There is PHP code, commented-out by default, that allows you to display the number of current comments on newswire articles in the right-hand column.

The file is found in /mods/newswire/components/modulebox.inc. The comment is clearly marked; simply uncomment those lines, clear the newswire cache (in the Maintanence section of the Site Administration), and the number of comments will appear beside each newswire column.

Bear in mind that, since this code requires an extra database query for each article, there is a performance hit associated with enabling this feature. Nothing too drastic, but these things add up!