Each year college students across the country are invited to tell powerful stories through sound in NPR’s College Podcast Challenge, which highlights emerging audio journalists and storytellers. This year the excitement of “March (Audio) Madness” brought together some of the most creative student podcasts in the country.

Among the finalists is a familiar voice – someone the ThunderWord’s newsroom staff is lucky enough to call a co-worker, student, and friend: Evelyn Rissell.

At Highline College, the scroll never really stops. In the classrooms, study rooms, and even between lectures. What can look like harmless downtime is something much bigger. Social media is shaping how students see themselves and not for the better.

Social media was created to connect people, yet instead, it has become a comparison machine. For many college students, that comparison is quietly damaging their confidence.

Following President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” being signed into law, beginning on July 1, 2026, graduate students may lose a critical source of educational funding. For ones enrolled in so-called non-professional graduate degree programs, they will no longer be eligible for fair, interest free, federally distributed loans.

As part of the administration’s new educational restructuring, graduate students are facing blows on two fronts.

Alysa Liu’s gold-medal winning return to figure skating has served as a global reminder of determination, moderation, and self-care. Liu has spoken openly about her struggles to return following a record-setting run in her early teenage years, but now, at 19, she is redefining an athlete’s relationship with their sport, and inspiring others as she goes. 

Liu began her figure skating career at five years old, going on to become the youngest female skater to earn gold at the 2016 U.S. championships, winning by less than a point. She continued to collect medals and reverence, and eventually announced her retirement in 2022 following the World Championships and the Beijing Olympics.

The Highline men’s and women’s 2025-2026 basketball season has unfortunately come to an end. Both teams worked incredibly hard everyday and it showed throughout the season. Every game, they wanted it even more than the last. Highline continues to show that they are top competitors in the North West Athletic Conference (NWAC). 

Highline exhibited amazing community and culture, and you see it on the court and in the stands. Both teams showed how Highline competes at this level – with great sportsmanship and tenacity. The men ended their season with a 7-7 in conference record, going 14-17 overall. The women’s season tallied a 7-5 in conference record and went 9-15 overall – with the addition of the woman making it to the NWAC tournament.

Highline men and women’s basketball both had inspired seasons. However, with regular season play concluding, the teams take divergent paths – the men’s season ends falling just short of the postseason, while the women are set to embark on the playoffs this weekend, with eyes set on a championship.

The Thunderbird women head to Columbia Basin College in Pasco, Wash., to play in the postseason tournament. Their first match, in the Sweet 16 round, is slated for this Friday, March 6, tipping off at noon.

Girona defeated FC Barcelona 2-1 at Montilivi in a dramatic Catalan derby, a result that cost Barcelona the top spot in La Liga and left them two points behind Real Madrid. The match was intense from the beginning and full of important moments, missed chances, and controversial decisions that ultimately decided the outcome.

The game started at a high tempo, with Girona showing early energy and forcing goalkeeper Joan García into action within the first minute. Barcelona struggled to control possession at times but still created several dangerous chances. Lamine Yamal was heavily involved in the attack and had two close-range opportunities that he failed to convert. In one key moment, he broke through on goal and attempted a chip over goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga, but the keeper reacted quickly and made the save.

After much anticipation for his fourth studio album, Harry Styles released “Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally,” on Mar. 6. His lead single “Aperture” set the tone for this new era of embracing dance sounds while still holding on to his signature pop flare. 

Although this album received mixed reviews, with the overarching theme of these reviews being that this album was spectacularly “okay,” I found this album to be inspired and fun. While his vocals are more muted throughout this album in comparison to previous projects, there are still occasional moments of lyrical impact.

“Resident Evil Requiem”, the ninth title in the Resident Evil series, brings back a couple of familiar faces and introduces a couple of new ones. We play as both the famous Leon S. Kennedy and our new protagonist FBI tech and intelligence analyst Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of a previous protagonist, Alyssa Ashcroft from “Resident Evil Outbreak”.

The first half of Resident Evil 9 (RE9) takes you from Wrenwood Hotel to Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center where the game is more grounded, and feels similar to the Racoon Police Department from RE2/3 or the Bakers house from RE7. The map is more open world but still linear.

“Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle” just had its 11th anniversary with a whole host of new gimmicks, characters, events, and free rewards in celebration. Each year, Dokkan Battle celebrates its anniversary. Originally released in Japan on Jan. 30, 2015, it was released globally later that year on July 16. These anniversary releases attract players old and new each year.

Part one started off with the new characters: ‘Maximum-Power Battle Super Saiyan 4 Goku’ and ‘Earth-Shattering Climax Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta.’ Both legendary rare, Goku falls in the Super STR type while Vegeta is a Super TEQ type.

You read that right. The Moon, as we know it, is shrinking. And this isn’t from a “Despicable Me” movie where Gru is shrinking the moon. The Moon is shrinking, in real life. It isn’t really anything to be worried about, though.

The Moon has only shrunk about 50 meters (164 feet) over the course of several hundred million years. Given that the Moon’s diameter is 11,400,048 feet long, (2,159.1 miles), its width has been reduced by approximately 0.00144%.

The Moon shrinking does actually cause a few things, though.

Cavendish banana plants are being assaulted by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense worldwide, causing them to wilt and die. Fortunately, in this time of crisis, scientists may have just found something that could save bananas for generations to come. 

“Fusarium wilt – also known as Panama disease – is a destructive soil-borne disease which impacts farmed Cavendish bananas worldwide through its virulent Race 4 strains,” said Dr. Andrew Chen, a researcher at The University of Queensland.

After a grueling debate at the Washington State Legislature, lasting more than 24-hours in the House and a landslide vote in the Senate, a proposed income tax bill, colloquially known as the “Millionaire’s Tax” has passed a major legislative milestone. 

The bill aims at instituting the state’s first income tax to fund government services and, potentially, childcare. Most residents in Washington State are in support of the tax, but it is expected to drive out some of the wealthiest business owners.

People living in the United States and Europe immigrate for a multitude of reasons and always have. They could be fleeing conflict zones, they could be moving for financial reasons, or they could simply be exploring. Immigration is not only something humans have always done but it’s a normal thing for most living creatures to do. Birds migrate constantly for survival purposes and it is no different for us.

Here in the United States, immigration is one of the most hotly debated topics in modern politics. People immigrate worldwide all the time because it’s often a human necessity and simply a normal thing to do and yet, especially to the American right wing, it’s up there with the most important issues there is.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a proposal that prevents families with mixed immigration status from receiving federal housing assistance. Current HUD regulations dictate that mixed status households (meaning both eligible and ineligible to receive federal housing assistance) can receive assistance based on how many members of the household are eligible.

HUD’s proposal would limit the assistance to a temporary 30-day period, effectively barring mixed-status families completely from receiving said assistance. 

In a long list of classics, when you get to horror, the movie that most everyone knows by name is “Scream”. Along with that, everyone has their own opinion on how good the movies are, if it is even considered a classic, or if it’s worth your while. So while I can’t tell you if you should go watch the latest film, I can tell you what I thought of it.

As many long-time “Scream” fans know, the latest movie in the franchise came out on Feb. 27. Supposedly it will be the last movie in the series, but who knows? There was a lot of preemptive guessing of who the directors and writers were going to bring back – the main one being Stu Macher, one of the original Ghostface killers from the first film.

With the ThunderPod’s final episode of the Winter 2026 quarter, join us for the exciting end to the two part interview with Art Land! The communications extraordinaire expands on his time with media outlets, and how he entered into the world of academia.

This week’s segment also covers the Pod’s take on exposition within character development. We dive into when it’s done well, when it’s not, and how you know it.

This is another episode you won’t want to miss!