Latest News Program

This Python program gets the latest news headlines from the NewsAPI service and prints each headline title with its publication date.

API Used

This project uses NewsAPI.org.

Endpoint used: https://newsapi.org/v2/top-headlines

Requirements

Make sure Python is installed on your computer.

You also need the requests library.

Install Dependencies

Run this command in the terminal:

python -m pip install requests

Get Your API Key

1. Go to https://newsapi.org/
2. Create an account or log in
3. Copy your API key from your dashboard

Set Your API Key

This project uses an environment variable named NEWS_API_KEY.

Mac / Linux

Run this in the terminal:

export NEWS_API_KEY="your_actual_api_key_here"

Windows PowerShell

Run this in PowerShell:

$env:NEWS_API_KEY="your_actual_api_key_here"

Run the Program

In the terminal, run:

python latest_news.py

What the Program Does

• Sends a GET request to the NewsAPI top headlines endpoint
• Checks if the request was successful
• Reads the JSON response
• Prints the headline title and publication date
• Prints the total number of headlines shown

Error Handling

The program handles these common problems:

• Missing API key
• Request failure
• JSON parsing errors
• No articles returned

If the API key is missing, the program prints:

API key not found. Please set your API key.

Important Note

Do not upload your real API key to GitHub.

If you use a file like config.py for your key instead of an environment variable, add config.py to .gitignore.