Trump’s Future, Bird Flu, and Rise in Executions

Each Saturday Hot off the Wire looks at a variety of stories in business, science, health and more. This week’s headlines include:

• Will former President Donald Trump be sentenced to prison? Guilty Trump becomes first former US president convicted of felony crimes.
• Voter outreach groups targeted by new laws in several GOP-led states are struggling to do their work.
• Most AAPI adults think history of racism should be taught in schools, AP-NORC poll finds.
• Layoffs can be part of running a small business. Some tips for owners on handling them.
• IRS makes free tax return program permanent and is asking all states to join in 2025.
• More people make ‘no-buy year’ pledges as overspending or climate worries catch up with them.
• Another Michigan dairy worker has bird flu, the third US case this year.
• Hollywood movies rarely reflect the climate change crisis. These researchers want to change that.
• Toyota shows ‘an engine reborn’ with green fuel despite the global push for battery electric cars.
• What to look for in mosquito repellents.
• ‘Star Trek’ actor George Takei is determined to keep telling his Japanese American story.
• At 100, this vet says the ‘greatest generation’ moniker fits ‘because we saved the world.’
• Pat Owtram used her language skills to listen in on German U-boats during WWII.
• He saw the horrors of Dachau. Now, this veteran warns against Holocaust denial.
• Jackie Robinson is rebuilt in bronze in Colorado after the theft of the statue from a Kansas park.
• A fifth grader’s fundraiser cleared his school of meal debt. It named an award for him.
• Armenians, Hmong, and other groups feel US race and ethnicity categories don’t represent them.
• Executions worldwide jumped last year to the highest number since 2015, Amnesty report says.
• UN refugee chief says 114 million have fled homes because nations fail to tackle causes of conflict.
• US vow more returns of looted antiquities as Italy celebrates the haul of 60 artifacts.
• In Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, a hidden underground world is under threat by the Maya Train.
• North Korea flies trash balloons over the South as leader Kim doubles down on satellite ambitions.

Host Terry Lipshetz is the managing editor of the national newsroom 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 former producer of Across the Sky, a podcast dedicated to weather and climate.