Good evening. I'm William Brangham. I'm Nana Vaz and Jeff Bennett are away. On the news hour tonight, the discovery of mass graves in Syria sheds new light on the historic brutality of the fallen regime. A look at efforts to lessen the impact offshore wind farms have on the seafood industry.

And New Zealand's shift to the political right ignites protests from the island nation's indigenous Maori people.

We have not been afforded equality.

So to now be told that our sovereignty is standing in the way of supposed equality is just a lie.

Welcome to the news hour. We start our coverage today with a pair of holiday disruptions.

In a moment, we'll hear about air travel headaches, but first, coffee. A strike by Starbucks employees expanded to some 5,000 baristas nationwide today.

El Contra! No coffee!

No coffee!

Their union says the walkout shut nearly 300 stores across 45 states.

Starbucks says fewer than 200 stores were affected.

Workers say they're protesting unfair labor practices, like retaliatory firings and cuts to hours.

They also called out the company's recent wage offer, which one employee called insulting.

It's not enough to support any person living by themselves, let alone the Starbucks barista or shift supervisors who have one, two, three kids to put food on the table for.

They don't have enough money to support their families.

Starbucks said yesterday the strike had had no significant impact on its operations.

The employees say they'll go back to work tomorrow morning.

Airline passengers also faced disruptions today after American Airlines briefly grounded flights

nationwide due to a technical issue. Passengers crowded terminals as operations were put on hold

for about an hour. American blamed a problem with the technology that maintains its flight operating system.

It comes in the thick of the busy holiday travel season.

Overall, flight trackers cited more than 3,200 flight delays and at least 28 cancellations today.

Snow, ice, and thunderstorms were also factors in the disruptions.

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