On this version of Hot off the Wire (posted Dec. 1 at 3:55 p.m. CT):

• The Senate has moved quickly to avert a rail strike that the Biden administration and business leaders say would greatly damage the economy. The Senate passed a bill Thursday to bind rail companies and workers to a proposed settlement that was reached between the rail companies and union leaders in September.
• President Joe Biden is hosting a state dinner Thursday evening with French President Emmanuel Macron, and Biden signaled that he may be willing to tweak aspects of his signature climate legislation that have raised concerns with France and other European allies.
• The Supreme Court says the Biden administration program to cancel student loans will remain blocked for now, but the justices have agreed to take up the case in late winter.
• An official says lava from the world’s largest volcano shouldn’t be able to reach the main highway across Hawaii’s Big Island for at least a week.
• A report from the Commerce Department showed that prices rose 6% in October from a year earlier.
• A coroner says two children were among five people found dead at a suburban Chicago home following what police called a “domestic-related incident."
• The nation’s new 988 hotline, intended to help anyone experiencing a mental health emergency, was out of service for several hours Thursday.
• The Voice of America says the Taliban have banned FM radio broadcasts from VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Afghanistan.
• German authorities say a 72-year-old woman has been arrested after she allegedly switched off her hospital roommate's ventilator twice because she was bothered by the sound it made.
• An honorary member of the Buckingham Palace household has resigned after repeatedly asking a Black woman who runs a charity for survivors of domestic abuse what country she “really came from.’’
• Award-winning “Squid Game” actor Oh Young-soo will stand trial on charges of indecent assault after a woman accused him of inappropriately touching her in 2017.
• The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in New York was lit Wednesday night following a star-filled concert.
• Wildfires in Colorado in the summer of 2020 have caused long-term damage.

—The Associated Press

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.