO TAKE IT FROM SENSATIONALISM TO SCIENCE

US surgeons who transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a brain-dead human patient ended their experiment Thursday after a record-breaking 61 days. The latest experimental procedure is part of a growing field of research aimed at advancing cross-species transplants, mainly testing the technique on bodies that have been donated for science. There are more than 103,000 people waiting for organ transplants in the United States, 88,000 of whom need kidneys.

WHAT THE BREAKTHROUGH DOES FOR FUTURE TRANSPLANTS

What and when was the first cross-species transplant ever performed? 

Thursday's answer: In 1920, Leonard T. Fristoe escaped a Nevada jail after driving the prison warden to a brothel. He was captured 46 years later but served only five months before being pardoned at age 77.