Most frightening and/or depressing story: The Colorado River basin is drying out.
Most hopeful story: An effective vaccine for malaria may be on the way. Malaria kills more children in Africa every year than Covid-19 killed people of all ages in Africa during the worst year of the pandemic. And malaria has been killing children every year for centuries and will continue long after Covid-19 is gone unless something is done.
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: I learned about Lawrence Kohlberg, who had some ideas on the use of moral dilemmas in education.