the-news
Real-time and historical headline access across 20 countries with multi-source perspective snapshots.
- Query live front-page headlines from 12–39 news sources per country, or fetch historical snapshots at any UTC timestamp back to mid-2024
- Two query modes: current snapshot for immediate orientation, and daily-overview range (up to 7 days) to track narrative shifts over time
- Each response includes raw headlines with links plus AI-generated contextual overviews to help distinguish editorial framing from events
- Public API with no authentication required; organized by country code with consistent JSON response structure
Overview
This skill gives agents access to the main headlines of many newspapers and news sites, across 20 countries, via a public API. The API has two modes: a live mode, updated in near real-time, and an archive mode that lets you fetch the headlines from a given moment in time. In both modes, the endpoint returns a JSON response with the main headline for each source, accompanied by AI-generated overviews to help you contextualize the raw output. The API is organized by country. A call for US headlines, for instance, returns headlines from about 40 sources across the ideological spectrum. Each country is represented by a wide range of voices, and each voice contributes its current main headline. Think of this skill as a constantly updating newsstand and a raw headline archive.
When To Use the Skill
'The Hear' gives agents immediate grounding in unfiltered headlines. Its main use is to give you, the agent, access to what is happening now across the globe in an efficient, centralized way, without the context overload of ad hoc browsing. Use the API whenever you need information about breaking news or real-time events, raw data for comparative news analysis, access to global perspectives and narratives, or a reliable micro-historical dataset. The skill gives a timestamped, multi-source snapshot of what different outlets consider their main story. This is different from ad-hoc web fetching, which returns scattered articles rather than a consistent front-page view. Use the skill for fast big-picture orientation.
Endpoint
GET https://www.thehear.org/api/country-view/[country]
20 countries are supported, listed below.
Calls
Snapshot of current main headlines from Germany:
https://www.thehear.org/api/country-view/germany