fix: resolve 500 errors on missing keywords and unsafe 404 handler, a…

[TesfamichaelA-code]

…dd tests

Description

Found two bugs while reading through the backend for my GSoC application and fixed them:

1. IndexError on missing keywords param
   If you hit /news_keywords without a ?keywords= value (or with an empty one), the code tried to access user_keywords[0] on an empty list and crashed with a 500. Now returns a 400 instead.
2. Double crash in the 404 handler
   The 404 handler called g.news_controller.notFound() without checking if g.news_controller was actually set. On bad routes it never gets initialized, so you'd get a 500 error while trying to handle a 404. Added a hasattr() check to handle this gracefully.
3. Fixed existing tests + added new ones
   The existing test_news and test_news_keywords tests were hitting /news and /news_keywords directly, which match the /<llm_name> catch-all route — not the actual news endpoints. Fixed those. Also added tests for the missing/empty param cases, and switched to /raw endpoints so the suite doesn't need a HuggingFace API key to run in CI.

Related Issue

No related issue — found these bugs while reading through the codebase for my GSoC 2026 application.

How Has This Been Tested?

Ran unitTest.py locally, all 5 tests pass. Also tested manually by hitting a bad URL and intentionally running without a .env file to confirm CI safety.

Types of changes

• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to change)

Checklist:

• My code follows the code style of this project.
• My change requires a change to the documentation.
• I have updated the documentation accordingly.
• I have read the CONTRIBUTING document.
• I have added tests to cover my changes.
• All new and existing tests passed.