On the version of Hot off the Wire posted June 26 at 8 a.m. CT:

YEKATERINBURG, Russia (AP) — Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has gone on trial in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The 32-year-old journalist appeared in the court with his head shaved and wearing a black-and-blue plaid shirt. 

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has returned to his homeland Australia aboard a charter jet hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is pardoning potentially thousands of former U.S. service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex. The president says he is “righting an historic wrong” to clear the way for these service members to regain lost benefits. Biden’s action grants a pardon to those who were convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s former Article 125, which criminalized sodomy. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s top election office has sent letters to more than 14,000 registered voters asking them to prove their citizenship, a move that alarmed voting rights advocates as possible intimidation. 

In other news:

—The Associated Press

About this program

Host Terry Lipshetz is 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.