The Doomscroll News Report

This week, hosts Amanda and Hanna tackle defections and ideology clashes in Trump’s party over the Iran war, what’s happening in Cuba, and a trend called the "alpine divorce".  Read along with us! Iran War effects on domestic support :  1. The Republican Identity Crisis Over the Iran War (Natalie Kitroeff and Robert Draper, The Daily NYT podcast), 2. Top US counterterror...

This week, Hanna and Amanda discuss the dystopian cyber scam industry that seems to have made its home in remote parts of southeast Asia. We also discuss the highly effective T2 diabetes and weight loss management drug semaglutide, better known as Ozempic and Wegovy, and the implication of generic versions hitting the market. Read along with us: Police warn international pickpocket ring could be t...

This week, we're discussing a DIFFERENT kind of AI lawsuit with Anthropic taking on the Pentagon, and the movie studio merger which may swing the news right, and a very slight detour to talk about CEOs tasting their own products. Read along with us! Anthropic sues the Pentagon: 1. Anthropic sues US government for calling it a risk (Kali Hays, BBC), 2. Anthropic was the Pentagon's choice for A...

Hanna and Amanda talk about the only story that anyone could possibly talk about this week, plus a little bit of lighter news about primates.  Read along with us: Pete Hegseth says Iranian regime is ‘toast’ as US expands military offensive US says 'firepower over Iran to surge dramatically' as Israel bombards Beirut and Tehran Where are Iran’s allies? Why Moscow, Beijing are...

This week, we're talking about the death of Mexican cartel leader "El Mencho" and ensuing fallout, the fourth year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and finally we close by addressing the controversy over some winter Olympic athletes and how it does or doesn't intersect with the "Chinamaxxing" social media trend. Read along with us! Mexico vs El Mencho: 1. Mexico's most wanted drug lord 'El M...

This week, Hanna and Amanda talk about the life sentence South Korea just handed down to their disgraced former president for attempting a coup, some frighteningly lax standards for Uber drivers in the United States. Read along with us! Yoon suk-yeol's sentence: 1. South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection (Amy Hawkins and Raphael Rashid, the Guard...

Hosts Hanna and Amanda discuss the Japanese snap election that may have just enabled Prime Minister Takaichi to get back her army, and how a superbowl commercial outed police access to private cameras. Heck, we may even just discuss the Superbowl itself, just a little bit. Read along with us! Japan's snap election: 1. Why Takaichi would call a snap election (Michael MacArthur Bosack, Japan Times),...

Hanna and Amanda talk to the coordinators of the Taiwan x Arctic Youth Connection project, Hsiang Hsiang Wang and Chiayo Kuo, to learn more about Taiwanese and Norwegian students' experiments with shortwave. On the subject of alternatives to typical internet connections, they also talk about SpaceX's Starlink, and the kinds of spaces these types of communication occupy in today's world. Referenced...

This week, Hanna and Amanda finally address X users who've been using Grok AI to undress women and children and (THANK GOD) the legal action and scrutiny the app is now facing. Then, we’ll be taking a look at how youths (and governments) are striking back at social media companies with a lawsuit in the U.S. against socials for using addictive tactics, and how France is hopping on the Youth S...

This week, hosts Hanna and Amanda discuss the ongoing situation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the recent activities of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, with a focus on what journalists are doing to cover the goings on. Then a quick brain break to talk about the total drama with former senator, current alleged homewrecker, Kyrsten Sinema.

Tthis week hosts Amanda and Hanna discuss what’s going on in Iran, how likely it is to make change, and a sort of follow-up the North Korea and Russia talk with more about the recent China and South Korea meeting. Correction: in this episode the polling in Iran is erroneously attributed to The Conversation, but was actually done by the group Gaaman , and referenced in the Conversation articl...

This week, Hanna Bilinski and Amanda Stephens weigh in on what they feared would happen, what did happen, and what could happen following the United States' "decaptiation mission" in Venezuela at the beginning of the year. Read along with us! The U.S. action in Venezuela: 1. Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro ‘captured’ after huge US military strikes (Al Jazeera Staff and News Agencie...

Hanna and Amanda ignore the PLA elephant surrounding the island in favor of some other newsworthy topics, including North Korea's involvement in Russia's war in Ukraine, the new tax China is levying on condoms and other contraceptives, and the obnoxious way the super-rich rang in the new year.

This week, hosts Amanda and Hanna (mostly) take a break from current news to reflect on how we manage to stay high-information, low stress by talking to some other professionals in the news world about how they achieve work-life balance when their job literally is the news (especially in these crazy times)! We'll be hearing from Eric Gao, a copy-editior and anchor at Taiwan Plus, Iris Hsu host of...

This week, hosts Hanna and Amanda reflect on the news story that most impacted Amanda in the year 2025: the on-going saga of U.S. "Secreatary of War" Pete Hegseth. They also briefly discuss events from the past week, including the Bondi Beach terror attack, Jimmy Lai's verdict, and the Vanity Fair whitehouse article. Read along with us: Weekly event recap: 1. What we know about the Bondi Beach Han...

The hosts reflect on the news story that most impacted Hanna in the year 2025: the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

This week, Amanda and Hanna are tackling: Trump raging against South American druglords while pardoning one, Google’s release of Nano Banana PRO and what it means for the future of visual journalism, and Oxford’s entry to the “word-of-the-year” arena. Read along with us! Trump pardons former Honduran President: 1. Trump formally pardons former Honduran President Juan Orland...

This week, hosts Hanna and Amanda are going over the latest updates on the war in Ukraine, the seemingly never-ending escandalo surrounding former president of Brazil’s  Jair Bolsonaro, and finally, a bit about "free birthing": a dangerous trend promoting pregnancy without any prenatal care and birth without any medical assistance. Read along with us! Ukraine and the proposed "peace pla...

This week, Amanda and Hanna are tackling: the Cloudflare outage and what (if anything) it means, a New York Times opinion debate that blamed women for “ruining the workplace”, and finally what it says about 2025 that Cambridge's “word of the year” is PARASOCIAL. Read along with us: Cloudflare outage: 1. Cloudflare Outage Disrupts X, ChatGPT and Thousands of Sites (Alexandra...

This week, hosts Hanna and Amanda are talking about the AI ​​bubble (whether such a bubble exists, and if it does, whether it'll burst?), the political and economic situation in Argentina right now, and finally, the future of mushrooms as the computer hardware of the future. Read along with us: Chekov's AI bubble: Argentina's economic situation: Mushroom computing:

This week, hosts Amanda and Hanna are discussing the lack of discussion on the Sudanese civil war and the upsetting satellite footage of the carnage, missing food assistance as the U.S. government shutdown becomes the longest in history, and one last bit of good news about plastics in the ocean.  Read along with us: The Sudanese civil war: 1. A simple guide to what is happening in Sudan (Nata...

Hanna and Amanda finally get around to talking about all the drug boat operations the Trump administration has been carrying out since early September. Also on the docket is the world's failure to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre‑industrial levels, and what that means for the future.

This week, hosts Amanda and Hanna are looking at the many news stories that both dominated and seemed to fly under the radar in the last week, despite being... pretty big news? They'll discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan's latest ceasefire, what happened at the Louvre on the same day, and what Amazon Web Services are and why the blackout made Amanda so nervous. (No, it's not just about her Duolingo s...

This week Hanna and Amanda discuss Japan, where Sanae Takaichi just won the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election and is on track to become their first female prime minister, as well as what’s been going on with EVA Airlines here in Taiwan. Read along with us: Japan’s new PM: 1. Sanae Takaichi set to become Japan's first female prime minister (Shaimaa Khalil, BBC), 2. Gl...

First, Amanda and Hanna take a look at yet another youth protest that has broken out in Madagascar, and how it both reflects and differs from similar situations covered on Doomscroll this year. Then,  looking at changes in the Israel-Palestine situation now that the war has passed the two-year mark, including brand new news, fresh off the presses about the new ceasefire deal, and which parts...