Most frightening and/or depressing story: The fossil fuel industry intentionally used immoral, evil propaganda techniques for decades to cast doubt on climate science and make short-term profits, probably dooming us, our children, and our children’s children. Also, and because that is apparently not enough, nuclear proliferation.
Most hopeful story: “Effective altruism” may give us some new metrics to benchmark the performance of non-profit organizations and give us some insights on dealing with existential risks (like the ones I mention above).
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: Japanese raccoon dogs are cute despite their unusually large scrota, which are traditionally thought to bring good luck.