About this program

Host Terry Lipshetz is a senior producer for Lee Enterprises. Besides producing the daily Hot off the Wire news podcast, Terry conducts periodic interviews for this Behind the Headlines program, co-hosts the Streamed & Screened movies and television program and is the producer of Across the Sky, a podcast dedicated to weather and climate.

Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.

On the version of Hot off the Wire posted June 8 at 7:02 a.m. CT:

• Intense smoke blanketed the northeastern United States for a second day Wednesday, turning the air a yellowish gray and prompting warnings for people to stay inside and keep windows closed. The smoke is flowing from dozens of wildfires burning in several Canadian provinces.
• A federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump in Florida has heard from at least one additional witness Wednesday amid signs that the Justice Department is moving toward a possible indictment over the former president’s mishandling of classified documents.
• Flooding from a dam breach in the Kherson region of Ukraine has killed at least five residents.
• Authorities say an attacker with a knife has stabbed several very young children and at least one adult, leaving some with life-threatening injuries, in a lakeside park in a town in the French Alps.
• Pope Francis is in “good general condition” following a three-hour operation to remove intestinal scar tissue and repair a hernia in his abdominal wall.
• Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has disclosed that she received a $1,200 congratulatory floral display from Oprah Winfrey and $6,580 in designer clothing for a magazine photo shoot in her first months as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
• Nikola Jokic’s historic night puts Denver ahead in the NBA Finals, the Blue Jays and Brewers pick up strong wins on the diamond, Canadian wildfires cause postponements in sports and soccer star Lionel Messi is coming to the U.S.
• The Iron Sheik, a former pro wrestler who played a burly, bombastic villain in 1980s battles with some of the sport’s biggest stars, has died at age 81.
• Grammy-winning pianist George Winston has died. Winston blended jazz, classical, folk and other stylings on such million-selling albums as “Autumn,” “Winter Into Spring” and “December.”

On the version of Hot off the Wire posted June 7 at 4 p.m. CT:

• Mike Pence has opened his presidential bid with an unusually forceful denunciation of former President Donald Trump over Jan. 6, Trump's temperament and abortion.
• Smoke from Canadian wildfires is pouring into the U.S. East Coast and Midwest and covering the capitals of both nations in an unhealthy haze.
• Opening statements are underway in the trial of a former Florida sheriff's deputy charged with failing to stop the Parkland school massacre five years ago.
• Pope Francis underwent successful surgery to remove intestinal scar tissue and repair a hernia in his abdominal wall, the latest maladies to befall the 86-year-old pontiff who had part of his colon removed two years ago.
• The fallout from the breach of a dam along a front line of Russia’s war in Ukraine is wreaking havoc on lives, livelihoods and the environment.
• Chris Licht was ousted as chief executive at CNN, following a series of missteps and plunging ratings.
• Prince Harry has rejected a suggestion that a lack of evidence meant his phone wasn’t hacked by reporters for Mirror Group Newspapers.
• New York City has filed a lawsuit against Hyundai and Kia, claiming that the automakers’ vehicles are too susceptible to theft.
• After a payment pause that has lasted more than three years, more than 40 million student loan borrowers will be on the hook for payments starting in late August.

—The Associated Press