I'm actually working on a project quite similar to what you two are talking about: http://www.mosttalked.com/ The idea is to prioritise news be shares + display the most popular tweets of people that you possibly care about, along with a summary as well. It might inspire you hopefully. I believe merging news outlets with social media has so many points to improve.
I like your site. My only criticism is that there are not dates and times with anything. It would be nice to know how old a tweet is instead of assuming you are sorting from most recent to oldest.
Functionally I also cannot seem to scroll to the bottom of the tweets, and I would fix the loading on the main page. The news articles are loading on the left side of the screen and then shifting to the center.
Awesome idea, something I've been wanting to see for a while. Maybe add a splash/about page to give more information on what it is for people who happen upon the site from other sources than HN, where it has been described.
